Improving the Accessibility of Social Media in Government for better engagement with your citizens

Social media is one of the best platforms for communication, promotion and engagements. Thus, various governments have started to utilize this platform to let people know about their achievements, daily updates and important announcements among others. 

There are various techniques by which a government can interact with common people using social media. Here I will discuss how. 

CREATING OFFICIAL PROFILES, OFFICIAL GROUPS AND OFFICIAL PAGES AND THEIR USES

Various departments of a Government like Industry, Culture, Agriculture, Science & Technology, Railway etc. must create official accounts in popular social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

In Facebook, using their official accounts, they need to open individual pages for each department. They can also create groups. In those pages and groups, they can post latest updates, achievements, new announcements as well as various notices. 

In Twitter, using official accounts, various departments can tweet the latest updates, achievements, news, notices and announcements. 

Other social media channels like Instagram or LinkedIn are not used by maximum governments. Instagram is being used by cultural departments of few governments to post images and videos of cultural programmes. 

According to various observations, it has been found that traffic departments of more or less all governments use social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to publish latest updates about traffic conditions of roads. 

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR OTHER GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

Police departments can make use of their official social media accounts and pages to make people aware about how they can inform local police units immediately if they see any unlawful activity. For example, Facebook page of Kolkata police always posts updates about how a citizen should approach police at the time of emergency.  

Municipalities, local administration bodies and weather departments can use their social media accounts and pages to inform people about upcoming weather conditions and calamities like storm, heavy rain, drought etc. Distress and Relief department can use social media to make necessary announcements about reliefs to be delivered, and they can even post by asking people to donate at relief funds.

Education departments use their social media accounts and pages to post latest updates about upcoming dates of exams, upcoming dates of results, syllabi, changes in syllabi, admission dates and details. For example, UGC of India uses their official Facebook page to furnish updates and details about admissions of various sessions and syllabi of all sessions. 

Various government departments and government employment bodies also use their social media accounts and pages to post updates about latest employment vacancies and how candidates can apply. They also publish results or the links which will direct the candidates to the page containing results or merit lists. 

Apart from that, various government departments also use social media to post and share about general health, safety tips, fiscal tips etc. 

Prime Ministers and other ministers, presidents and state secretaries create their social media accounts and pages through which they deliver messages about their achievements. However, in most cases, their secretaries handle those accounts. Using these accounts and pages, these VIPs also give many suggestions and tips. 

Handlers of these social media accounts generally avail paid services of social media channels so that these accounts can reach more people.