towards a un social media strategy (for printing)
DESCRIPTION
The more print-friendly (Times New Roman) version of this document.TRANSCRIPT
1
Joe Mitchell
Our people are our voice Towards a social media strategy for the United Nations Summer 2012 v.0.5
First draft by Joe Mitchell (@j0e_m) Disclaimer: this document does not (yet) represent the views of any people
actually employed by the UN.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
2
Table of Contents
1. Executive summary ........................................................................................................ 5
2. Background and methodology................................................................................... 8
3. Audience.............................................................................................................................. 9
3.1. Who do we hope to engage with in social media? ....................................................... 9
3.2. How can we segment this group of people? .................................................................. 9
3.3. What do audiences want or expect from the UN in social media? ...................... 10
3.4. Where do people get information about the UN? ...................................................... 11
3.5. What social platforms do they use? ................................................................................ 11
3.6. What is social media’s mother tongue? ......................................................................... 12
3.7. What is social media use like across the time zones? .............................................. 14
3.8. What about those who don’t have internet access? .................................................. 14
3.9. What does this all mean? How should this data inform our strategy? .............. 16
4. Existing UN communication objectives ............................................................... 17
4.1. UN system-wide communication objectives ...................................................... 17
4.2. Secretary-General’s Five-Year Action Agenda ................................................... 18
4.3. UN Competencies for the Future ........................................................................ 18
4.4. Committee on Information .................................................................................. 19
4.5. Department of Public Information objectives ................................................... 21
4.6. DPI Strategic Communications Division (SCD) priorities ................................. 22
5. Suggested vision, mission and objectives ........................................................... 23
5.1. Comparing models of corporate social media ............................................................ 23
5.2. Suggested vision, mission and objectives for UN DPI social media team ......... 25
5.3. Turning objectives into SMART goals ............................................................................ 26
6. Evaluation ......................................................................................................................... 29
7. Realising our vision – part one: staff training ................................................... 30
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
3
7.1. Baseline research on staff and social media ................................................................ 30
7.2. Our people objectives ........................................................................................................... 35
7.3. How to go about realising the objectives ...................................................................... 35
8. Realising our vision – part two: UN branded accounts ................................. 38
8.1. General ....................................................................................................................................... 38
8.2. Which platforms should DPI use? .................................................................................... 38
8.3. Languages and local focus................................................................................................... 39
8.4. Platform use ............................................................................................................................. 39
8.5. Content plan and workflow for accounts managed by DPI.................................... 41
8.5.1. Content plan ......................................................................................................................... 41
8.5.2. Workflow and work tools ............................................................................................... 41
8.5.3. Workflow diagram: ........................................................................................................... 42
9. DPI’s coordination role across UN system ......................................................... 43
9.1. General ....................................................................................................................................... 43
9.2. Procurement ............................................................................................................................ 43
9.3. Liaison with owners of platforms .................................................................................... 43
9.4. Knowledge sharing ................................................................................................................ 43
9.5. Shared evaluation metrics .................................................................................................. 44
10. Next steps ......................................................................................................................... 45
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
4
Appendices/Annexes .......................................................................................................... 47
A. DPI Structure ......................................................................................................................................... 47
B. Information on UNICs ........................................................................................................................ 48
C. Notes from UN Communications Group ..................................................................................... 50
D. Objectives from the Committee on Information’s draft resolution to 67th GA ............ 51
E. Status, basic rights and duties of United Nations staff members (ST/SGB/2002/13)
52
F. World Summit 2005 ........................................................................................................................... 53
G. Interviews with social media practitioners in UN system .................................................. 55
H. Data on literacy, first and second languages, social media platform use ...................... 59
I. The US State Dept model (staff numbers in brackets) .......................................................... 60
J. Giant spreadsheet of everything ................................................................................................... 62
K. Micro goals for each platform ......................................................................................................... 63
a) Twitter ................................................................................................................................................. 63
b) Facebook ............................................................................................................................................. 64
c) Weibo ................................................................................................................................................... 65
d) UN blogs platform (blogs.un.org) ............................................................................................... 66
e) Pinterest .............................................................................................................................................. 67
L. Tools for brand accounts workflow ............................................................................................. 68
M. How to deal with multilingual and multinational brands on Facebook ......................... 69
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
5
1. Executive summary
There is currently no social media strategy for the United Nations. This document attempts to provide
a platform upon which to build one. It was written by Joe Mitchell, a social media intern, based on
evidence from existing UN documentation, interviews with UN system-wide social media specialists,
and desk-based internet research on the best practice in the public and private sectors.
This document in 30 seconds
In sum, the UN should aim for a model of corporate social media use in which its staff freely form a
coherent group who discuss the UN’s work and engage with the public in the digital space. Staff
should be empowered with support and training from the Department of Public Information (DPI).
Corporate or brand accounts should remain only where they contribute to a specific strategic goal,
such as being used to highlight the best of staff-produced content and performing a sign-posting role,
helping users find and engage with the UN staff in the field they are interested in.
Our overall vision is that our people will be our voice.
Our mission is to help staff realise this vision through training and support. We aim to create a UN
that is: more human, open and transparent. It will be better connected internally to staff, externally to
stakeholders, and globally to the world’s public.
These aims must be made real through specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (SMART)
goals, such as: we will train 0.5% of UN staff in good social media practice by 2014. We expect the
outcome to be an a 1000% increase in UN staff using digital media at least 5 times per week by 2014.
A full matrix of objectives, outputs (what we do), intermediate and overall outcomes (the expected
result), along with ways to measure each of these, is provided in section 5.3.
Each section of the rest of this document is briefly summarised below.
Audience
There are at least two billion internet users on Earth. We cannot communicate with all of them at
once. We must segment the audience to make it easier to get our messages across. This segmentation
is partly designed into the world’s population through language use and platform use, but we should
also think about other ways we can segment the audience to improve efficiencies. Section three also
shows that there is a lack of information on what the audience wants from the UN, and that we do not
know enough about global perceptions and knowledge of the UN. As social media use grows over the
next decades to cover the entire world, we must build the data that will help direct us to engage with
the world’s populations on the platforms that they choose, in the languages they speak.
Existing objectives
A review of a range of documentation relating to mandates and suggested roles for communication at
the UN shows a lack of coherent, prioritised and ultimately, strategic, objectives, targets and
measures. The single strategic document found that provides clear goals and an accountability
framework is the Senior Manager’s Compact, which will presumably need to be reviewed for the new
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
6
USG. This represents an excellent opportunity for grasping a more strategic approach for the entire
department.
Suggested Vision, Mission and Objectives
A final set of objectives will be developed with extensive DPI/wider secretariat consultation and buy-
in – a process that should be led by senior management. However, it is helpful to present examples of
what these should look like. This follows the principles laid out in the box above.
Evaluation
New and improved evaluation techniques will be required to monitor the success of our work and to
guide refinements as necessary. This will include simple data gathering, greater use of staff surveys
(or pulling more data from those that already exist) and, more expensively, but essentially for long
term evaluation, comprehensive audience research performed by independent bodies.
Plan for staff social media training
DPI should develop ‘train the trainer’ programmes, a network of UN-system champions, and
constantly make the case for best practice in social media. We must reach out to other departments to
ensure a coherent approach across UN staff wherever they are. Training programmes should begin
with senior staff to seek the right buy-in, providing safe practice spaces where required. Essentially
the DPI should manage a behaviour change campaign, providing advocacy, inspiration, seizing early
adopters and using them to pass on the training to colleagues. DPI could develop a ‘training’ kit for
these champions, such as those who already sit on the DPI social media team. The broad idea is that
the goal to become a social / networked organisation through social and networked methods.
Plan for UN corporate accounts
While we aim to encourage staff to lead digital discussions, ‘corporate’ or ‘brand’ accounts will still
be required during the transition, and in the long term as starting points for the audience and as
amplifiers or highlighters of UN staff communication. Realising this goal will require a
comprehensive audit of social media accounts owned by the UN (not just DPI) and a consolidation
according to the overall strategic goals. Accounts that remain after consolidation must be more
targeted to engage people at the closest possible level, which will require greater use of, and greater
responsibility being devolved to, UNICs and country offices. Each brand account should have a
micro-strategy with individual targets, a content plan, and have one overall supervisor.
DPI’s coordination role across the UN system
While it would make sense for DPI to take a leadership role across the system, it currently lacks the
resources to do this, and the current decentralised system of informal networking is working relatively
well for now. The absence of an authoritative centre may present problems in the long term,
especially as social media use expands. In the short term, DPI could improve efficiencies through
managing system-wide procurement and providing a single-point-of-contact for platform owners (i.e.
Facebook and Google public policy officers).
Next steps
Immediately, DPI should: survey all UN staff, audit all UN social media accounts and start seeking
cross-UN feedback on this strategy.
Within the next three months, DPI should develop a staff training programme, liaise with HR, legal
and senior management to build robust support for strategy.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
7
Within the next six months, objectives and SMART goals for the next four years should be decided by
USG with consultation with members of the Committee on Information.
Appendices and Annexes
The document provides a range of annexes and appendices that represent the background data that the
document was built upon. These will be useful in creating a more formal strategy.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
8
2. Background and methodology This attempt to write a draft strategy was inspired by a need to rethink the UN’s Facebook presence,
including producing an appropriate platform strategy. But a strategy for any individual platform
cannot exist without referring to larger overall goals of the UN in social media. These do not exist, so
this document is designed to generate discussion and encourage a move towards more strategic use of
social media, and better strategic communication by the UN overall.
Research was carried out in the forms of desk-based internet research, interviews with social media
practitioners across the UN system, and an examination of particularly successful examples of social
media use from across the private sector (particularly in consumer goods companies) as well as
notable UN agencies and national governments.
About the author
Joe Mitchell was an intern with the social media team in the Department for Public Information’s
Strategic Communications Division from May 2012 to September 2012. His academic background is
in law and governance (BA Oxford, LLM London) and he has worked in the communication and
research fields for range of charities, politicians, media. His most recent job was in UK government
communication strategy in which he worked on a range of digital campaigns and strategic planning.
He joined the UN while undertaking an MA Global Governance at the University of Waterloo
(Ontario, Canada) and is passionate about democratising global governance institutions. He benefits
from both a lack of experience and knowledge of the internal workings of the UN and a clear idea of
what a high quality communications strategy looks like.
He just about scrapes into the sociological/marketing category of ‘digital native’, ‘millennial worker’
and ‘generation Y’.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
9
3. Audience
3.1. Who do we hope to engage with in social media?
The UN can reasonably claim to serve everyone on earth. As the Department of Public Information
forms the centre of UN-wide communications, it is assumed that we aspire to communicate with all
seven billion people.
For the DPI social media team specifically, this means everyone with a social media profile. These are
called ‘the audience’ throughout the document; though note that this is shorthand for ‘group we want
to engage with’, rather than ‘group we want to receive information’.
There are 2.3bn users of the internet.1 According to comScore, 82% of internet users use social
networking sites2 (this rises to 98% in certain countries
3) – see the image below. However, the
comScore data is only based on 43 countries, a typical problem with commercial data.
Whatever the precise number, there are at least 1bn people on earth who the UN can hope to reach
through social media – and this is growing all the time in developing countries.
3.2. How can we segment this group of people?
Talking to a billion people at once is impossible: if you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no
one. Language, cultural and contextual difference mean that any communications strategy must be
driven by efforts to speak to people as close to their level (of education, of language, of cultural
references) as possible. Thus efforts should be made to segment the audience.
Some segmentation is forced upon us, such as through language groups, time zones, user platform
choices, and so on. We also apply segmentation in ad-hoc fashion. For example, we use our celebrity
ambassadors to highlight particular issues (e.g. ‘youth’).
1 http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/pdf/2011%20Statistical%20highlights_June_2012.pdf
2 http://blog.comscore.com/2012/01/its_a_social_world.html Note that they claim that this means 1.2bn use
social networking sites – clearly estimating a vastly smaller internet user population than ITU. 3 http://www.foliomag.com/2011/report-98-percent-u-s-online-population-uses-social-networks
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
10
The local UN Information Centres, of which there are 62 around the world, also indirectly segment
our audience into country or region groups, though membership of these groups is not limited,
meaning that our audience may also engage at the worldwide (or headquarter) level.
In order to segment our audience more usefully in order to more appropriately apply limited UN
resources, we need insight into our audience. This includes:
– Which platforms they use
– Which languages they can read,
– What information they want,
– How they want to engage (times, platforms, style)
A first attempt at gathering some of this data is shown below (and annexed where appropriate).
However, a more thorough approach is required. Many large scale private sector organisations
operating globally would commission extensive research – or have an in-house communications
research team – to build the evidence base for the communications strategy. This is a vital step in an
engagement strategy, but the UN does not have any central research commissioning ability – or even a
research team who have the expertise to gather and review publicly available information. UN
agencies may be different.4
3.3. What do audiences want or expect from the UN in social media?
In any conversation, you partly share new information and respond to the wishes of your audience. As
a result, we cannot only be led by what we think should be shared with the online public. We need to
be aware of what people want from our social media presences, and what they want from UN
communications in general.
Again, we lack the robust data or measurement to properly judge this. A full social media audit, in
which online discussion of the UN, wherever that takes place, is monitored for a few days to build a
robust sample, is recommended.
Anecdotal evidence from the public responses on Twitter and Facebook (English) suggest that users
are often ignorant of how the UN works and what it can achieve. This could be one area that becomes
an objective for social media. For example, one goal could be to ‘improve average knowledge of the
UN’ with the corresponding indicator of ‘more mentions of “member states” or “[specific UN
agency]” as opposed to simply “the UN”’, etc.
According to a rough average of data from Pew Global Attitudes survey, in answer to the question
‘Please tell me if you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable opinion
of...the United Nations’, people answered as follows:
o Very favourable: 14%
o Somewhat favourable: 40%
o Somewhat unfavourable: 19%
4 Unfortunately, this question was not asked in the interviews. It could be included in any future round.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
11
o Don’t know/Not sure: 14%
From a quick read of the data, several countries tended towards very favourable (e.g. Bangladesh),
many tended towards somewhat favourable (e.g. EU nations, Brazil,) others to somewhat
unfavourable (China – worsened quickly, recently).
In terms of social media followers, the DPI social focal point who runs the @UN twitter account
reports that a brief survey of followers of the account suggests that in order of size, the audience can
be broken down into: unknown or unaffiliated individuals, business accounts (inc spam), NGO staff,
other UN staff, media, students, national governments/diplomats. It includes both supporters and
detractors of the UN’s work.
3.4. Where do people get information about the UN?
Most people’s knowledge of the UN probably comes from local media. In the digital space, however,
aside from our social media presences, the following are two important sources:
UN Website
According to Alexa data, the un.org website ranks 3,669 in the world, 4,740 in the US, but it is very
popular in Africa (49th in Benin, 122
nd in DRC etc). Fourteen per cent of visitors to un.org go on to
careers.un.org or inspira.un.org. Six per cent of visitors go on to unstats.un.org. Two-thirds go on to
other sub-domains. Visitors to the website represent 0.04% of internet users (with spikes as high as
0.08%). nytimes.com, for comparison, is around 1%.
The average user of un.org views 3.5 pages (for comparison, this is slightly higher than nytimes.com)
and spends an average of 3.5 minutes on the site.
Relative to the general population, visitors to un.org are more likely to be graduates and to be 65+.
15.3% of the audience comes from the US, 5.9% from India, 5% from China, 5% from Mexico, 4.6%
from France, 3.1% from UK, 2.9% from Nigeria (then Spain, Finland, Germany, South Korea, Russia,
Sudan, Canada, Japan…..).5
Wikipedia
It is hard to get Wikipedia user data. In December 2010, according to unofficial data, we were the
683rd
most popular page on Wikipedia. That meant about 280,000 hits for the month.6 There might be
an easy way for the web team to get us more recent data.
3.5. What social platforms do they use?
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world, but there are several nations in
which competitors have greater numbers of users. ComScore’s 2011 Global Social Media Report
provides useful information on their top 43 markets, including the table overleaf on markets in which
Facebook is not the most popular social network (at 2011).7
5 http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/un.org
6 http://stats.grok.se/en/top
7 On file with the author, or download via registration at
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/it_is_a_social_world_top_10_need-
to-knows_about_social_networking
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
12
Assuming that we want to reach all people, everywhere, this shows that there are certain nations and
platforms that we seem to be missing.
A more detailed appraisal of languages, social media platforms, audiences etc in a one-stop
spreadsheet/database of country data would be super useful. As part of the research for this document,
a start was made on building this data (follow this link to the spreadsheet), but data collection on this
scale needs significant resource from an individual or perhaps an impressive crowd-sourcing effort
from across the UN.
3.6. What is social media’s mother tongue?
The digital public space theoretically makes country borders irrelevant in terms of communication and
information. Language, however, still divides the world’s peoples. It is important to know what
language people are engaging in social media so that we can join them. Unfortunately, data on
languages tends only to be provided in terms of nations – there are very few ‘global’ language
measures. Another problem is that literacy, rather than spoken language, is what we need to measure.8
Most widely used languages:
The table below contains a list of the world’s languages sorted by most populous literate populations:
8 This will remain true unless sound-based networks take off (e.g. SoundCloud).
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
13
Language Literate population Percentage of the world's
literate population
Chinese (Mandarin) 794,947,565 14.68%
English 572,977,034 10.58%
Spanish 295,968,824 5.47%
Hindi/Urdu 230,560,488 4.26%
Arabic 229,444,922 4.24%
French 220,326,329 4.07%
Russian 194,503,049 3.59%
Portuguese 191,739,619 3.54%
Japanese 126,159,159 2.33%
Bengali 107,897,009 1.99%
German 93,969,555 1.74%
The source document of the table above also suggests that English is by far the most popular
publishing language for books, newspapers, film and web pages. 9
The six official UN languages
The UN’s official languages, not the working languages, are Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English,
French, Russian, and Spanish (Castilian).10
These ‘are the mother tongue or second language of about
half of the world's population.’11
Thus social media in six languages led by the centre misses out more
than half the world’s population – this does not meet with the presumed goal of talking to everyone.
Even within these large language groups, there are significant differences in national spelling, dialects
and usage etc. For example, American English is not the same as British English. The UN twitter
account attempts to follow the UN style guide, but this could end up satisfying neither reader.
Missing languages
The difficulties of finding robust data on literate populations of languages are demonstrated below, in
a table that presents data different from the table above. The table below shows five countries for
which none of the UN official languages are a mother tongue or a lingua franca. While these countries
may use one of the six UN languages as one of their official languages, it may be that only the
government or a small elite use it, which is not helpful for reaching people through social media. The
data is taken mainly from Wikipedia and Ethnologue, with literacy calculated by the CIA Factbook
statistics.12
9 Lobachev (2008) Top languages in global information production, Partnership: the Canadian Journal of
Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 3, no. 2 (2008):
http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/826/1358 10
Their ‘official’ nature is not given in the Charter, but in Rule 51 of the Rules of Procedure for the General
Assembly. It is not immediately clear why the Secretariat has to follow this rule in non-GA related work. 11
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html 12
Data taken from the working database here, and Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
14
State First language Population literate in a non-UN
official language
India Hindi etc Approx. 900m (English
speakers est. ~125m)
Indonesia Bahasa etc Approx. 200m
Japan Japanese Approx. 126m
Brazil Portuguese Approx. 163m
Pakistan Urdu etc Approx. 100m
Each of these countries is home to a UN Information Centre, which could take the lead in engaging
with the digital audience in the right language and on the right platform, after being set clear targets
by DPI in New York.13
3.7. What is social media use like across the time zones?
No data was found on social media use (language, platform, etc) by time zones. This would be useful,
because if the time zones split naturally into dominant language groups, this might be an easy way of
targeting specific audiences, based on the various studies of the times of day at which people most use
social networks. This would help more accurate language targeting and decisions as to who should be
running the central accounts. Clearly, time zones are another reason to prefer greater action by local
UN staff and UNICs.
3.8. What about those who don’t have internet access?
The ITU chart below shows the limits of internet access in many countries across the world.
According to ITU’s 2011 statistics, only 2.3bn have access to the internet, leaving 4.7bn without,
though access is growing quickly. This divide between those with access and those without is known
as the digital divide.
13
For example, UNIC India could be better resourced, or given greater freedom to act in social media along
with targets to hugely increase their 619 Facebook likes and 2,000+ followers on Twitter to better reflect India’s
52m Facebook users. Total twitter numbers are not available, but top Indian celebrities on twitter - Amitabh
Bachan, Priyanka Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan - each have over 2.5m followers. Socialbakers.com (Aug 2012)
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
15
14
Other findings from ITU 2011
There are other divides: by gender (fewer women access the internet than men); by education (those
with only primary education are less likely to access the internet); and by rural/urban habitation in
developing countries (rural connections are fewer).
These divides create a risk that engagement through social media may unfairly bias the connected -
through extra opportunities, providing a greater weight to their voices, etc. Those without access may
be left behind – uninformed, not consulted, unable to seek accountability, etc. This effect can be
overstated, given how quickly internet use is growing and the fact that social media is still a long way
from having significant policy impacts at organisations like the UN. By the time it does, hopefully a
majority of the world will have access.15
For this strategy, it is enough to state that social media at the UN must be ready to include newly
online audiences in the developing world, and that resources are not focused too highly upon media-
saturated markets in North America and Europe.
14
ITU, 2011 15
There are a lot of campaigns looking to solve the digital divide. Most famously, One Laptop Per Child,
(olpc.org) and the more important infrastructure stuff with ITU, Internet Foundation etc.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
16
16
It is also important to note the clear trend of rapid growth in mobile broadband access via
smartphones – currently +40% per year. By 2013, smartphone ownership will overtake PC
ownership,17
and by 2015, 3.2bn mobile broadband connections will exist. At that growth rate, a
social media strategy should prepare for a 90% connected world by 2020.18
The United Nations should get ready to engage with a truly global audience and to focus on networks
that have successful phone-based applications. For example, RenRen and Facebook have specific
low-bandwidth phone versions, e.g. Facebook Zero allows users free access to the simple text version
of the platform - Facebook signed deals with operators to ensure this – and users can pay for extra
data for photos, etc.19
3.9. What does this all mean? How should this data inform our strategy?
The basic analysis of the global digital audience above suggests several things worth taking into
account in any social media strategy. The following sections will draw these elements out further.
Let’s be realistic about what we can achieve. For example, @UN isn’t talking to the world, it’s
engaging with literate English users of Twitter.
There are lots of languages that we’re not communicating in. We should examine the possibility
of using a wider group of languages – using all staff may be the only way of covering these in
people’s mother tongues
Let’s target some of the biggest/easiest gaps first. Instruct and support the UNICs in India,
Bangladesh, Brazil, etc, to reach greater digital audiences.
Let’s find out what big media networks do and learn from them – which networks try to engage
across the world? How do they reach everyone?
In the long term, let’s prepare our work for global social networking via mobile phones.
16
ITU, 2011. 17
http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/pdf/40u40_conway.pdf 18
http://www.gsma.com/newsroom/gsma-research-demonstrates-that-mobile-industry-is-creating-a-connected-
economy/ 19
ITU, 2011: 126.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
17
4. Existing UN communication objectives There is currently no overall vision or specific objective for social media, which would normally be
provided by management or leaders of the department. Ultimately, these need to come from the Under
Secretary General for Public Information, and form part of the overall communication objectives of
the United Nations Secretariat.
These must be agreed in order to clarify what we’re doing, put our work on a surer footing, prepare
for questions from member states, and work towards achieving the wider goals of the UN.
In the sub-sections below, this document lays out relevant UN documentation that might guide a
vision or mission for social media at the UN and ultimately a list of ‘SMART’ goals or objectives.
‘SMART’ goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound goals. A draft set
will be included as an example in the next section.
4.1. UN system-wide communication objectives
There is nothing in the Charter of the UN that directly concerns communication objectives.
Three aspects of the Standards of Conduct for the International Civil Service (2002) are copied below,
highlighted to emphasise certain aspects:
“Working relations
…
17. It is naturally incumbent on managers and supervisors to
communicate effectively with their staff and share information with
them. International civil servants have a reciprocal responsibility to
provide all pertinent facts and information to their supervisors and to
abide by and defend any decisions taken, even when these do not
accord with their personal views.”
“Relations with the media
34. Openness and transparency in relations with the media are
effective means of communicating the organizations’ messages, and
the organizations should have guidelines and procedures for this
purpose. Within that context, the following principles should apply:
international civil servants should regard themselves as speaking in
the name of their organizations and avoid personal references and
views; in no circumstances should they use the media to further their
own interests, to air their own grievances, to reveal unauthorized
information or to attempt to influence policy decisions facing their
organizations.”
Use and protection of information
35. The disclosure of confidential information may seriously
jeopardize the efficiency and credibility of an organization.
International civil servants are responsible for exercising discretion in
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
18
all matters of official business. They must not divulge confidential
information without authorization. Nor should international civil
servants use information that has not been made public and is known
to them by virtue of their official position to private advantage. These
are obligations that do not cease upon separation from service. It is
necessary for organizations to maintain guidelines for the use and
protection of confidential information, and it is equally necessary for
such guidelines to keep pace with developments in communications
technology. It is understood that these provisions do not affect
established practices governing the exchange of information between
the secretariats.”
4.2. Secretary-General’s Five-Year Action Agenda
SG Ban Ki-moon has established five ‘generational imperatives and opportunities’: ‘sustainable
development, prevention [of violent conflict and economic shocks], building a safer and more secure
world by innovating and building on our core business, supporting nations in transition and working
with and for women and young people’. The ‘enablers’ of these elements are: ‘harnessing the full
power of partnership across the range of UN activities’ and ‘strengthening the United Nations’.
The full text of the SG’s Five-Year Agenda includes several references to connectivity, collaboration
and social norm development, all of which are inherent in the nature of social media.20
Specifically,
social media can play a role in ‘mapping, linking, collecting and integrating information from across
the international system,’21
and is an inexpensive, effective tool which could help ‘build a modern
workforce supported by a global Secretariat that shares financial, human and physical resources,
knowledge and information technology more effectively.’22
4.3. UN Competencies for the Future
The UN has three core staff values: integrity, professionalism and respect for diversity. These should
be observed in social media practice.
The ‘core competencies’ include: communication (the first priority); teamwork; planning and
organising; accountability; creativity; client orientation; commitment to continuous learning; and
technological awareness. The first and last of these are particularly relevant to any social media
strategy and for guidelines to staff so are re-iterated below:
Communication:
- speaks and writes clearly and effectively
- listens to others, correctly interprets messages from others and responds appropriately
- asks questions to clarify, and exhibits interest in having two-way communication
- tailors language, tone, style and format to match the audience
- demonstrates openness in sharing information and keeping people informed
Technological awareness:
- keeps abreast of available technology
- understands applicability and limitations of technology to the work of the office
20 http://www.un.org/sg/priorities/sg_agenda_2012.pdf 21 Ibid. point 2, page 6. 22 Ibid. point 2, page 12.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
19
- actively seeks to apply technology to appropriate tasks
- shows willingness to learn new technology23
Broad staff adoption and effective use of social media tools would demonstrate both of these
competencies. As such, the UN should consider making social media use an official part (perhaps
requirement) of the recruitment, training and appraisal of UN staff.
There are also several ‘managerial competencies’, of which ‘empowering others’ seems the most
relevant for this strategy. Social media is an empowering tool, giving staff members a voice to take
part in a global conversation, and empowering them at work by demonstrating that management trust
staff to speak on behalf of the organisation.
4.4. Committee on Information
The Committee on Information is the group of General Assembly members who help direct the UN’s
communications’ work. The mandate of the General Assembly’s Committee on Information is to: 24
continue to examine United Nations public information policies and
activities, in the light of the evolution of international relations,
particularly during the past two decades, and of the imperatives of the
establishment of the new international economic order and of a new
world information and communication order;
evaluate and follow up the efforts made and the progress achieved by
the United Nations system in the field of information and
communications; and
promote the establishment of a new, more just and more effective
world information and communication order intended to strengthen
peace and international understanding and based on the free
circulation and wider and better-balanced dissemination of
information and to make recommendations thereon to the General
Assembly.
In the spirit of this mandate, social media can certainly help achieve a more just world information
order – it gives all people with access to the internet a voice, ends monopolies on information and
creates democratic, horizontal space for communication. There are many examples of new voices on
Africa emerging through social media, as well as examples of social media by those not free to better
disseminate information.25
Committee on Information session 23 April 2012, New York
At this meeting of the CoI, speakers commended the ‘common strategy’, ‘joint communications
products’ and ‘coordinating’ role of DPI for the Rio+20 conference.
23
Used a hard copy of this Annan-era document, but it may be available online. 24
http://www.un.org/en/ga/coi/about/bg.shtml [emphasis added] 25
E.g. Africaisacountry blog, Calestous Juma, the Ushahidi people, etc., and all the emerging social media
leaders in North Africa.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
20
One speaker, addressing the Committee on behalf of a large group,
underlined that new information and communications technologies
and social media not only enabled the United Nations to carry out
numerous activities in a more cost-effective and environmentally
friendly manner, but also paved the way to connect with new
audiences, such as young people. The use of new media helped
people in the Middle East to break through the barriers of censorship
and repression, call out for justice and demand democratic change.
On internal communication, an area which can be greatly transformed by social media, one speaker
advised the
promotion of greater internal communication, networking with
relevant United Nations agencies and coordination with civil society,
business and other relevant groups in order to function better with
existing resources.
Social media allows for better networking between staff across agencies and time zones. This could
be through Unite Connect, but often it is easier to use public platforms for non-confidential material.
As many staff will use public platforms already, this approach would require fewer new registrations,
fewer extra passwords to remember, fewer problems logging in from outside headquarters, etc. It is
simpler for staff and therefore more likely to be used, and because the platforms are public, they are
ultimately more transparent. The UN Teamworks platform (owned by UNDP) is already a useful
semi-public tool with 33,000 members. Private internal groups can be set up by UN staff on that
platform.
Committee on Information’s draft resolution for GA67
After the debate, the committee adopted the following draft resolution for the GA in September 2012.
Excerpts from the resolution are copied below as further elements that a social media strategy must
consider. Fuller excerpts can be found annexed at the foot of this document.
…a culture of communications and transparency should permeate all
levels of the Organization…
…the overall mission of DPI is to strengthen international support for
the activities of the Organization with the greatest transparency…
…a culture of evaluation and to continue to evaluate its products and
activities with the objective of enhancing their effectiveness…
… urges the Department of Public Information to encourage the
United Nations Communications Group to promote linguistic
diversity in its work, …
…the Department of Public Information must prioritize its work
programme…to focus its message and better concentrate its efforts
and to match its programmes with the needs of its target audiences,
on the basis of improved feedback and evaluation mechanisms…
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
21
…equitable treatment of all the official languages of the United
Nations…
…requests the Department of Public Information to contribute to
raising the awareness of the international community of the
importance of the implementation of the outcome documents of the
World Summit on the Information Society [re ‘bridging the digital
divide’]…
…that information in local languages has the strongest impact on
local populations…
4.5. Department of Public Information objectives
‘The Department of Public Information (DPI) was established in 1946, by General Assembly
resolution 13 (I), to promote global awareness and understanding of the work of the United
Nations.’26
Its mission is to ‘communicate the ideals and work of the United Nations to the world; to interact and
partner with diverse audiences; and to build support for peace, development and human rights for
all.’27
The outgoing Under Secretary-General’s personal objectives (in the Senior Manager’s Compact with
the UN Secretary-General) are the only goals found during research for this document that actually
provide measures for accountability. An example is given below. The incoming USG will have an
excellent opportunity to redraft these objectives and stamp his authority on department.
In the free form section, in which senior managers are invited to establish how they will meet such
goals, the outgoing USG writes:
28
26
http://www.un.org/en/hq/dpi/about.shtml 27
Modified to become active tense.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
22
The new USG might similarly commit to make strong efforts in personal use of social media as part
of his leadership of the department.
4.6. DPI Strategic Communications Division (SCD) priorities
This division establishes ‘communications priorities’ for the UN as well as annual campaigns. The
annual campaigns for 2012 regard June’s Rio+20 conference and the ongoing post-2015 development
programme.
These combined priorities are loose instructions for the following year. For example:
Sustainable Development: The UN Conference on Sustainable Development
(Rio+20) will be a major focus of work for the entire UN System during the first half
of 2012. In the lead-up to the conference, “The Future We Want” campaign, launched
in November 2011, will aim to generate a global conversation on that theme, to build
public awareness and support for sustainable development.29
These priorities are not strategic objectives as such, because they lack clear measures of success.
Further documentation:
Other relevant information is annexed and should inform the full strategy.
28
http://iseek.un.org/LibraryDocuments/1940-201102171145134231334.pdf (this may not be public
information? But it should be.) 29
UN Department of Public Information, 2012 Communications Priorities. Dec 15, 2011.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
23
5. Suggested vision, mission and objectives for social media at the
United Nations This section takes account of the half-goals and unclear-objectives mentioned above, and suggests
ideas for a coherent, complete vision statement for the UN in social media as well as strategic
objectives of what we want to achieve in this field.
This is a draft document, these goals are suggestions only. To ensure their sustainability, any
objectives need to be debated widely among DPI staff, and bought-into by those staff who will try to
meet them. Ultimately the objectives must be approved, led and monitored by the leaders of this
department.
5.1. Comparing models of corporate social media
This subsection models different social media structures in large corporations, taken from work by
Jeremiah Owyang of Alterian, a web research company.30
Currently, the large number of UN accounts and the lack of cohesion between them reflects an
‘organic’ style (Diagram 1). This reflects the fact that social media use has developed with no real
strategic vision, with several departments pursuing their own ill-defined goals and vision, passing on
information as and when they individually see fit.
Instead, the vision of the UN in social media should be to achieve a ‘holistic’ style. This model
reflects a staff who are active in social media and are aligned in the same direction with similar but
personal voices, engaging in a consistent, but unforced, fashion.
Creating a ‘holistic’ approach to social media will require considerable training, and, vitally, a crystal
clear vision and strategy from the top, to ensure that staff members understand the collective goal that
they are working towards.
There is a risk that the UN, as a bureaucratic organisation (in the literal sense, not the normative
criticism), will take a ‘centralised’ approach (Diagram 3). This is would be a response unfit for the
21st century, which would deter staff from engaging and would require the sort of rigorous control that
the UN probably does not have capacity for. If there is to be a step between organic and holistic, that
step should be the ‘multiple hub and spokes’ model (Diagram 4).
30
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/15/framework-and-matrix-the-five-ways-companies-organize-
for-social-business/
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
24
Organic: “Notice that the dots (those using social tools) are
inconsistent in size and one set of employees are not directly
connected to others.
Positives: looks authentic; multiple conversations gives consumer
choice.
Negatives: inconsistent, one side of organisation doing opposite to
other side; multiple different tools; lack of security.”
Holistic: “Notice how each individual in the organization is socially
enabled, yet in a consistent, organized pattern.
Positives: taps entire workforce, authentic, consistent
Negatives: requires executives that are ready to let go to gain more, a
mature cultural ethos, and executives that walk the talk.”
Centralised: “Notice that a central group initiates and represents
business units, funneling up the social strategy to one group.
Positives: Consistency, brand control
Negatives: Very inauthentic”
Dandelion: “Notice how each business unit may have semi-autonomy
with an over arching tie back to a central group.
Positives: Individual business units have some freedom along a
common central approach.
Negatives: requires constant internal coordination and maybe
excessive noise.”
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
25
A holistic model in social media will change the way the department approaches campaigns. Instead
of event-related branded accounts, we would seek deliberate shifts in the focus of staff, who would
personally publish about their work in these areas, and we would shift the focus of the corporate
accounts to signposting to and highlighting the work of staff in these areas. We would not create more
Facebook pages.
Further, UN staff would become the first port of call for questions from the digital community. We
will come to expect staff across the UN to proactively engage in global debates. The best content or
most interesting or heated discussions will bubble up through the digital networks of UN staff, and
will be translated into different languages and presented to wider audiences based on the demand
judged by the local and HQ corporate ‘brand’ accounts.
This vision would require extensive and intensive education and training across the UN for all staff
and, which may be more difficult, a shift in cultural attitudes and behaviour. The role for a central
departmental team in this model is to become champions and experts, providing support for the rest of
the people in the wider UN system.
5.2. Suggested vision, mission and objectives for UN DPI social media team
Vision statement
Our people are our voice: UN staff will engage a global public through social media in a coherent way
Mission statement
The UN social media team’s long term mission is to train, prepare and support UN staff to lead digital
conversations on their own specialist subjects. Corporate accounts - the UN ‘brand’ accounts at HQ
and in the field offices - will showcase the best of our staff’s work and act as a signpost to ensure the
public can engage with the relevant staff.
Objectives
We do this to create a United Nations that is:
- human;
- more open and transparent;
- better internally connected, across departments and the UN system, improving internal
productivity,
o which reduces email, and
o improves knowledge management;
- better externally connected to professionals in civil society, member states and the private
sector; and
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
26
- better connected to the world’s public, to generate greater support for, and understanding of
the work, achievements and limits of, the UN.
5.3. Turning objectives into SMART goals
The list of objectives above needs to be transformed into SMART goals to ensure clarity and
robustness.
This is in table form on the next page. These are suggestions; there must be debate over the
specificity, relevance, achievability, measurability and timing of any such goals.
27
Objective Output of social media team by 2014
(and measure)
Intermediate outcome by 2015
(and measure)
Overall outcome by 2016
(and measure)
Staff as voice of
organisation
Identify and train early adopters, encourage them to
‘pass it forward’ (0.5% of UN staff trained 0.01%
trained in training; ensure all depts. and system
covered, maintain list of x-UN champions)
All-staff training, lectures/team explanations (x
number of sessions etc)
Mentoring programme set up (uptake by x% of all
staff)
More staff in digital space (% of UN
staff with a digital account on an
open platform, used 5 times / week)
Better known UN individuals (>100
UN staff with personal follower
counts of > 5,000)
Culture change – staff empowerment
(e.g. 10% in positive response to ‘do
you feel engaged or empowered’ by
staff in response to HR staff survey)
Greater public awareness of
individual roles at UN and structure
of UN etc (e.g. 10% increase in
global opinion poll ‘I understand the
UN’)
Transparency: a higher score in
independent accountability measures
(e.g. One World Trust’s global
accountability framework)
Mergers or reduced corporate accounts (numbers of
accounts)
Branding advice (how to use the logo, what to write in
a bio) (docs, ready-made kit of backgrounds,
‘twibbons’ etc produced)
Training, guidance and branding for UNIC run pages
(number of sessions, documents)
Better corporate accounts (number of
languages or nations covered by
UNIC-led corporate accounts;
internal coherence of DPI accounts
(% of accounts branded and labelled
correctly etc)
Corporate accounts taking their
content from individuals (% of
content shared by corporate accounts
that is new (i.e. the content is now
mainly repostings from individual
staff))
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
28
Better internal
communications
across depts. and
system
Training for senior leadership – advocating why social
media works for internal productivity (x training
sessions, x managers using open platform to engage
internally)
Increased use of social media for
internal communication (number of
internal interactions)
Reduced email burden (number of
emails)
Better informed staff (survey on
awareness of work of other system,
instances of co-working, ‘how well
do you feel you know what’s going
on outside your department?’)
Better external
communications to
traditional
stakeholders
(missions, NGOs)
Training for staff (x training sessions, x staff using)
Renew, reshape, refocus all corporate accounts
(number of accounts, fewer, better accounts)
Increased use of social media for
external communication (number of
external interactions)
Reduced email burden (number of
emails)
More coherent brand presence (% of
corporate accounts using branding
correctly, etc)
Greater knowledge sharing
throughout UN network, missions
and CSOs (survey of awareness?
Tricky one to measure)
Better engagement
with the global
public to increase
understanding and
support
Training for all staff (x% of staff using open platforms
to engage)
Increased training / advice to UNICs (number of
training sessions, survey data)
More public interaction with staff
(number of followers, number of
reposts etc)
More language use stuff (number of
followers of other language accounts)
Greater public knowledge of UN
goals; better understanding of UN
structure (opinion polling, public
research)
29
6. Evaluation The tables above include a measure for each of the goals listed. This section describes the methods of
collecting these measures. All activity is online, so ideally all the digital statistics would be easily
collected, recorded and monitored. With the limited resources of DPI, however, there are other
approaches, such as sampling, that may be able to give a picture.
It will be important to gather benchmark data before the strategy is enacted.
For staff training:
- measure the number of staff on digital media (this should not be too vast a number), add up
follower count or try to measure ‘influence’ with one of the many commercial tools available,
- measure a sample of the total staff’s engagement internally, externally and with general
public (take a sample of a few particular depts. offices etc),
For the platforms owned by DPI:
- measure the quantity of engagement
- number of followers, average no of RTs replies etc
- independent evaluation – socialbakers / Klout score etc.
For long term outcome measurement, related to both ‘staff as voice’ and improving the corporate
channels, there needs to be better polling of the global public, which will be expensive but vital to
understanding success.
Again, as this document is a draft, this evaluation plan is not developed precisely. A stronger
evaluation plan should be attempted when fleshing out the price goals and targets for the UN social
media team over the next few years.
Shared metrics across the UN system
This is mentioned in section ten, but evaluation metrics should be the same across the UN system.
Any evaluation plan for this social media strategy must use such metrics.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
30
7. Realising our vision – part one: staff training From the general vision and objectives laid out above comes the need to design a plan or tactics for
meeting the strategic goals. This section provides one example of such a plan – starting with analysis
of those whose behaviour we are trying to change, then a recap of our goals for these people, then the
methods we will use to try to reach those targets.
7.1. Baseline research on staff and social media
An informal survey was produced using Google Forms and Spreadsheets and sent to all DPI staff over
the summer of 2012.
The results of this survey are obviously helpful for DPI, but it really needs to be extended to all UN
secretariat staff, and then agencies (in a more robust, expertly-designed fashion). As at August 2012,
UNDP had borrowed the survey to use for all UNDP staff. These are extremely easy to prepare and
take a few minutes per staff member to fill in. Analysis can be performed immediately. This is a
useful tool that should be used regularly.
The data we have on DPI staff is analysed below. It can hopefully be assumed that DPI staff are more
likely to use social media than an average member of secretariat staff, so this should be taken in to
account in reading the following notes:
Responses received numbered 137. The breakdown of age and job level of those who took the survey
is as follows:
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
31
That those aged between 20 and 29 are the smallest block (especially when interns are taken into
account) might present cause for concern when thinking about the use of new technologies.
The vast majority of DPI respondents use at least one social media platform
Of the 12 (8%) who don’t use them, only six (4%) had never used them – half because they were not
interested and half because they had privacy concerns. Of those same 12, three said they were not
interested in social media training, four said they did not have time, three said they would maybe
undertake training and three said they would be interested in receiving training as part of a group.
DPI respondents check their profiles regularly, particularly Facebook and Twitter
Of those who answered, precisely half of the responders checked a social media channel within the
last two hours. Another 26% had checked one within the last day. Facebook (86%), Twitter (56%),
YouTube (29%) and LinkedIn (28%) were the most popular channels, with smaller audiences for
Google+ (16%) and Flickr (12%).
DPI staff also use a variety of other platforms
The number responding that they ‘checked their YouTube account’ seems high, but may reflect a
large number of accounts owned by UN Information Centres. There is also a surprisingly high number
of Tumblr users, given the platforms reputation as having a very youthful (i.e. 15-20 yrs) user base.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
32
They follow the UN accounts – sometimes militantly
Happily, a high number of staff follow UN accounts – the vast majority follow at least one or two –
with many following them all, and almost equal number following all those relevant to their work.31
English is far and away their most popular language for using on social media platforms
This is one of the most interesting findings – English is the most popular language for use on social
media platforms. There are no respondents who claim to use Arabic or Chinese as their primary social
media language. This might reflect flaws with the survey design (it was perhaps easier to read /
complete if you were a confident English user?) or reflects the dominance of the language in the
digital space.
Other languages used included Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Turkish.
31
The ‘other’ refers (I think) to those who didn’t answer the question (because they don’t use social media).
Yes, all that I can find
Yes, but only those relevant to my
work
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
33
Most staff are using their second language for social media
When asked if the language above was their native tongue, however, only 40% answered in the
affirmative, showing that people are choosing to engage in English in spite of it not being their mother
tongue.
Staff disconnect their work and personal lives online
Only a minority of staff use their social media profiles for professional activities ‘often’ or
‘sometimes’.
Of those who answered ‘no’ or ‘other’, the vast majority (75%) said they ‘prefer to keep work and
social life separate’, and 20% said it was ‘not appropriate’. These are the views that must be
challenged if the UN is to use social media to its advantage. Only small percentages thought it was not
allowed or not interesting for their social media network – both positive signs.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
34
DPI staff are well aware of the social media team and guidelines
Awareness of the team (red) scores better than awareness of the guidelines (green/yellow).
There is a very strong demand for training in this area
Only a tiny proportion of staff said they would not be interested in, or didn’t have time for, social
media training. In contrast to the author’s practice of trying to do one-to-one sessions, DPI staff said
they would prefer group training sessions (‘yes, as part of a group’ as opposed to ‘yes, with a mentor
dedicated to me’). In the free-form comments section of the survey, many people wrote of their need
for more training across the board on digital communication.
Staff are well-equipped with latest tools, making social media use even easier
Nearly 90% have a smartphone and nearly a half have a tablet computer. For training purposes
therefore, it can almost be assumed that staff could all bring one device with them to a session.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
35
The full results of the survey are available from the author.
7.2. Our people objectives
Any plan would then suggest SMART goals – these might be borrowed directly from section five
above (vision, mission, objectives) or these could be more precisely aligned to the issue of staff
capacity / achievements. For example, goals could look like this:
- 5% of field staff will have a personal-professional digital profile by Jan 2015
- 10% of HQ staff will have a person-professional digital profile by Jan 2015
- At least 10 accounts from staff in each official language by Jan 2015
- At least 6 of the most popular platforms covered by Jan 2015
- At least 100 UN staff with personal follower counts of >5,000 by Jan 2015.
7.3. How to go about realising the objectives
In meeting these goals, planning must account for the choices of an individual staff member - what
affects their use of social media for professional purposes? The work of the department should help
encourage staff digital engagement by shifting the individual, societal and structural elements that
affect behaviour so that they align more favourably with social media use. For example:
Individual incentives / disincentives
o Increase perceptions of benefits of social media at work
Show success stories of individuals and depts., and external reports from
other bureaucracies (such as US State Dept, UK FCO, etc.)
Incentivise for individuals (make social media an element of HR appraisal
processes)
Help people recognise that in the way everything digitised (information,
communication, banking) – so will staff and their work
o Reduce perceptions / fear of social media in the UN context
Remind people why the UN must be public in its work
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
36
Remove the fear: provide safety nets, safe practice spaces and lead by
example; or ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ – again, lead by senior
management example
What’s the worst that could happen? Set clear guidelines, show how senior
leaders will be prepared to defend staff use of social media as long as
guidelines were followed (prepare ready-made responses and plans if things
go wrong, etc)
Individual capacity and knowledge
o Establish how-to knowledge with all staff
Extensive training programme, which should be an essential part of staff
development; use the ‘early-adopters’, train them as peer-trainers, set up
network of x-UN champions.
Show a clear vision of what we want to be achieved by a certain time – make
sure all staff understand their collective responsibility, at whatever level;
share this strategy widely.
Establish the ability to ask anonymous questions / make suggestions (or
again, use a safe practice area – maybe Unite Connect?)
o Empower staff – demonstrate trust in individual staff
Show them that there is individual support from senior leaders
Again, provide the safe practice spaces and internal Q&A space
Give every member of staff a copy of guidelines (must be carefully written to
enthuse and encourage – create the assumption that this is something they
should be doing – and at the same time reminding not to share damaging
stuff)
Social norms
o Create the idea that social media for work is the norm
Staff training should include case studies of success (US State Dept, UK
FCO, UNICEF etc)
Create informal competitions across DPI for most followers gained, best
tweets, best picture shared online, etc.
Publicise how many UN staff are on twitter, and get these people to
champion it in meetings etc.
The USG for DPI, and eventually all senior leaders of the UN should join
social media platforms and use these to engage with staff – highlighting the
best staff content and work, sharing information, etc.
Structural factors
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
37
o Make sure there are no physical barriers to accessing social media platforms
Ensure staff have access at work (this generally seemed good – but work with
OICT) and in the field (more difficult, but use SMS services provided by
various platforms)
Encourage people to use their smartphones and tablets for work (check with
IT security)
Start checking social media profiles of people who apply for jobs at the UN –
if people are applying for communication jobs without knowledge of social
media, they should be turned down. Eventually, we should expect everybody
who applies to the UN to have strong knowledge of social media.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
38
8. Realising our vision – part two: UN branded accounts
8.1. General
The overall vision is to encourage our people to engage in the social media space. Currently there is a
range of brand accounts, many of which should be merged into a small group that makes a clear offer
to the general audience. Then individual staff should have their own accounts where they interact with
people on more detailed material.
As a first step, an audit needs to be carried out to map all the accounts run by the department, which
should then be reviewed according to how they meet the overall strategy. An audit like this could be
crowdsourced by staff. Those platforms that do not meet a clear and specific goal, or work towards
one that is met somewhere else, should be merged with other accounts or dissolved to ensure that
departmental resources are spent most effectively.
The second step, assuming that the USG for the department has the right to direct other departments’
communication efforts, will be to map and reorganise accounts anywhere across UN HQ. This will
obviously cause concern as people may regard accounts as ‘their turf’, but the benefit to the public
should over-ride this. In order to strengthen the brand of the UN in digital media, more consistency
and clarity around corporate accounts, wherever they lie in the UN system (or particularly at UN HQ)
is required, and logically this responsibility lies with the USG for information and communication.
This can be done sensibly, sensitively and with the consultation of all departments, based on a shared
vision of where we need to be as a collective UN.
The mini-vision for the corporate accounts is to run smarter digital communications where our
audience are. So we go to them on the platforms where they are. We offer a really easy-to-understand
simple range of social media platforms to engage with. We recognise that we’re competing for
attention with our audience’s actual friends, and a thousand other brands. We reach them on their
terms.
8.2. Which platforms should DPI use?
The choice of platforms used by DPI (and the other UN departments) to manage accounts must flow
from a clear understanding of what we are trying to achieve and what audience we’re trying to reach.
For example, while new social networking platforms are invented regularly, we should not feel the
need to create a presence on that platform without considering which overall strategic goal it would
help meet. While it may be appropriate to register the profile names of UN, United Nations and so on
in the different languages, it is possible just to leave a ‘holding notice’ while the department evaluates
whether the platform suits its overall strategy.
It is not essential to have a presence on every platform. It is more important to have high-quality
engagement on a set group of platforms.
Each platform should have one go-to person who has total responsibility, even if the content is
provided by a wide number of staff members.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
39
8.3. Languages and local focus
A comprehensive brand plan needs to be worked out re worldwide account management, making sure
the UN is reaching large non-English-speaking audiences and audiences not using typically US-based
channels for digital engagement.
The obvious partners with expertise in how to reach local audiences are the UN Information Centres,
who have the local knowledge and experience to maximise local reach in the appropriate language(s).
There will need to be a comprehensive UNIC account audit and an understanding of the audience (see
section 2) to lead a restructuring in order to use resources most effectively.32
The end product would be a range of ‘UNin[Country]’ digital accounts, using the appropriate
platforms and language as dictated by their local audience.
There should also be an effort to ensure that a native speaker of the language used for the account has
final sign off on posting messages, to ensure correctness.
8.4. Platform use
The next page demonstrates the sort of matrix of the channels used that could be established to outline
the corporate accounts. A detailed breakdown for each platform should be developed (as in Annex L),
which would explain the user base of that platform, how the UN currently uses it, the strategic goal
that use of the platform meets; the long-term vision for that platform; smart goal(s) for that platform;
risks with the platform (and mitigation); and possibly some examples of successful platform use by
similar organisations. The simplest ‘microgoal’ would be something such as ‘to improve our
readership by 20% in 6 months’ or ‘to answer 10% more of the queries we receive’, etc. Examples are
provided in the table below.
32
This UNIC audit may already exist with the Information Management Unit in DPI.
40
Twitter Facebook (UNIC) Tumblr blogs.un.org Pinterest Storify
Who uses this
platform?
955bn people. Very young,
American, UK,
Brazil
Unknown Women, older Journalists, newshounds
What is its
purpose?
Microblogging,
sharing news
Connecting with
‘friends’ sharing
photos
Artsy cool stuff Behind the scenes? Image-sharing platform To provide one page round up
of x-platform social media
stories
Why should we use
it? (Link to overall
objective)
What content
should be shared?
Who provides that
content?
Comments /
engagement?
What is our
SMART goal for
this platform?
To increase our
number of replies
by 10%
Reach 1m users by
Dec 2013.
Ultimate
responsibility /
signoff
41
8.5. Content plan and workflow for accounts managed by DPI
8.5.1. Content plan
Once an overall strategic goal is established, content could be planned for each account, including
guidelines as to the sort of content that the corporate accounts will share, thus helping staff to get
reposted - helping staff to help the social media team (see below).
Currently, the DPI social media channels publish campaign messages, major news, Secretary-General
related, events, the best of the rest of the UN, behind the scenes, and general education about the UN
system. In terms of engagement, we answer questions where possible, but lack resources to
proactively do this.
A content plan might look like a days of the week calendar, or a large overall calendar of events and
upcoming themes, with links to copy, film, audio and photography content.
8.5.2. Workflow and work tools
Currently social media copy for the English language accounts is mostly written by one staff member
with input from interns. Relevant content is prepared for updates every few hours (twitter), every day
(Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus) and less often for other accounts (blogs, Tumblr). This is based on
what material the team thinks is relevant and new, and suggestions are taken from other DPI staff
working on particular campaigns. A shared Google Spreadsheet is used to map out the immediate
week ahead and longer term events, then a free single-user copy of Hootsuite is used to input the
material and publish on a time-scheduled basis.
In the other languages, a member of the web services section is responsible for each of the Facebook
pages in the 5 other languages, and two members of the Chinese web services manage the popular
Weibo account.
In the short term, Google Doc access should be widened to all UN staff (perhaps DPI only, then all
staff post-training), and restructured to make it user friendly and easy etc. Hootsuite Enterprise edition
should be purchased (see Annex L on reviewing the various social media management tools), which
would come with a set number of administrative seats for writing and editing the actual platform
content. These administrators (interns, DPI staff, and selected UNIC staff in other time zones) can
take content from the shared Google Doc, re-write if necessary, and schedule it in Hootsuite. The DPI
social media focal point can remain as a ‘superadmin’ with ultimate approval signoff.
For the channels that cannot be managed using Hootsuite (tumblr, pinterest etc), as well as local brand
channels, an overall account manager should be appointed and should be widely known to DPI and
wider UN staff. It should be their responsibility to meet the micro-goals set for that account (such as
increasing the audience), keep it on message (as appropriate to the channel) and promote the use of it
as befits the channel (e.g. explaining to other staff, working across the UN to get the content relevant
for that platform).
In the long term, staff will be managing their own social media profiles, and can proactively reach out
to the corporate channels for republishing. Corporate account owners will also actively seek out the
best of staff content.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
42
8.5.3. Workflow diagram:
Platform (and responsibility)
Spreadsheet
(All UN staff,
with training)
Hootsuite
(Small admin
team)
Public platforms
(One person to
sign off)
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
43
9. DPI’s coordination role across UN system
9.1. General
If DPI is the central communications body for the UN system, then it would make sense for DPI to be
doing much of the coordination and knowledge sharing in social media. The aim would be for DPI to
become the hub to the spokes of the different agencies. Currently, however, this may be beyond the
department’s limited resources. At the moment the system is working with various agencies taking a
lead.
However, the current practice presents several risks:
- smaller agencies will get left behind
- lost opportunities for collaboration
- increasingly difficult challenges as social media evolves
- land-grabbing (fighting over the same audience with different campaigns) among the top
agencies – a poor use of resources and a disaster
This risks should be monitored over time and senior leaders should be prepared to act in the event that
they are realised. The department monitors the cross-UN system to some extent through the UN
Communications Group (a meeting of directors of communication from across the UN system) and
through the department’s close links with the Office of the Secretary-General.
9.2. Procurement
It would be helpful if there was one central body with the responsibility to bring the system together
to save money on social media tools like Hootsuite. In 2011, some of the UN system grouped together
to receive a substantial discount on Hootsuite Enterprise. That offer will not be repeated because not
enough UN members joined the group. More central professional procurement support might have got
this done better. DPI should work with legal and procurement to come up with other cross-UN offers.
9.3. Liaison with owners of platforms
Another useful role for a central body would be to coordinate the relationships between the UN
system as a whole and the major social platforms. This would be in order to inform the rest of the
system about upcoming platform changes, and to collate requests or questions to the platform in order
not to overwhelm them with requests for help from every part of the UN system. It makes sense for
DPI to do this as the most centrally positioned department. The department could also work to
leverage senior UN officials in the event that requests need to be made to specific platforms on the
UN’s behalf, such as renaming Facebook pages.
9.4. Knowledge sharing
Currently this is working relatively well in a decentralised way: there is a shared email list, an online
platform and monthly meetings. The UN social media emailing list goes to the social media
professionals in the system and is almost entirely used to promote campaigns. Monthly cross-UN
meetings, which include permanent missions are well-attended by New York –based agencies, but not
by non-New York agencies. There may be a separate Geneva based social media meeting, but if not,
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
44
efforts should be made to videoconference or record these meetings to ensure better cross-UN
working.
UNDP provides access to its TeamWorks platform which works relatively well – it has 35,000
members in total, the social media group has 262 members and is largely made up of UNDP staff in
the field, but the information shared is relevant to all. With a more concerted campaign to encourage
staff across the UN to engage on this platform and to update their profiles with photos and more
information about what they do, TeamWorks would grow in value. Unfortunately, tools that could be
especially useful, such as the Wiki (the most popular page on the site) can only be edited by UNDP
staff – somewhat undermining the point of a wiki platform. This perhaps can be changed at the UNDP
end.
9.5. Shared evaluation metrics
There needs to be some effort to agree upon shared evaluation practices and metrics across the UN
system, in order to compare like with like. This should not be too difficult given the digital statistics
we use – but depending on the use of different tools, ‘impressions’ etc may be counted differently. In
order to share what works, it would be helpful to agree on standards early on. There may already be
some informal agreement on this – but the department could take this and formalise it as UN social
media evaluation standards.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
45
10. Next steps
This document has attempted to outline how the UN could be more strategic in its use of social media.
Throughout the document it has outlined the data that we need, how a strategy would be envisioned
and how plans would be made to meet it. But it is only a draft and the suggestions made are the
suggestions of one intern. At this point, a full working strategy should become the responsibility of
the senior managers in the department.
This last section, therefore, details what should happen next for senior leaders to establish a more
strategic approach to social media at the UN. The end goal is a more robust strategy, easily
translatable into goals and things to do now. This needs to happen swiftly.
1) Immediately :
a) initiate survey of UN staff on their use of /views on social media (can be based on the existing
survey of DPI staff)
b) initiate a UN-system wide social media audit to do two things:
i) find out how many UN-branded accounts exist, what their aims are, and who is engaging
with them,
ii) find out where the audience we want to reach are, where people discuss the UN and what
their views are;
c) begin work with legal and procurement offices to invite social media software providers to
chat about UN system offers (e.g. Hootsuite);
d) start work with legal and whoever else to initiate Facebook negotiations for
facebook.com/unitednations (and all other languages);
e) devise a draft strategy with colleagues across DPI; have one senior leader take responsibility
for its production, but perhaps turn it into a Google doc or individual Google Docs so that all
staff can edit or comment on it;
f) share this database on national language/platform use/etc., and start collecting more data to
build a robust business case for global digital engagement.
2) Within the next three months
a) complete a draft strategy, and run presentations etc in order to publicise it - seek wide
feedback;
b) rework that draft as appropriate following further survey results and feedback;
c) gain approval of that draft from HR, legal, and senior UN leaders;
d) develop a training programme and staff guidelines as appropriate, which could include
training kits or templates and train-the-trainer courses;
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
46
3) Within the next six months
a) meet with a members of Committee on Information to consult and seek feedback on the
departmental goals;
b) decide upon, and gain senior approval of, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-
bound objectives;
c) initiate peer to peer training system and iSeek social media guidance, across departments and
fields;
d) consider how to research audience in greater detail; collect data for directing more effective
use of stretched resources; (perhaps through partnerships with digital media companies, rest
of UN system for commissioned polling and research);
e) plan for some of the broader, more challenging strategic goals, such as devolving more power
down to UNICs and establishing strong local digital content provision;
f) turn this strategy into a living document – owned by directors across several departments
with responsibilities to keep it up to date; overall ownership by USG.
4) In one year’s time
a) resurvey UN staff;
b) redraft the strategy as appropriate.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
47
Appendices/Annexes
A. DPI Structure33 The Department consists of the following divisions:
The News and Media Division produces and distributes United Nations news and information to the media around the world. It provides logistical support to journalists covering the UN and maintains a constant flow of news in six languages through the UN News Centre on the web. It provides coverage of UN meetings and events - including press releases, live TV feeds, radio programmes and photographs - and produces and distributes radio and video documentary and
news programmes about the United Nations. Director: Mr. Stephane Dujarric The Outreach Division consists of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library as well as offices that work with non-governmental organizations and educational institutions and that market United Nations publications. The Outreach Division also organizes special events and exhibitions on priority issues, sponsors an annual training programme for journalists from developing countries, and develops partnerships with private and public sector organizations to further the aims of the Organization. The Division organizes the guided tours programme at UN Headquarters and public speaking engagements for UN officials and responds to inquiries from the general public. It also produces the Yearbook of the United Nations.
Director: Mr. Maher Nasser The Strategic Communications Division develops communications strategies and campaigns to promote United Nations priorities and coordinates their implementation within the Department and across the UN system. It develops information products to publicize key thematic issues, targeting, in particular, the global media. It provides programmatic and operational support to the global network of UN Information Centres, as well as strategic communications advice and support to the information components of peace operations. The Division also serves as Secretariat for the General Assembly's Committee on Information and the UN Communications Group (for more information, please see Partnerships - UN Communications Group). Director: Ms. Deborah Seward
33
http://unic.un.org/aroundworld/unics/en/whoWeAre/aboutDPI/structure/index.asp
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
48
B. Information on UNICs34 Information Centres are part of the Department of Public Information (DPI). At present, there are 63 Information Centres, Services and Offices worldwide.
The network of 63 United Nations Information Centres are key to the Organization’s ability to reach the peoples of the world and to share the United Nations story with them in their own languages. United Nations Information Centres (UNICs) are the principal sources of information about the United Nations system in the countries where they are located. UNICs are responsible for promoting greater public understanding of and support for the aims and activities of the United Nations by disseminating information on the work of the Organization to people everywhere, especially in developing countries.
34
http://unic.un.org/aroundworld/unics/en/whoWeAre/index.asp
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
49
List of UNIC locations:
Accra
Algiers
Almaty
Ankara
Antananarivo
Asmara
Asuncion
Baku
Bangkok
Beirut
Bogota
Brazzaville
Brussels*
Bucharest
Buenos Aires
Bujumbura
Cairo**
Canberra
Colombo
Dakar
Dar Es Salaam
Dhaka
Geneva
Harare
Islamabad
Jakarta
Kathmandu
Khartoum
Kyiv
La Paz
Lagos
Lima
Lomé
Lusaka
Manama
Manila
Maseru
Mexico City**
Minsk
Moscow
Nairobi
New Delhi
Ouagadougou
Panama City
Port Of Spain
Prague
Pretoria**
Rabat
Rio De Janeiro
Sana'a
Tashkent
Tbilisi
Tehran
Tokyo
Tripoli
Tunis
Vienna
Warsaw
Washington D.C.
Windhoek
Yangon
Yaoundé
Yerevan
* The United Nations Regional Information Centre in Brussels, Belgium, covers 21 countries in Western Europe.
** The Information Centres in Cairo, Mexico City, and Pretoria, where there are high concentrations of media outlets, are
responsible for working strategically with Centres in neighbouring countries to develop and implement communications
plans to promote United Nations priority themes in a way that has special resonance in their respective regions.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
50
C. Notes from UN Communications Group
At their ninth annual meeting (Beijing, 2010) the United Nations Communications Group (a group of
senior management from across the UN sytem) published a background paper entitled ‘Using Social
Media in the United Nations context (UNCG/2010/8)’.
The paper acknowledged that:
social media is meant to be a dialogue
social media requires interaction and a significant investment of time
It suggested plans for a SM campaign as follows
Determining clear and focused objectives.
Identifying primary and secondary target audiences.
Determining which platforms are most used and most effective for target audiences and their
access to different connection services (Internet, cellular connectivity), cultural and language
or physical restrictions.
Considering the benefits of joining ongoing established campaigns organized by partners or
related organization with the benefits of creating your own campaign.
Defining how the social media initiative supports and will be integrated into ongoing and
future communications and strategies.
Identifying short- and long- term resources (personnel and financial) needed to support and
sustain the social media activity.
Eliciting senior management support which may include official support, establishment of
budgeted resources, senior-level social media training and departmental coordination.
Improving staff expertise through training, education and/or the defining of new staff
positions dedicated to social media and online communications.
Establishing capacity requirements for project and long-term maintenance.
Identifying success indicators and follow-up activities.
Evaluating risks and drafting mitigation strategies, including internal cultural challenges.
It recommended rules for content:
Be accurate, objective and impartial.
Reflect the views and opinions of the Organization.
Use appropriate language and tone. Offensive and/or politically-sensitive references to
individuals, peoples, countries and groups are prohibited at all times.
Adhere to relevant and related language, ethics, harassment, discrimination and copyright
guidelines, and be grammatically correct.
Avoid discussions related to internal issues such as sourcing, reporting of unpublished stories,
personnel matters, and untoward personal or professional matters involving colleagues.
Refrain from criticizing others or those who take issue with official United Nations positions.
Avoid endorsing external sites, even when they are related, or inadvertently conveying
endorsement.
Abide by the policies of the particular website they are using in conjunction with other
applicable policies.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
51
D. Objectives from the Committee on Information’s draft resolution to
67th GA These excerpts show the difficulties with the sheer volume of objectives, the lack of clarity or
prioritisation by member states of their ideas for DPI. They suggest no timeframe in which a strategy
could actually be embedded. A mandate which changes yearly will not lead to efficient, competent
work. States also show a lack of agreement on the value of social media. The mixed messages from
the member states on social media are a further problem for the department.
The full text is available here.
Emphasizing that the contents of public information and
communications should be placed at the heart of the strategic
management of the United Nations and that a culture of
communications and transparency should permeate all levels of the
Organization as a means of fully informing the peoples of the world
of the aims and activities of the United Nations, in accordance with
the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United
Nations, in order to create broad-based global support for the United
Nations,
Stressing that the primary mission of the Department of Public
Information is to provide, through its outreach activities, accurate,
impartial, comprehensive, balanced, timely and relevant information
to the public on the tasks and responsibilities of the United Nations in
order to strengthen international support for the activities of the
Organization with the greatest transparency,
…
General activities of the DPI
8. Requests the Department of Public Information to maintain its
commitment to a culture of evaluation and to continue to evaluate its
products and activities with the objective of enhancing their
effectiveness, and to continue to cooperate and coordinate with
Member States and the Office of Internal Oversight Services of the
Secretariat;
… urges the Department of Public Information to encourage the
United Nations Communications Group to promote linguistic
diversity in its work, …
13. Reaffirms that the Department of Public Information must
prioritize its work programme, while respecting existing mandates
and in line with regulation 5.6 of the Regulations and Rules
Governing Programme Planning, the Programme Aspects of the
Budget, the Monitoring of Implementation and the Methods of
Evaluation, to focus its message and better concentrate its efforts and
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
52
to match its programmes with the needs of its target audiences, on the
basis of improved feedback and evaluation mechanisms;
Multilingualism and public information
19. Emphasizes the importance of ensuring equitable treatment of
all the official languages of the United Nations in all the activities of
the Department of Public Information, whether based on traditional
or new media, including in presentations to the Committee on
Information, with the aim of eliminating the disparity between the
use of English and the five other official languages;
Bridging the digital divide
22. Requests the Department of Public Information to contribute to
raising the awareness of the international community of the
importance of the implementation of the outcome documents of the
World Summit on the Information Society
Network of United Nations information centres
23. Emphasizes the importance of the network of United Nations
information centres in enhancing the public image of the United
Nations, in disseminating messages on the United Nations to local
populations, especially in developing countries, bearing in mind that
information in local languages has the strongest impact on local
populations, and in mobilizing support for the work of the United
Nations at the local level;
E. Status, basic rights and duties of United Nations staff members
(ST/SGB/2002/13) Relevant sections. Copied from UNCG/2010/8.
Regulation 1.2 (e)
By accepting appointment, staff members pledge themselves
to discharge their functions and regulate their conduct with the
interests of the Organization only in view.
Regulation 1.2 (f)
While staff members’ personal views and convictions,
including their political and religious convictions, remain inviolable,
staff members shall ensure that those views and convictions do not
adversely affect their official duties or the interests of the United
Nations. They shall conduct themselves at all times in a manner
befitting their status as international civil servants and shall not
engage in any activity that is incompatible with the proper discharge
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
53
of their duties with the United Nations. They shall avoid any action
and, in particular, any kind of public pronouncement that may
adversely reflect on their status, or on the integrity, independence and
impartiality that are required by that status.
Regulation 1.2 (h)
Staff members may exercise the right to vote but shall ensure
that their participation in any political activity is consistent with, and
does not reflect adversely upon, the independence and impartiality
required by their status as international civil servants.
Regulation 1.2 (i)
Staff members shall exercise the utmost discretion with
regard to all matters of official business. They shall not communicate
to any Government, entity, person or any other source any
information known to them by reason of their official position that
they know or ought to have known has not been made public, except
as appropriate in the normal course of their duties or by authorization
of the Secretary-General. These obligations do not cease upon
separation from service.
F. World Summit 2005
At the World Summit 2005, the General Assembly adopted the 2005 World Summit outcome, which
included the paragraphs below.
Secretariat and management reform
161. We recognize that in order to effectively comply with the
principles and objectives of the Charter, we need an efficient,
effective and accountable Secretariat. Its staff shall act in accordance
with Article 100 of the Charter, in a culture of organizational
accountability, transparency and integrity. Consequently we:
…
(f) Strongly urge the Secretary-General to make the best and most
efficient use of resources in accordance with clear rules and
procedures agreed by the General Assembly, in the interest of all
Member States, by adopting the best management practices,
including effective use of information and communication
technologies, with a view to increasing efficiency and enhancing
organizational capacity, concentrating on those tasks that reflect the
agreed priorities of the Organization.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
54
It is likely that the GA was referring to basic IT stuff – rather than SM, but clearly the objective’s laid
out are made more achievable through social media , esp the ‘culture of organizational accountability,
transparency and integrity’.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
55
G. Interviews with social media practitioners in UN system
Who is your target audience?
1. It’s easier to target the general audience. With Facebook algorithms the way they are, it’s
important to reach as many people as quickly as possible. Segmenting by location results in
less engagement. This is one area where SM is behind email.
2. En/Fr/Es are our working languages. Our Spanish audience is large. We are a decentralised
agency, with offices around the world – each local office is in charge of local communication
and uses the local language. The corporate accounts are mainly for our Western donor
countries, media, NGOs and act as a force multiplier for the local accounts.
3. Our agency has a more specialised audience than many, which makes targeting them easier.
We engage mainly with journalists in our field and a relatively specific industry – both
workers and owners.
4. While obviously it’s better to have a target audience, it’s very hard to identify one for our
agency. Instead we aim to be a content curator across our policy area and hope to be of
general interest. We’re also very event focussed.
5. Member states, both donors and recipients. The private sector, CSOs and the general public.
So we have to balance our content to be generic enough for the public, but not too superficial
for our authority audiences.
What is your overall vision for social media?
1. We need to decide what SM offers. Brand awareness isn’t great in donor countries cf. the
field. We’re learning how to use SM for advocacy. Trying to build a strong brand, much more
cost-effectively than advertising. We’re building a community of people who really care
about our issue.
2. We aim to make our agency transparent, human and personal. We share stories and engage
with our audience, skipping traditional media. We aim to position our staff as thought leaders
in their field.
3. Not discussed.
4. SM should complement the other work we do – should be timely and effective. Identify what
you can’t do with trad media, and use SM to fill the gaps.
5. To meet the broader comms objectives of the organisation in terms of broadcasting, but to go
beyond that and create transparency.
What are [agency’s] overall communications objectives? What are the objectives for social
media?
1. AwarenessEngagementDonate/Help – some kind of concrete action. Fundraising better
thru email.
2. Social media strategy forms part of our overall communications strategy. We publish a wiki
of policy and guidelines that constantly evolves over time. One goal is to train all staff in
using social media responsibly.
3. We are currently drafting a SM strategy. Our main aims are profile-raising and making sure
the specific divisional messages are promoted.
4. We aim to raise awareness about our issues; create better mobilisation for advocates, and to
improve our networks with peers and partners, especially at events such as Rio+20.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
56
5. We’re trying to raise awareness and transparency around what we do. We aim to increase our
reach (boosting press office), to engage in a conversation on our top priorities, and increase
advocacy on women’s issues.
Do you have a staff policy? Are any of your senior officials using SM?
1. Growing field presence, ‘action reporting’ such as tweeting from Ugandan refugee camps.
We make up for the lack of resource by encouraging volunteers and champions. These are
people we’ve trained, or who are already SM enthusiasts. Works especially well in East
Africa, we have plenty of people in the field who can tweet for us. We have a policy official
tweeting from Rio. Our Director of Comms tweets. And our Exec Director will be on twitter
soon.
2. We use the specific guidelines same as DPI, but it’s all in the wiki. We managed to get our
DG involved, she enjoyed the interaction, the direct feedback – was a bit of a lightbulb
moment, and now she is a regular tweeter. Think the important thing to recognise is that it’s
not necessarily Twitter that is everyone’s channel. Some people like more time – so they
should blog.
3. Senior official use is limited. There is a generation gap, a lot of people don’t know how it
works. We have presented to senior mgmt, and there are concrete successes – wherever we
have a great SM story we share it.
4. We have guidelines for staff. We make use of volunteers from across the organisation for
livetweeting/blogging events. Awareness of SM internally is growing – esp when senior
management showed up to our evangelist events! Senior mgmt supported my wish for a
twitterfall at our annual meeting – was great, we had Paul Kagame and Bill Gates involved,
we used unfiltered tweets (but had a mitigation strategy in case of abuse). People loved it. We
used an outside contractor to arrange the set up in the room.
5. Not yet. We started quite closed, trying to establish a global voice, now we’re opening up to
allowing staff and regional offices to create their own presences. Some country offices have
difficulties with access etc. No senior officials yet. We are planning training, lunchtime
sessions, etc. Overall, however, the guidance already exists in the HR docs and in the Code of
Conduct for Int’l Civil Servants.
How do you decide which channels to use?
1. Not discussed
2. We test all the channels as they catch on. Each performs something of value. For example,
Google+ affects your search engine ranking, so we post our web stories on their in order to
create a higher ranking for the website. LinkedIn helps us advertise jobs, attract and engage
with experts, etc.
3. This is driven by the content we have. We produce a lot of presentations, so Slideshare was an
obvious choice, for example.
4. Not discussed.
5. We use all the main channels. We have a G+ because we feel like we have to be there or we’ll
be punished in the Page Ranking.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
57
Day-to-day: How do you manage the production of content? (teamworking, responsibilities etc)
[Where asked, all SM staff said that they sat with other communications staff]
1. We have three community managers : DC, Bangkok, Rome, in order that we can cover the 24
hour day. They know their stuff. Horizontal workloads, but if had more staff might think
differently (i.e. one channel per staffer). We try not to use hootsuite etc and do as much as
possible by hand.
2. I publish much of the English material, our language experts write the language accounts. We
see ourselves as a hub for all staff. We use Hootsuite Enterprise, where I am the SuperAdmin
and there are 10 other admins who get different levels of access to Approve, Edit, etc.
3. I am the focal point for SM – so I’ll republish as much as possible from across the other
comms team. Find Hootsuite very good, esp for Twitter.
4. We have a few people who all have access to the accounts and publish away. For events, we
ask people to use their own accounts, then we signpost and RT via the corporate accounts. We
use the free versions of Tweetdeck and Hootsuite as management tools.
5. For Twitter, we use Hootsuite enterprise. We have 20 users around the world who feed stuff
into the system, which I try to approve within 24 hours. We divide tasks around hq – to check
the website for latest news, to monitor the media for interesting content, and we invite the
country offices to send in project news. Plus we run twitter live chats. This generates a fair
amount of content, but we’re not a content-creator. Facebook is done manually.
Evaluation and monitoring
1. Use Tweetdeck for monitoring. Various applications for analytics (e.g. Buffer)
2. We use Radian6 – it takes time to learn, but is the best tool for reputation monitoring, finding
influencers and multipliers and the shifts in the social debate. We also use the analytics in
Hootsuite, Hashtracking and Socialbro. We look at the web traffic too.
3. Use the Hootsuite analytics, but only have the basic free version, so not great. We also use
YouTube, Facebook and Google Analytics to produce media reports after a campaign.
4. We don’t have the resource to do this properly. We produce Tweetreach reports after annual
events, and we try to storify content more regularly. But the cost of something like Radian6 is
prohibitive. Could a centralised buying group reduce the cost?
5. We haven’t found the perfect tool – using Twittercounter, Hashtracking and Crowdbooster
simultaneously. Good for key influences, impressions and so on. Senior staff like to see
numbers, though to what extent are they realistic/accurate? Not convinced by Radian6 – not
very user-friendly and don’t trust/need sentiment analysis. We don’t produce regular reports,
but feed into the campaign/event reporting.
Successes
1. Organising and delivering a Google Hangout with CNN anchor was a learning experience.
Great that it actually happened.
2. We’re still learning, and SM has huge potential, but some successes have been our live
events, esp. livestreaming with the DG (10,000 viewers) and took questions from the online
audience.
3. We’ve done well from a standing start – in a year gained 5,000 followers from nothing.
Getting a lot of positive feedback from industry, and from journalists (esp as we also now
produce video content for them).
4. The twitterfall at our annual meeting, and also our offline/online press conferences which we
streamed and invited questions.
5. Some good campaign outcomes – we brought voices from outside Rio to the conference
through SM and the audience liked it – high reach for Rio stuff. Had other campaign
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
58
successes which are all due to the planning and preparation beforehand. We have some very
good influencers who bring a lot of attention to our work (Nicole Kidman, Shakira etc).
Something not gone so well / lessons learned
1. Hoped we would get more views for our Google Hangout.
2. It’s not for everyone, there is a generation gap – some people are born communicators, others
are not. Do some press teams still fear SM?
3. We’ve tried to reach certain influencers without much luck.
4. We tweeted too much from live events – so we parcelled this out to individuals and then RT’d
the best. We all need more management support, and better leadership on social media.
You’ve got to use believers! No point trying to teach/encourage people who aren’t interested
in using these tools, i.e. don’t add it to people’s job descriptions.
5. Content is king. We get sent some stuff which just isn’t suitable and other staff might not
really understand why. We had an event at which someone tried to hijack the hashtag – but
you just have to outnumber them with more relevant tweets.
Additional comments – on UN system as a whole, on the future for social media in international
organisations, etc.
1. Going forward, we want to get real people on real events, and use corporate accounts as
amplifiers for those. Esp on Twitter. UN system could try coordinating a shared calendar
better. Get a lot of emails with suggested tweets that aren’t appropriate to our followers, but if
something worked out well and intelligently, it could be powerful to have a whole system
pushing at the same issue.
2. Focus and support champions who then convince their colleagues. Clear guidelines help
everyone to understand the power of SM and the associated risks. Must remember that we
work for 193 states. Need to cooperate and coordinate with others to help build community.
3. How we reach audiences in Asia is a challenge for all of us
4. We sometimes struggle with relations with the press officers. Could we get a common licence
for certain tools (Radian6, Hootsuite) for use across the system? In general – it’s a battle, but
got to encourage people to feel the fear and do it anyway. We’re supposed to be reaching a
new generation – this is their world. How long before we have a twitterfall in the General
Assembly? What do we need to do to strengthen SM efforts and make it central in public
meetings?
5. DPI should definitely take a coordination role – being the focal point for tool selection,
procurement etc.
Interviewees: Silke Von Brockhausen, UNDP; Beatrice Frey, UN Women; Karine Langlois, IMO;
Roxanna Samii, IFAD; Justin Smith, WFP. Thanks for your time.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
59
H. Data on literacy, first and second languages, social media platform
use
See this Google spreadsheet. Note the figures highlighted for countries in which a majority of the
population are not first-language literate in one of the six official UN languages.
Data is patchy and its improvement is something DPI should be supporting with research funding.
The main sources were the CIA World Factbook and the Ethnologue guide.
The spreadsheet is open and editable by anyone. Please update it if you find better/new data. Please
note where you got the data from (use a comment for each cell).
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
60
I. The US State Dept model (staff numbers in brackets)35 This is included in order to gain some relatively similar comparison of how a bureaucracy manages its
social media work. Note the staff numbers in brackets, e.g. the Office for Audience Research has 10
full time members of staff.
“Chart 1: Ediplomacy nodes at State and staffing levels, by organisational area (+ indicates considerable
ediplomacy work outsourced to external partners).” (p.6) Total FT equivalent = 175.
35
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/revolutionstate-spread-ediplomacy
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
61
“While the above chart follows State’s organisational chart, the chart below breaks the same ediplomacy nodes
down by principal work program and objectives according to the conceptual framework set out above. The
following section will examine the work program of each of State’s ediplomacy nodes under the eight different
work programs.” (p.6)
“Chart 2: Ediplomacy nodes at State, by work programs” (p.7)
Broad goals for e-diplomacy (as understood by Lowry Institute author, not by State Dept)
“1) Knowledge management: To harness departmental and whole of government knowledge, so that it is
retained, shared and its use optimised in pursuit of national interests abroad.
2) Public diplomacy: To maintain contact with audiences as they migrate online and to harness new
communications tools to listen to and target important audiences with key messages and to influence major
online influencers.
3) Information management: To help aggregate the overwhelming flow of information and to use this to better
inform policy-making and to help anticipate and respond to emerging social and political movements.
4) Consular communications and response: To create direct, personal communications channels with citizens
travelling overseas, with manageable communications in crisis situations.
5) Disaster response: To harness the power of connective technologies in disaster response situations.
6) Internet freedom: Creation of technologies to keep the internet free and open. This has the related objectives
of promoting freedom of speech and democracy as well as undermining authoritarian regimes.”
7) External resources: Creating digital mechanisms to draw on and harness external expertise to advance
national goals.
8) Policy planning: To allow for effective oversight, coordination and planning of international policy across
government, in response to the internationalisation of the bureaucracy.”
62
J. Giant spreadsheet of everything This is an alternative way of showing a strategy. This is the sort of table that should be able to be filled in and given to staff as a quick reference guide.
Short term:
Overarching
UN or DPI goal
Social media
SMART goal
Audience
insight needed
Tactics (what
do we do)
Responsibility
and input (who,
when)
Output
(number of
tweets, blogs
etc)
Intermediate
outcome
(metrics:
followers, RTs,
replie)
Overall
outcomes
(measure of
change)
Long term:
Vision Objectives Work required Result wished
for
Responsibility Output
(measure)
Intermediate
outcome
(measure)
Overall
outcomes
(measure)
63
K. Micro goals for each platform
a) Twitter
User base: Twitter has around 150m active accounts. According to the Oxford Internet Institute, ‘the
top six tweet-producing countries (for geo-coded tweets, in absolute terms) are the United States,
Brazil, Indonesia, the UK, Mexico, and Malaysia.’36
Description of platform
UN current use
Strategic goal that use of this platform meets
Long-term vision for this platform
Micro SMART goal(s) for this platform (what does success look like?)
Risks of using this platform
Mitigation
Successful examples of platform use by similar organisations
36
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/where-do-the-worlds-tweets-come-from/259201/
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
64
b) Facebook
User base
Description of platform
UN current use
Strategic goal that use of this platform meets
Long-term vision for this platform
Micro SMART goal(s) for this platform (what does success look like?)
Risks of using this platform
Mitigation
Successful examples of platform use by similar organisations
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
65
c) Weibo
User base
Description of platform
UN current use
Weibo is somewhat unique, as its users are almost entirely based in China. The UN account managed
by the Mandarin language web team. Currently the UN account has 2m followers in China.
Strategic goal that use of this platform meets
Long-term vision for this platform
Micro SMART goal(s) for this platform (what does success look like?)
Risks of using this platform
Mitigation
Successful examples of platform use by similar organisations
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
66
d) UN blogs platform (blogs.un.org)
User base
Description of platform
UN current use
Strategic goal that use of this platform meets
Long-term vision for this platform
Micro SMART goal(s) for this platform (what does success look like?)
Risks of using this platform
Mitigation
Successful examples of platform use by similar organisations
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
67
e) Pinterest
User base
Description of platform
UN current use
Strategic goal that use of this platform meets
Long-term vision for this platform
Micro SMART goal(s) for this platform
Risks of using this platform
Mitigation
Successful examples of platform use by similar organisations
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
68
L. Tools for brand accounts workflow a. Publishing
Platform Hootsuite buddymedia Syncapse Crowdbooster
Description
Pros
Cons
Costs
Used by
b. Monitoring (realtime alerts etc)
Platform Netvibes Tweetdeck buddymedia Thinkup
Description
Pros
Cons
Costs
Used by
c. Analytics/evaluation
Platform Socialbro Radian6 buddymedia Syncapse Hootsuite Thinkup
Description
Pros Attemps to
analyse
language
used by
followers
Cons
Costs
Used by
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
69
M. How to deal with multilingual and multinational brands on
It is generally thought that one page per country is the best solution, as it is the only way to really
account for linguistic/cultural differences.
This article suggests using one mother-page and then child-pages. The exemplar is Starbucks, whose
‘mother’ page has 30m likes, and comes with a small 'International' app, which lists all their national
pages in the appropriate native language. It’s simple and effective.
The alternative is using one page where the static information is written in all six languages and then
the posts are delivered according the user’s location or language. You get a less-detailed data
breakdown with this approach. UNICs managing local pages for multilingual countries might opt for
this approach.
What does this mean for the UN Facebook page(s)?
Option A: One central facebook.com/unitednations page delivers worldwide content 24/7. We
attempt to segment audiences by language relying on user/facebook data.
+ Allows for cross-country conversations (for those who know English)
- A small army would required to manage this via DPI/NY
Option B: Six pages (one for each language) maintained by the UNIC(s) most appropriate for the
language.
+ Allows better timed / more culturally relevant posts.
- Would place too much work on certain UNICs?
Option C: One global UN account, and then an account for each UNIC (where Facebook is used).
DPI/NY could decide how much power would be delegated to the UNICs through a Dealer/Franchise
platform like Syncapse’s. Or everyone could work collaboratively, with DPI/NY providing clear
objectives to, and monitoring of, UNICs’ use of their platforms, using data shared across the entire
network (e.g. thru a different Syncapse platform).
+ Maybe best use of resources
- Not very ‘united’ nations
The overall conflict that has to be resolved
The question over how to manage branded Facebook accounts hints at a wider problem in social
media. There is a conflict between wanting to encourage cross-cultural dialogue and wanting to be
culturally/linguistically relevant, which drives engagement.
Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m
70
Further reading:
Syncapse platform presentation on global facebook strategies; Inside Facebook : Global/regional
pages ‘likes’ count; Inside Facebook: Local pages outperform corporate pages;
Starbucks Facebook page – an astonishing 30m likes (it’s easy to like a luxury good). This is the
global page, but it includes a Facebook app that links to national brand pages for a lot of different
countries, all tailored to that local market. Although our world is very different, this model seems to
make sense for our Facebook presence.
Cf. Western Union’s facebook page – a single global page, but confusingly mainly targeting US
customers. They do engage with a worldwide audience. They promote their competitions and advice,
but don’t use it for customer service. The number of likes and engagement is not great.