Towards a UN social media strategy (for screen reading)

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.

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Towards a UN social media strategy Joe Mitchell @j0e_m

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 67 th GA ......... 58
E. Status, basic rights and duties of United Nations staff members (ST/SGB/2002/13)
59
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

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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

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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

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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)

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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.

16

It is also important to note the clear trend of rapid growth in mobile broadband
access via smartphones – currently +40% per year. By 2013, smartphone
ownership will overtake PC ownership,17 and by 2015, 3.2bn mobile broadband
connections will exist. At that growth rate, a social media strategy should
prepare for a 90% connected world by 2020.18

The United Nations should get ready to engage with a truly global audience and
to focus on networks that have successful phone-based applications. For
example, RenRen and Facebook have specific low-bandwidth phone versions,
e.g. Facebook Zero allows users free access to the simple text version of the

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/

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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

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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.

20


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.

21


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.

22


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

23


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.

24


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.

25


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/

26


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.”

27


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

28


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.

29

Intermediate outcome by
Output of social media team by 2014 Overall outcome by 2016
Objective 2015
(and measure) (and measure)
(and measure)

Identify and train early adopters, encourage
them to ‘pass it forward’ (0.5% of UN staff More staff in digital space (% of
trained 0.01% trained in training; ensure all
UN staff with a digital account
depts. and system covered, maintain list of x- on an open platform, used 5
UN champions) Culture change – staff
times / week)
empowerment (e.g. 10% in
All-staff training, lectures/team explanations (x Better known UN individuals positive response to ‘do you feel
number of sessions etc)
(>100 UN staff with personal engaged or empowered’ by staff
follower counts of > 5,000) in response to HR staff survey)
Mentoring programme set up (uptake by x% of
all staff)
Greater public awareness of
individual roles at UN and
Staff as voice of
structure of UN etc (e.g. 10%
organisation Better corporate accounts
increase in global opinion poll ‘I
(number of languages or nations
understand the UN’)
covered by UNIC-led corporate
Mergers or reduced corporate accounts
accounts; internal coherence of Transparency: a higher score in
(numbers of accounts) DPI accounts (% of accounts independent accountability
branded and labelled correctly measures (e.g. One World
Branding advice (how to use the logo, what to
etc) Trust’s global accountability
write in a bio) (docs, ready-made kit of
backgrounds, ‘twibbons’ etc produced) framework)
Corporate accounts taking their
Training, guidance and branding for UNIC run content from individuals (% of
content shared by corporate
pages (number of sessions, documents)
accounts that is new (i.e. the
content is now mainly
repostings from individual staff))

30


Increased use of social media Better informed staff (survey on
Better internal Training for senior leadership – advocating why for internal communication awareness of work of other
communications social media works for internal productivity (x (number of internal interactions) system, instances of co-
across depts. training sessions, x managers using open working, ‘how well do you feel
and system platform to engage internally) Reduced email burden (number you know what’s going on
of emails) outside your department?’)

Increased use of social media
for external communication
Better external (number of external
Training for staff (x training sessions, x staff interactions) Greater knowledge sharing
communications
using) throughout UN network,
to traditional
Reduced email burden (number missions and CSOs (survey of
stakeholders
Renew, reshape, refocus all corporate accounts of emails) awareness? Tricky one to
(missions,
(number of accounts, fewer, better accounts) measure)
NGOs) More coherent brand presence
(% of corporate accounts using
branding correctly, etc)

Better More public interaction with staff
engagement Training for all staff (x% of staff using open (number of followers, number of
Greater public knowledge of UN
with the global platforms to engage) reposts etc)
goals; better understanding of
public to
UN structure (opinion polling,
increase Increased training / advice to UNICs (number More language use stuff
public research)
understanding of training sessions, survey data) (number of followers of other
and support language accounts)

31

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.

32


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:

33


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

34


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

Yes, all that I can find
Yes, but only those relevant to my
work

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).

35


 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.

36


 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.

37


 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.

38


 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:

39


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

40


 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.

41


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.

42


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.

43

Twitter Facebook Tumblr blogs.un.org Pinterest Storify
(UNIC)

Who uses this 955bn people. Very young, Unknown Women, older Journalists,
platform? American, UK, newshounds
Brazil

What is its Microblogging, Connecting with Artsy cool Behind the scenes? Image-sharing To provide one page
purpose? sharing news ‘friends’ sharing stuff platform round up of x-platform
photos 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 To increase Reach 1m users
SMART goal for our number of by Dec 2013.
this platform? replies by
10%

44


Ultimate
responsibility /
signoff

45

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

46


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.

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8.5.3. Workflow diagram:

Platform (and responsibility)

Google Hootsuite Public platforms
Spreadsheet
(Small admin (One person to
(All UN staff, team) sign off)
with training)

48


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.

49


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.

50

Towards a UN social media strategy (for screen reading)

Towards a UN social media strategy (for screen reading)

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