• Home
• GOVERNMENT CXO
• E-GOVERNMENT
• CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
• TAX AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT
• GREEN GOVERNMENT
• GOVERNMENT DATA MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT SECURITY
• GOVERNMENT CLOUD
• GOVERNMENT ANALYTICS
• GOVERNMENT GIS
• CONNECTED GOVERNMENT
• DIGITAL INCLUSION
• EDUCATION IT
• HEALTHCARE IT

Central Government, Citizen Engagement, Local Government

Social media framework for Asian govts?

By Robin Hicks | 16 November 2010

Could Facebook or Twitter operate as a public service delivery channel? With the help of an overarching social media framework for Asian governments, it could soon become the platform of choice for engaging citizens and delivering services.

First tabled by Adaire Fox-Martin (pictured), Vice President, Public Services, SAP Asia Pacific, at the FutureGov Summit last month (October 2010), Social Media for Public Sector – or ‘SocMePS’ - is a framework designed to help Asian government agencies make better use of the citizen engagement opportunities of social media.

The framework would be managed by an organisation of government CIOs, jointly facilitated by SAP, FutureGov and other industry players, which would also provide a shared knowledge-based of best practice and technology trends, and access to experts and resources, Fox-Martin proposed.

There would be four pillars of SocMePS - promoting the spirit of open, inclusive and collaborative government; ensuring citizens have equal access to social media technologies; embracing the applications of social media in the public sector; and promoting the use of social media for citizen engagement in all strata of society.

Fox-Martin pointed out that while governments, notably the United States, have been actively using social media for cross-agency co-ordination, joining public communities and making public announcements, “the thought process has not reached the stage where agencies clearly see social networks as a potential service delivery channel.”

Governments need to act on the rapid growth of social media to avoid falling behind the adoption curve, she cautioned, pointing to the meteoric uptake of Facebook in Asia.

“Government agencies should probably view social media as additional entry points to their existing eGovernment Services. However, social media channels should be integral to their existing citizen engagement frameworks,” she advised.

Social media is of little use as a citizen engagement channel if treated on a standalone basis, she added. “There needs to be complete integration between the multi-channel front-office and back-office. Only then can agencies see the seamless benefits in employing these new media channels.”

Fox-Martin predicted that within the next 24 months, most governments departments would start using social media as a constituent communications platform or as an internal communications platform. “They will then move gradually to the third – as a service delivery platform,” she reckoned.

Of governments doing social media well, Fox-Martin pointed to Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with special mention for police forces and public security agencies that are using social media for crisis management, crime information and tracing missing people.

---