Page 37 - Approved Social Media Framework and Guidelines

Annexure IV: Community Creation & Sustenance

Creating & Managing Community: The utility of social media is in its innate ability to create
community of geographically dispersed individuals. However, efforts are required on a
continuous basis to create and sustain this community. Some the steps that may be taken to
ensure the same are:

· Connect with existing networks – Existing networks refer to websites, official

publications etc. The department may also like to connect it to some blogs or pages
of willing individuals and/or employees. The method of establishing such

connections should ensure that update on any one should automatically be seen on
the other e.g. through RSS Feeds etc.

· Publicise use of social networking: Existing forms of communications can be used to
tell stakeholders about the department’s endeavour on social media. Some of the
ways in which it can be achieved include – Add social network links to leaflets,
newsletters, email signatures and website, send emails all stakeholders, mention use
of social networks at meetings, events and seminars and encourage people to join in,
ensure any service seeker can find out about, and join in with, your social networks
through posters etc. at points of service access, use TV, Radio and search engines to
generate awareness about the site.

Sustaining Community: Creation of a community perhaps easier when compared to
challenges related to sustenance of a community. Some of the steps involved in
sustaining a community include the following:

· Integrating Social Media into routine: Ideally, social networking should eventually
become part of department’s day-to-day work and not be an extra workload

external to the routine functioning of the department. It should be seen as another
way of communicating e.g. while sending an email, create a tweet simultaneously or
update the Facebook page.

· Linking with similar communities: Most people join pages from the links of friends
or communities where they are already connected. One way of sustaining
community is to link to these extended communities and provide update at least
once a week. Some social media sites such as Twitter allow the user to not only
schedule tweets but also create an automated message that is sent any new
followers on Twitter. These methods may also be used for keep the stakeholders
engaged. Social networks depend on users following each other. Networks can be
built by actively following others and encouraging them to follow you. People or

organisations tend to start following you if you publish posts that are useful or
interesting to them. It is important to identify the influencers within these
communities and build mutually beneficial relationships with them.

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