towards a un social media strategy (for screen reading)

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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

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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? ........................................................ 13

3.6. What is social media’s mother tongue? ................................................... 14

3.7. What is social media use like across the time zones? ................................ 16

3.8. What about those who don’t have internet access?................................... 16

3.9. What does this all mean? How should this data inform our strategy? .......... 18

4. Existing UN communication objectives ............................................................. 19

4.1. UN system-wide communication objectives ............................................. 19

4.2. Secretary-General’s Five-Year Action Agenda .......................................... 20

4.3. UN Competencies for the Future ............................................................ 21

4.4. Committee on Information .................................................................... 22

4.5. Department of Public Information objectives ........................................... 24

4.6. DPI Strategic Communications Division (SCD) priorities ............................ 25

5. Suggested vision, mission and objectives ......................................................... 26

5.1. Comparing models of corporate social media ........................................... 26

5.2. Suggested vision, mission and objectives for UN DPI social media team ...... 28

5.3. Turning objectives into SMART goals ...................................................... 29

6. Evaluation .................................................................................................... 32

7. Realising our vision – part one: staff training .................................................... 33

7.1. Baseline research on staff and social media ............................................. 33

7.2. Our people objectives ........................................................................... 39

7.3. How to go about realising the objectives ................................................. 39

8. Realising our vision – part two: UN branded accounts ........................................ 42


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8.1. General .............................................................................................. 42

8.2. Which platforms should DPI use? ........................................................... 42

8.3. Languages and local focus ..................................................................... 43

8.4. Platform use ........................................................................................ 43

8.5. Content plan and workflow for accounts managed by DPI ......................... 46

8.5.1. Content plan ....................................................................................... 46

8.5.2. Workflow and work tools ....................................................................... 46

8.5.3. Workflow diagram: ............................................................................... 48

9. DPI’s coordination role across UN system ......................................................... 49

9.1. General .............................................................................................. 49

9.2. Procurement ....................................................................................... 49

9.3. Liaison with owners of platforms ............................................................ 49

9.4. Knowledge sharing ............................................................................... 50

9.5. Shared evaluation metrics ..................................................................... 50

10. Next steps .................................................................................................... 51


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Appendices/Annexes ............................................................................................ 53

A. DPI Structure ............................................................................................... 53

B. Information on UNICs .................................................................................... 54

C. Notes from UN Communications Group ............................................................ 56

D. Objectives from the Committee on Information’s draft resolution to 67th GA ......... 58

E. Status, basic rights and duties of United Nations staff members (ST/SGB/2002/13)

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F. World Summit 2005 ...................................................................................... 60

G. Interviews with social media practitioners in UN system ..................................... 62

H. Data on literacy, first and second languages, social media platform use ............... 67

I. The US State Dept model (staff numbers in brackets) ........................................ 68

J. Giant spreadsheet of everything ..................................................................... 71

K. Micro goals for each platform .......................................................................... 73

a) Twitter ...................................................................................................... 73

b) Facebook .................................................................................................. 74

c) Weibo ....................................................................................................... 75

d) UN blogs platform (blogs.un.org) ................................................................. 76

e) Pinterest ................................................................................................... 77

L. Tools for brand accounts workflow................................................................... 78

M. How to deal with multilingual and multinational brands on Facebook ................... 80


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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


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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

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.


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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.

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.


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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’.


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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 countries3) – 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

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

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/pdf/2011%20Statistical%20highlights_June_2012.pdf

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/pdf/2011%20Statistical%20highlights_June_2012.pdf

http://blog.comscore.com/2012/01/its_a_social_world.html

http://www.foliomag.com/2011/report-98-percent-u-s-online-population-uses-social-networks

http://www.foliomag.com/2011/report-98-percent-u-s-online-population-uses-social-networks


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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’).

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.

4 Unfortunately, this question was not asked in the interviews. It could be included in

any future round.


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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%

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, 122nd 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%.


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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.

5 http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/un.org 6 http://stats.grok.se/en/top

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/un.org

http://stats.grok.se/en/top


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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

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.

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

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiIDd64kb90cdEdCN2ZqVlpQYmlVcHlXeXdFd2NDN2c#gid=0

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/it_is_a_social_world_top_10_need-to-knows_about_social_networking

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/it_is_a_social_world_top_10_need-to-knows_about_social_networking


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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:

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

8 This will remain true unless sound-based networks take off (e.g. SoundCloud). 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


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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

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

12 Data taken from the working database here, and Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population 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)

http://69.94.137.26/editorialcontrol/index.htm

http://69.94.137.26/editorialcontrol/index.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population


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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.

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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).

14 ITU, 2011


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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.

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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

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. 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/

http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/pdf/40u40_conway.pdf

http://www.gsma.com/newsroom/gsma-research-demonstrates-that-mobile-industry-is-creating-a-connected-economy/

http://www.gsma.com/newsroom/gsma-research-demonstrates-that-mobile-industry-is-creating-a-connected-economy/


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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.

19 ITU, 2011: 126.


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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


20

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 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

20 http://www.un.org/sg/priorities/sg_agenda_2012.pdf

21 Ibid. point 2, page 6.

http://www.un.org/sg/priorities/sg_agenda_2012.pdf


21

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

- 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.

22 Ibid. point 2, page 12. 23 Used a hard copy of this Annan-era document, but it may be available online.


22

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.

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

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.

http://www.un.org/en/ga/coi/about/bg.shtml


23

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


24

with the needs of its target audiences, on the basis of

improved feedback and evaluation mechanisms…

…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:

26 http://www.un.org/en/hq/dpi/about.shtml 27 Modified to become active tense.

http://www.un.org/en/hq/dpi/about.shtml


25

28

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.

http://iseek.un.org/LibraryDocuments/1940-201102171145134231334.pdf


26

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/

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/15/framework-and-matrix-the-five-ways-companies-organize-for-social-business/

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/15/framework-and-matrix-the-five-ways-companies-organize-for-social-business/


27

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.”


28

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


29

o improves knowledge management;

- better externally connected to professionals in civil society, member

states and the private sector; and

- 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.

30

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))


31

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)

32

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.


33

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:


34

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


35

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.

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

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


36

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.


37

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.


38

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.


39

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.

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:


40

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

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


41

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

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.


42

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.


43

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.

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.

44

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.


45

Ultimate

responsibility /

signoff

46

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


47

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.


48

8.5.3. Workflow diagram:

Platform (and responsibility)

Google

Spreadsheet

(All UN staff,

with training)

Hootsuite

(Small admin

team)

Public platforms

(One person to

sign off)


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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.


50

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, 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.


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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;



52

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;

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.


53

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

http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/

http://www.un.org/ga/coi/

http://unic.un.org/aroundworld/unics/en/partnerships/communicationGroup/index.asp

http://unic.un.org/aroundworld/unics/en/whoWeAre/aboutDPI/structure/index.asp


54

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

http://unic.un.org/aroundworld/unics/en/whoWeAre/aboutDPI/index.asp

http://unic.un.org/aroundworld/unics/en/whoWeAre/index.asp


55

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.


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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.


57

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.


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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, …

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N12/336/84/PDF/N1233684.pdf?OpenElement


59

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 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.


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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

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


61

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.

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’.


62

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.


63

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. 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


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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. 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.


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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 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


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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.


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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).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiIDd64kb90cdEdCN2ZqVlpQYmlVcHlXeXdFd2NDN2c

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

http://www.ethnologue.com/info.asp


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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

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/revolutionstate-spread-ediplomacy


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“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.”


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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.”

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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)


72

73

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/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/where-do-the-worlds-tweets-come-from/259201/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/where-do-the-worlds-tweets-come-from/259201/


74

b) Facebook

User base


UN current use





Mitigation



75

c) Weibo

User base


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.





Mitigation



76

d) UN blogs platform (blogs.un.org)

User base


UN current use





Mitigation



77

e) Pinterest

User base


UN current use



Micro SMART goal(s) for this platform


Mitigation



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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


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Used by


80

M. How to deal with multilingual and multinational

brands on Facebook

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

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/marketing-sales/advertising-promotion/internet-marketing/MAR_ADP_INM/697760-12403486

http://searchengineland.com/going-glocalmanaging-a-brands-global-social-profiles-on-facebook-39500

http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks/app_142063194423?ref=ts

http://syncapse.com/platform/franchise/

http://syncapse.com/platform/


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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.

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.

http://www.slideshare.net/cherwenka/global-facebook-strategies-syncapse-deck-5236844

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/05/24/facebook-testing-globalregional-fan-pages-that-share-a-single-like-count/

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/03/30/local-facebook-pages-outperform-corporate-pages-in-terms-of-reach-engagement-percentage-study-finds/

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/03/30/local-facebook-pages-outperform-corporate-pages-in-terms-of-reach-engagement-percentage-study-finds/

http://www.facebook.com/starbucks

https://www.facebook.com/WesternUnion

towards a un social media strategy (for screen reading)

Business

international

safe practice

promote linguistic

social media

platformmicro

social media

informations

dpis coordination