Jakarta Globe, November 15, 2012
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| Twitter logo is displayed at the entrance of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. (AFP Photo/Kimihiro Hoshino). |
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Geneva.
Only nine out of 193 UN member states own Twitter accounts bearing their
country name, and only three of those accounts have been officially verified by
the micro-blogging site, according to a report published Thursday.
In
“Twiplomacy”, a study looking at country branding on Twitter, communications
firm Burson-Marsteller said it had found that most country name accounts were
held by private individuals and that three out of five were either dormant,
inactive, suspended or protected, meaning they can only be seen by accepted
viewers.
“Few
governments and tourism organizations have understood the power of country
branding and marketing on Twitter,” Matthias Luefkens, who heads
Burson-Marsteller’s digital practice unit, said in a statement.
Only the @GreatBritain,
@Israel and @SouthAfrica handles were verified by Twitter as official accounts
run by the countries’ governments or tourism boards, Luefkens told AFP.
Britain’s
account was a successful part of the “Britain is Great” campaign launched in March
this year, while Israel’s account, run by the foreign ministry, was the
country’s official Twitter channel and counted more than 66,000 followers,
according to the study.
Sweden’s
Twitter account @Sweden, with 65,000 followers, is meanwhile run jointly by the
government-linked Swedish Institute and the country’s official tourism board,
but has, according to Luefkens, likely not been verified by Twitter due to its
“democratic” format, allowing a new citizen to host the feed each week and
tweet about anything that comes to mind.
The Twitter
accounts of Antigua Barbuda, Barbados, Lithuania, the Maldives and Spain are
also run by their respective tourism organizations to promote tourism in the
countries, the study showed.
It is
meanwhile not possible to tell who runs the world’s most followed country
handle, @Indonesia, which is basically a feed for news about the country and
counts 193,349 followers, Luefkens said.
Many
country-name accounts were held by private individuals, with the protected
@Egypt account profile for instance stating it was run out of the California
Bay area and that “I am not Egypt the country. Okay? I am. not. Egypt. the.
country.”
The person
who owns @Canada has meanwhile repeatedly offered to give the handle to the
Canadian government, if it gets in touch, Luefkens said, pointing out that it
is against Twitter rules to sell a handle.
He said he
was not surprised that more governments did not have control of their country
handles, pointing out that “it is only just dawning on them that this is a
powerful vehicle for communication.”
“I think it
will change quickly and governments will become more active” in trying to gain
control of Twitter accounts bearing their countries’ name, he said.
Agence France-Presse
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