Public Diplomacy Shifts to Social Media

Recently, I found this interesting article that America.gov, a major global public diplomacy website is shutting down. States Department that organized the portal decided that the portal is not as effective anymore. It decided to switch its efforts and information to social media. From now to distribute the information they will use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Is that a good decision? In my opinion some organization are blinded by today’s technological progress and development. Social media interaction can be very effective. However, not until it is used appropriate way. The State Department cannot forget that the aspects of social media is not anymore for sending information but also to engage the public and create relationship with the target audience. Without this concept in mind it is sure that its attempt could be a big failure. Many companies and organizations found out about it very fast by spending most of their promotion budget on social media while not forming a good SM strategy, which in consequence brought to a huge losses.(example: Pepsi Refresh Project) But let’s see what the future will bring for the State Department and its public diplomacy shift.

What do you think about this?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0411/Public_diplomacy_shifts_to_social_media.html#