.
On July 13th, Sister Cities International kicked off its 60th Anniversary Celebration at its Annual Conference and Youth Leadership Summit. Across four days, representatives from around the globe celebrated the promotion of “Peace through People.” Diplomatic Courier is pleased to provide our coverage of the Summit. We invite you to share your impressions with us, using #SCI60years.
Food, Culture, Music, and Sports: Diplomacy Through Unique Platforms
“If there’s one thread of cultural DNA that runs through all of us, [it’s] the arts.” David Beame, Global Citizen, sums up what this Sister Cities International forum was all about. Diplomacy is traditionally seen as the profession of managing international relationships through government representatives, but what many do not realize is that diplomacy can start much smaller, through the intermingling of cultures.
This forum explored the way that the speakers have advanced cultural diplomacy through their involvement in the arts, in sports, and in food. Beame and Jane Chu, National Endowment for the Arts, are both primarily involved in the arts, but Beame focuses on the power of celebrity culture and exposure whereas Chu uses more traditional forms of art. Beame’s organization aims to create the largest group of people possible to end extreme poverty, using major public figures such as Coldplay, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vice President Joe Biden, and First Lady Michelle Obama by “leveraging their reach and voices and artists in order to create diplomacy.”
Chu’s organization focuses on using the arts in order to bridge gaps between cultures, as she believes art is one of the most nonthreatening channels that levels the playing field between countries. Growing up in a Chinese-American household, Chu has always been comfortable straddling conflicting or contrasting cultures.
While traditional art is the most “highbrow” area of culture, sports and food also play a major role in shaping a country’s culture. Former NFL player-turned-journalist Danté Stallworth, and Chef Mary Beth Albright were invited to discuss the role of sports and food in creating diplomacy.
Stallworth said that sports affect the lives of people all around the globe and creates the possibility for bonding even between countries with deep tensions, uniting people on local, national, and international levels. The evidence of sports-led diplomacy can be seen at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Jessie Owens became close friends with German citizens regardless of the unsettling issues between the two nations. Stallworth hopes to use his experience to create an example of how sports can transcend skin color, languages, and histories.
For Albright, “food is the oldest form of diplomacy.” However in recent years, food has become a formal government structure. Through Hillary Clinton’s Culinary Diplomacy Program, chefs are sent to foreign nations to promote their own nation’s cuisine, open restaurants, and collaborate with foreign chefs.
By using diplomacy, arts and sports can overcome longstanding cultural tensions. Chu’s organization often finds itself faced with individuals from contrasting cultures. In these cases, the goal of their program is not to change an individual’s beliefs, but to search for even the most miniscule point to connect on, and to work on diplomacy through that one small spark.
One of the most famous examples of cultural diplomacy is “ping pong diplomacy,” which stems from an event in the 1970s where the Chinese table tennis team invited their U.S. counterparts to attend the 1971 World Championship in Japan. Even though Beijing and the U.S. were unable to see eye-to-eye, diplomatic ties began to normalize when journalists accompanied the American team to Japan, bringing an end to a 20 year information blockade.
Smart Cities, Resilient Cities
If you do not know the term ‘smart cities’ yet, you will no doubt hear about it many times in the coming years.
Smart cities aim to integrate information and communication technology solutions in a secure and sustainable fashion to manage a city’s assets. As globalization continues to grow and populations skyrocket, local and national administrations will soon be faced with the dilemma of accommodating the surge of people in a smart and resilient way.
In this forum, Councillor Aileen Graham, Belfast City Council, Dr. Scott Massey, CumberlandCenter, Russell Vanos, Itron, and Joel Paque, The Nature Conservancy, explore what the keys to building an effective smart city are. The panel members’ experience ranges from government administration to business ownership and nonprofit work.
A smart city would not be considered smart without its technology, and panel members Vanos and Graham stressed the importance of using technology and data to build a sustainable infrastructure. There is an increasing role for technology in developing multi-departmental partnerships. During his time at Aitron, Vanos has built networks to collect data important to cities and critical service delivery. He emphasized the interconnectivity of waste, and that one of the biggest problems facing our current infrastructure is that cities are often dealt with in ‘silos’ of individual problems. By creating cross-departmental partnerships, improving efficiency in one sector could easily lead to improved efficiency across the board.
“Nobody thinks about how amazing [electricity] is until the lights go off, and then it’s all you think about,” Vanos said, as he urged audience members to think critically about the infrastructural implications of their own projects. Paque echoed this sentiment, saying that there was a very real possibility to redefine the fundamental relationship between cities and nature. This includes using green infrastructure, collecting citywide data, and pinpointing sectoral problems that exist outside of any administrative structure.
Aside from local partnerships, Massey also touched on the importance of scaling down to individual partnerships as well as scaling up to international partnerships between sister cities. When facing problems, he hoped that audience members would reach out to their sister cities and build off of their knowledge.
However, these relationships start on the individual level. The importance of person-to-person communication could not be overstated, Massey argued, stating that “One of the fundamental things that makes a city capable and resilient […] starts in the culture, in the individual relations, in the levels of trust, in the levels of personal interaction and communication.”
Lastly, panel members touched on the importance of high-level support to facilitate partnerships. For Vanos, working in 130 countries means that he has plenty of relationships to manage, and he said that if a country does not have strong leadership, it is a country he does not want to be involved in. This high-level support can come from key businesses, from politicians, or from high-profile members of the media – what is key is that someone is taking ownership and initiative. When this high-level support works in conjunction with partnerships at every level, many of the administrative problems cities face today will become problems of the past.
Engaging the Emerging Generation
One of the biggest benefits of Sister Cities International is that it does not discriminate based on age. Through themes of partnership, community, and service, it bridges the gap between generations. At the Summit, older men and women conversed with high schoolers, all from different nationalities, ethnicities, and backgrounds. In light of this incredible connection, the youth of today must be exposed to as many diverse professional experiences as possible. This forum explores the ways in which panel members Jane Erickson, Andy Rabens, Anna Mahalak, and Scott Beale have engaged the younger generation through international partnerships.
Erickson is part of Kiwanis, an international program service club found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas. The hope of Kiwanis is to work with youth leaders, especially in Key Club (a youth service organization), and instill a sense of service from a young age.
Rabens, Special Advisor for Global Youth Issues, facilitates citizen diplomacy and relationship building in order to combat future violence. For Rabens, the three tenets of youth efforts are: how to identify young leaders, how to connect to them, and how to follow up with them.
Mahalak is the Manager of Youth Engagement at the United Nations Foundation and works with the United Nations Association (UNA). The goal of UNA is to mobilize Americans to work in a special US/UN relationship to apply classroom concepts to real world problems.
Beale is the Founder & CEO of Atlas Corps, a “reverse Peace Corps” that engages in multilateral service ventures for young leaders. Beale finds that “talent in this world is universally distributed, but opportunity is not.” Atlas Corps strives to engage as diverse a population as possible, believing that more diverse teams lead to greater outcomes.
A major theme of the forum was how to engage an increasingly pessimistic generation. Erickson and Beale both had similar advice, telling youth in the room to believe in themselves and to network with individuals who believed in you, and believe in the possibility for greater change. The key was to start moving now, even if it is for the wrong reasons (e.g. getting into a better college), because in Beale’s opinion, “[You] can’t decide when you’re 40 that you want to make a difference. You can’t decide when you’re 50 that you want to make an impact, and you can’t let other people decide for you.”
Mahalak encouraged the motivated young leaders in the room to take every opportunity to practice their civic engagement skills and take advantage of the opportunities that surround them.
For the older individuals in the room especially, Erickson encouraged mentor relationships. Mentors give youth the opportunity to interact with individuals they do not usually meet, to learn lessons without making mistakes, and to grow a valuable network.
The forum ended with some parting words of advice from each panel member, including a reminder that “the world is not all doom and gloom,” and that young leaders should view the world through a lens of economic opportunity and progress. Panel members hoped that each individual in the room would make a connection with someone they had never spoken to before, closing the forum by heralding dozens of new relationships.
Measures That Matter
The recession of 2008 had a huge impact on the economy, extending far beyond the monetary losses that individuals, businesses, and governments alike suffered. In an attempt to recover from the recession, stakeholders needed to justify every dollar spent, but “for some of the best organizations, almost 90% of the measures [were] useless.” Sister Cities International, like some of these organizations, did not have a comprehensive process capable of understanding its economic impact.
It was at this time founder and CEO of valueideas Jay Mathur stepped up to offer his services. Through his usage of Measures That Matter technology, he began the long journey to analyze the true economic significance of Sister Cities International.
In its initial stages, Mathur’s study revealed many astounding statistics about Sister Cities International. There were over 14,000 visits from 1,100 inbound exchanges, with more than 33,000 volunteers coming from the U.S. alone. These massive exchanges and events injected approximately $525.7 million into the U.S. economy – a number that held a global purchasing parity power of nearly $42 billion.
Armed with these statistics, Mathur delved deeper, understanding the need to expand the economic dimensions of the study. However, Mathur did note that although economics are extremely important, these do not supersede the value of global communities. He argued, “A network is nothing but its members. [The] economic dimension is a necessary dimension, but it’s not sufficient itself.”
With this in mind, Mathur went on to revamp the way Sister Cities International conducted its analysis. First, the data survey was expanded. Then, one-on-one discussions and webinars were held for interested cities, before data was finally collected. Through his analysis of the Atlanta, Fort Worth, and Nashville case studies, he discovered that Sister Cities International had the strongest impact on the following areas: travel and tourism, volunteers and in-kind contributions, and local and foreign business investments. The implications of these findings go beyond just U.S. cities and hold potential for major global impact. “Dollar for dollar, there are countries where we can make tremendous impact through investment and friendships,” Mather said.
Although Mathur’s study was a resounding success, there were still many lessons to be had. The study’s economic dimensions needed to be expanded even more.
With new numbers coming in every week, Mathur realized that Sister Cities International’s economic value was still being understated. This is due to factors that are very hard to measure, such as the exact impact of cultural exchanges and partnerships. One of the leading indicators of economic activity is local enthusiasm and engagement, but intangible factors such as “local enthusiasm” or “culture” are still very hard to wrangle into an economic study.
In the coming months and years, Mathur hopes to further refine the survey in order to use it as a template for documenting economic impacts even faster. He also hopes to engage with more members, to disseminate his findings to sister cities around the world, and to hopefully gain a deeper understanding of intangibles such as the economic impacts of Sister Cities International’s unique culture.
Sharing Your Story In A Tech World: #DigitalDiplomacy
In a world where most people spend their time glued to a screen, it is no wonder that governments and businesses are stepping up their social media game. In one of the last forums of Sister Cities International 60th Anniversary Summit, U.S. Department of State’s Moira Whelan discussed what digital diplomacy was, why it is important, and how members of the audience could utilize to effectively reach their audiences.
Digital diplomacy is the use of common tools to further diplomatic efforts. It empowers the individual, encourages engagement, and allows the U.S. and other governments to connect with global events and citizens. In the United States, digital diplomacy began with former Secretary of State Clinton’s term, and Whelan believes that “social media has gone from being an afterthought to being the very first thought of world leaders and governments.”
Nowadays, over 6,000 tweets are sent per second, there are 1.4 billion active Facebook users each month, and every minute, more than 300 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded.
In a space this competitive where media jumps in and out of the spotlight in milliseconds, it is incredibly difficult to effectively harness social media. However, sister cities’ members must learn how to use social media to reach their target audience. Social media provides a platform for unconditional communication, and there is an increasing digital divide between governments who embrace its use and those who shun it. For those who have ushered in an age of hashtags and viral videos, there is been marked success. The State Department utilizes 10 platforms, reaching more than five million people daily – just from their headquarters. Worldwide, every country has a Facebook presence at the very minimum, while most utilize Twitter as well.
When creating a social media campaign or policy, there are some key questions to address: who, what, why, and how.
Who do you want to reach? Depending on which group of people your audience is, different social media platforms will have more success.
What are you trying to say? “Content is king,” Whelan says. Pinpoint what the purpose of the content is, discuss the best way to say it, and understand what you can do to utilize existing content.
Why are you trying to say this? Whenever engaging in social media, everything you do should tie into an overall goal, whether it is a call to action or an invitation to more dialogue. It is also critical to decide whether your social media policy is event themed or thematic, and whether you hope to make a long-term or short-term impact.
Lastly, how are you utilizing the social media? Making effective use of all your tools and having someone who holds primary responsibility for the message are just two of many ways to maximize your social media efficacy. The primary use of social media is to expand the room and invite more people to the conversation.
One of the best examples of social media engagement is the daily briefing that the White House does. Currently, the U.S. is the only administration that does a broadcast like this every single day, with great results to show. Whelan believes that this broadcast is a great example of pinpointing a goal, allowing for extensive audience engagement, and spreading a message through social media.
Most importantly, Whelan cautions those looking into social media to remain authentic. “Engage, don’t broadcast. Digital begins and ends in analog, [so] plan for day 30 and day 100, not day 1.”
Sister Cities International is a Thought Partner for Diplomatic Courier’s World in 2050 series. To learn more about the series and how you can be a Thought Partner, visit: https://www.diplomaticourier.com/2050/.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
a global affairs media network
Sister Cities International’s 60th Anniversary Celebration
July 30, 2016
On July 13th, Sister Cities International kicked off its 60th Anniversary Celebration at its Annual Conference and Youth Leadership Summit. Across four days, representatives from around the globe celebrated the promotion of “Peace through People.” Diplomatic Courier is pleased to provide our coverage of the Summit. We invite you to share your impressions with us, using #SCI60years.
Food, Culture, Music, and Sports: Diplomacy Through Unique Platforms
“If there’s one thread of cultural DNA that runs through all of us, [it’s] the arts.” David Beame, Global Citizen, sums up what this Sister Cities International forum was all about. Diplomacy is traditionally seen as the profession of managing international relationships through government representatives, but what many do not realize is that diplomacy can start much smaller, through the intermingling of cultures.
This forum explored the way that the speakers have advanced cultural diplomacy through their involvement in the arts, in sports, and in food. Beame and Jane Chu, National Endowment for the Arts, are both primarily involved in the arts, but Beame focuses on the power of celebrity culture and exposure whereas Chu uses more traditional forms of art. Beame’s organization aims to create the largest group of people possible to end extreme poverty, using major public figures such as Coldplay, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vice President Joe Biden, and First Lady Michelle Obama by “leveraging their reach and voices and artists in order to create diplomacy.”
Chu’s organization focuses on using the arts in order to bridge gaps between cultures, as she believes art is one of the most nonthreatening channels that levels the playing field between countries. Growing up in a Chinese-American household, Chu has always been comfortable straddling conflicting or contrasting cultures.
While traditional art is the most “highbrow” area of culture, sports and food also play a major role in shaping a country’s culture. Former NFL player-turned-journalist Danté Stallworth, and Chef Mary Beth Albright were invited to discuss the role of sports and food in creating diplomacy.
Stallworth said that sports affect the lives of people all around the globe and creates the possibility for bonding even between countries with deep tensions, uniting people on local, national, and international levels. The evidence of sports-led diplomacy can be seen at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Jessie Owens became close friends with German citizens regardless of the unsettling issues between the two nations. Stallworth hopes to use his experience to create an example of how sports can transcend skin color, languages, and histories.
For Albright, “food is the oldest form of diplomacy.” However in recent years, food has become a formal government structure. Through Hillary Clinton’s Culinary Diplomacy Program, chefs are sent to foreign nations to promote their own nation’s cuisine, open restaurants, and collaborate with foreign chefs.
By using diplomacy, arts and sports can overcome longstanding cultural tensions. Chu’s organization often finds itself faced with individuals from contrasting cultures. In these cases, the goal of their program is not to change an individual’s beliefs, but to search for even the most miniscule point to connect on, and to work on diplomacy through that one small spark.
One of the most famous examples of cultural diplomacy is “ping pong diplomacy,” which stems from an event in the 1970s where the Chinese table tennis team invited their U.S. counterparts to attend the 1971 World Championship in Japan. Even though Beijing and the U.S. were unable to see eye-to-eye, diplomatic ties began to normalize when journalists accompanied the American team to Japan, bringing an end to a 20 year information blockade.
Smart Cities, Resilient Cities
If you do not know the term ‘smart cities’ yet, you will no doubt hear about it many times in the coming years.
Smart cities aim to integrate information and communication technology solutions in a secure and sustainable fashion to manage a city’s assets. As globalization continues to grow and populations skyrocket, local and national administrations will soon be faced with the dilemma of accommodating the surge of people in a smart and resilient way.
In this forum, Councillor Aileen Graham, Belfast City Council, Dr. Scott Massey, CumberlandCenter, Russell Vanos, Itron, and Joel Paque, The Nature Conservancy, explore what the keys to building an effective smart city are. The panel members’ experience ranges from government administration to business ownership and nonprofit work.
A smart city would not be considered smart without its technology, and panel members Vanos and Graham stressed the importance of using technology and data to build a sustainable infrastructure. There is an increasing role for technology in developing multi-departmental partnerships. During his time at Aitron, Vanos has built networks to collect data important to cities and critical service delivery. He emphasized the interconnectivity of waste, and that one of the biggest problems facing our current infrastructure is that cities are often dealt with in ‘silos’ of individual problems. By creating cross-departmental partnerships, improving efficiency in one sector could easily lead to improved efficiency across the board.
“Nobody thinks about how amazing [electricity] is until the lights go off, and then it’s all you think about,” Vanos said, as he urged audience members to think critically about the infrastructural implications of their own projects. Paque echoed this sentiment, saying that there was a very real possibility to redefine the fundamental relationship between cities and nature. This includes using green infrastructure, collecting citywide data, and pinpointing sectoral problems that exist outside of any administrative structure.
Aside from local partnerships, Massey also touched on the importance of scaling down to individual partnerships as well as scaling up to international partnerships between sister cities. When facing problems, he hoped that audience members would reach out to their sister cities and build off of their knowledge.
However, these relationships start on the individual level. The importance of person-to-person communication could not be overstated, Massey argued, stating that “One of the fundamental things that makes a city capable and resilient […] starts in the culture, in the individual relations, in the levels of trust, in the levels of personal interaction and communication.”
Lastly, panel members touched on the importance of high-level support to facilitate partnerships. For Vanos, working in 130 countries means that he has plenty of relationships to manage, and he said that if a country does not have strong leadership, it is a country he does not want to be involved in. This high-level support can come from key businesses, from politicians, or from high-profile members of the media – what is key is that someone is taking ownership and initiative. When this high-level support works in conjunction with partnerships at every level, many of the administrative problems cities face today will become problems of the past.
Engaging the Emerging Generation
One of the biggest benefits of Sister Cities International is that it does not discriminate based on age. Through themes of partnership, community, and service, it bridges the gap between generations. At the Summit, older men and women conversed with high schoolers, all from different nationalities, ethnicities, and backgrounds. In light of this incredible connection, the youth of today must be exposed to as many diverse professional experiences as possible. This forum explores the ways in which panel members Jane Erickson, Andy Rabens, Anna Mahalak, and Scott Beale have engaged the younger generation through international partnerships.
Erickson is part of Kiwanis, an international program service club found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas. The hope of Kiwanis is to work with youth leaders, especially in Key Club (a youth service organization), and instill a sense of service from a young age.
Rabens, Special Advisor for Global Youth Issues, facilitates citizen diplomacy and relationship building in order to combat future violence. For Rabens, the three tenets of youth efforts are: how to identify young leaders, how to connect to them, and how to follow up with them.
Mahalak is the Manager of Youth Engagement at the United Nations Foundation and works with the United Nations Association (UNA). The goal of UNA is to mobilize Americans to work in a special US/UN relationship to apply classroom concepts to real world problems.
Beale is the Founder & CEO of Atlas Corps, a “reverse Peace Corps” that engages in multilateral service ventures for young leaders. Beale finds that “talent in this world is universally distributed, but opportunity is not.” Atlas Corps strives to engage as diverse a population as possible, believing that more diverse teams lead to greater outcomes.
A major theme of the forum was how to engage an increasingly pessimistic generation. Erickson and Beale both had similar advice, telling youth in the room to believe in themselves and to network with individuals who believed in you, and believe in the possibility for greater change. The key was to start moving now, even if it is for the wrong reasons (e.g. getting into a better college), because in Beale’s opinion, “[You] can’t decide when you’re 40 that you want to make a difference. You can’t decide when you’re 50 that you want to make an impact, and you can’t let other people decide for you.”
Mahalak encouraged the motivated young leaders in the room to take every opportunity to practice their civic engagement skills and take advantage of the opportunities that surround them.
For the older individuals in the room especially, Erickson encouraged mentor relationships. Mentors give youth the opportunity to interact with individuals they do not usually meet, to learn lessons without making mistakes, and to grow a valuable network.
The forum ended with some parting words of advice from each panel member, including a reminder that “the world is not all doom and gloom,” and that young leaders should view the world through a lens of economic opportunity and progress. Panel members hoped that each individual in the room would make a connection with someone they had never spoken to before, closing the forum by heralding dozens of new relationships.
Measures That Matter
The recession of 2008 had a huge impact on the economy, extending far beyond the monetary losses that individuals, businesses, and governments alike suffered. In an attempt to recover from the recession, stakeholders needed to justify every dollar spent, but “for some of the best organizations, almost 90% of the measures [were] useless.” Sister Cities International, like some of these organizations, did not have a comprehensive process capable of understanding its economic impact.
It was at this time founder and CEO of valueideas Jay Mathur stepped up to offer his services. Through his usage of Measures That Matter technology, he began the long journey to analyze the true economic significance of Sister Cities International.
In its initial stages, Mathur’s study revealed many astounding statistics about Sister Cities International. There were over 14,000 visits from 1,100 inbound exchanges, with more than 33,000 volunteers coming from the U.S. alone. These massive exchanges and events injected approximately $525.7 million into the U.S. economy – a number that held a global purchasing parity power of nearly $42 billion.
Armed with these statistics, Mathur delved deeper, understanding the need to expand the economic dimensions of the study. However, Mathur did note that although economics are extremely important, these do not supersede the value of global communities. He argued, “A network is nothing but its members. [The] economic dimension is a necessary dimension, but it’s not sufficient itself.”
With this in mind, Mathur went on to revamp the way Sister Cities International conducted its analysis. First, the data survey was expanded. Then, one-on-one discussions and webinars were held for interested cities, before data was finally collected. Through his analysis of the Atlanta, Fort Worth, and Nashville case studies, he discovered that Sister Cities International had the strongest impact on the following areas: travel and tourism, volunteers and in-kind contributions, and local and foreign business investments. The implications of these findings go beyond just U.S. cities and hold potential for major global impact. “Dollar for dollar, there are countries where we can make tremendous impact through investment and friendships,” Mather said.
Although Mathur’s study was a resounding success, there were still many lessons to be had. The study’s economic dimensions needed to be expanded even more.
With new numbers coming in every week, Mathur realized that Sister Cities International’s economic value was still being understated. This is due to factors that are very hard to measure, such as the exact impact of cultural exchanges and partnerships. One of the leading indicators of economic activity is local enthusiasm and engagement, but intangible factors such as “local enthusiasm” or “culture” are still very hard to wrangle into an economic study.
In the coming months and years, Mathur hopes to further refine the survey in order to use it as a template for documenting economic impacts even faster. He also hopes to engage with more members, to disseminate his findings to sister cities around the world, and to hopefully gain a deeper understanding of intangibles such as the economic impacts of Sister Cities International’s unique culture.
Sharing Your Story In A Tech World: #DigitalDiplomacy
In a world where most people spend their time glued to a screen, it is no wonder that governments and businesses are stepping up their social media game. In one of the last forums of Sister Cities International 60th Anniversary Summit, U.S. Department of State’s Moira Whelan discussed what digital diplomacy was, why it is important, and how members of the audience could utilize to effectively reach their audiences.
Digital diplomacy is the use of common tools to further diplomatic efforts. It empowers the individual, encourages engagement, and allows the U.S. and other governments to connect with global events and citizens. In the United States, digital diplomacy began with former Secretary of State Clinton’s term, and Whelan believes that “social media has gone from being an afterthought to being the very first thought of world leaders and governments.”
Nowadays, over 6,000 tweets are sent per second, there are 1.4 billion active Facebook users each month, and every minute, more than 300 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded.
In a space this competitive where media jumps in and out of the spotlight in milliseconds, it is incredibly difficult to effectively harness social media. However, sister cities’ members must learn how to use social media to reach their target audience. Social media provides a platform for unconditional communication, and there is an increasing digital divide between governments who embrace its use and those who shun it. For those who have ushered in an age of hashtags and viral videos, there is been marked success. The State Department utilizes 10 platforms, reaching more than five million people daily – just from their headquarters. Worldwide, every country has a Facebook presence at the very minimum, while most utilize Twitter as well.
When creating a social media campaign or policy, there are some key questions to address: who, what, why, and how.
Who do you want to reach? Depending on which group of people your audience is, different social media platforms will have more success.
What are you trying to say? “Content is king,” Whelan says. Pinpoint what the purpose of the content is, discuss the best way to say it, and understand what you can do to utilize existing content.
Why are you trying to say this? Whenever engaging in social media, everything you do should tie into an overall goal, whether it is a call to action or an invitation to more dialogue. It is also critical to decide whether your social media policy is event themed or thematic, and whether you hope to make a long-term or short-term impact.
Lastly, how are you utilizing the social media? Making effective use of all your tools and having someone who holds primary responsibility for the message are just two of many ways to maximize your social media efficacy. The primary use of social media is to expand the room and invite more people to the conversation.
One of the best examples of social media engagement is the daily briefing that the White House does. Currently, the U.S. is the only administration that does a broadcast like this every single day, with great results to show. Whelan believes that this broadcast is a great example of pinpointing a goal, allowing for extensive audience engagement, and spreading a message through social media.
Most importantly, Whelan cautions those looking into social media to remain authentic. “Engage, don’t broadcast. Digital begins and ends in analog, [so] plan for day 30 and day 100, not day 1.”
Sister Cities International is a Thought Partner for Diplomatic Courier’s World in 2050 series. To learn more about the series and how you can be a Thought Partner, visit: https://www.diplomaticourier.com/2050/.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
