Narendra Modi government's message to ministries - go ahead and tweet

NEW DELHI: Go ahead and tweet, but with care. That’s the message going out from the Narendra Modi government to all ministries. The social media commandments, all 10 of them, were spelt out by the I&B ministry at a special training session on July 11 for all ministries on using Twitter and Facebook.

The Modi government, which has already ordered ministries to open official accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, wants to make sure that the message is tightly controlled. All ministries have been told to be "selective" in who they follow or retweet, make sure they follow verified accounts and follow related ministries and ministers and "authentic" government news sources as per a presentation accessed by ET that was made by the new media wing of I&B ministry at the workshop.

Ministries have been told to "never tweet privileged or sensitive information" and "maintain political neutrality" while posting on Facebook or Twitter. They have also been asked to establish a "two-way interaction" on social media platforms with a quick response mechanism in place to answer queries posted on their Twitter accounts.

"Engage people. Tweet, mention them when you come across something related to the verified accounts and retweet their good posts," said the presentation.

Ministries have been asked to avoid spamming people on social networks while ensuring that they post regularly all ministry press releases, event images, videos and interactions. The ministry said this was an "era of digital democracy" with 205 million Indians being online. There are 110 mobile internet users, 100 million Facebook users, 40 million Twitter users in India.

The presentation said 39 per cent of social media users in India were females and 77 per cent of all users were 15-34 years old. "Enhance the reach of messages and other schemes of government on social media platforms through non-paid means so that the content would reach to the last mile on internet domain in real time basis," said the presentation.

The government will also come up with customised "social relationship management software" to enable ministries to engage with people at large. Ministries have also been encouraged to hold social media events like Google Hangouts, live Facebook chats and Twitter conferences.

Ministries have been asked to use "the right language" online so that the audience was receptive.

Ministries have also been advised to use proper hashtags and always provide attribution in their posts. "To remove any risk of confrontation, always be sure to give credit where it’s due by using retweet," said yet another commandment.