1. Guidelines on using Social Media

2. Social Media gives “voice to all”, immediate outreach and 24
Social Media gives “voice to all”, immediate outreach and 24*7 engagement
offers a unique opportunity to governments to engage with their stakeholders especially citizens in real time to make policy making citizen centric.
Governments across the world and in India are using various social media platforms to reach out to citizens, businesses and experts to seek inputs into policy making, get feedback on service delivery, create community based programmes etc.

3. Apprehensions
issues related to authorisation to speak on behalf of department/agency,
technologies and platform to be used for communication,
scope of engagement,
creating synergies between different channels of communication,
compliance with existing legislations etc.

4. Communication strategy
Social media can be used by the Government to communicate existing Government information and propagate official policy to the public.
While the social media tools allow everyone to become a creator, for the official account, content will have to be specified and tailored to the site on which it is being published.

5. Great care must be taken to avoid propagation of unverified facts and frivolous misleading rumours which tend to circulate often through miscreants on social media platforms.
social media should be one of the components of the overall citizen engagement strategy
Ideally, none of the sites should be left more than a week or two without new content

6. India
The Prime Minister’s office launched its social media initiatives from January The PMO currently uses Twitter ( , Facebook ( ) and YouTube ( as its platforms for engagement

8. Dos and donts
Be sensitive about confidentiality: Do not post confidential or proprietary information and be aware of non-disclosure agreements.
Accuracy: Take a moment to think about what you are posting (both personally and professionally) before you hit the publish/post button

9. Be aware of what you say and of your connections in social media networks. For example, a comment you make on a colleague’s Facebook wall is visible to anyone that person is connected to, but you might not be connected to those individuals and therefore unable to control access or anticipate further distribution of your comments. Be thoughtful and discreet.
Avoid infringement: You should only include in your posts material that you have written or created or that you otherwise have the right to use in this way. Be wary about incorporating third party photographs or video that you do not own and that you have not obtained permission to use, because doing so could infringe the third party’s copyright.
If you wish to point people to third party content, it is generally better to link to it, rather than copying it yourself. Material you have created, as well as third party material you have incorporated, may end up being used in ways you did not originally foresee.

10. Always be professional, courteous and polite.
Don't Overuse Hashtags. #nothing #is #more #annoying #than #having #every #word #in #an #update #hashtagged.
Don’t Forget Your Spelling. Poor speling and grammer is turrnoff .

11. You Are What You Tweet…and Share
Be Wary of Spam Just because you get a follower on Twitter doesn’t mean they’re a real person. If they’re following 20,000 people and have zero followers?
DON'T forget that the audience drives the success of your social media strategy.  Understanding what it it your audience likes/dislikes about your online presence is key to building a service around them.  

12. Remember that you’re representing your organization in your posts and content.
Don’t delete a comment just because you disagree with the commenter’s point of view. 
If needed, clarify in a post or comment that you’re expressing your own views and opinions and not those of our organization.