Language Use in Digital Diplomacy Via Social Media

In our research projects in the use of social media in Public Diplomacy and Digital Diplomacy, we’ve noted some interesting aspects around what language people will use in their primary communications. This is important, as what language is being used in a social media channel can be a prime indicator of “who” a message or communication is aimed at. For example, with the Syria crisis ongoing an in the Egypt crisis of 2011, we would see abrupt changes in the primary language used, especially in video content, between Arabic and English. In 87% of the videos analysed on video channels such as YouTube and Vimeo relating to the Syria crisis, English was used, especially in narrated videos. If the intent of the authors was to reach an Arabic audience, they would use Arabic, but instead used English. A similar pattern evolved with the Egypt crisis of 2o11. We’ve noted similar patterns in the Sudan and Haiti.

English is the primary language used online and certainly the main language an organisation would use to gain the attention of western news media and governments. When tagging videos, blog posts or images and using hashtags on Twitter, these are predominantly English. Also keeping in mind that the top social media channels such as Twitter, blogging platforms or YouTube are Western tools delivered mostly in English.

Digital diplomacy is not just the bane of governments, it is a powerful soft power tool used by well organised non-state actors and ad-hoc groups to gain attention from not just western governments and news media, but from the general population and perhaps diaspora communities where the originating native tongue is not spoken as much; such as with third generation diaspora. Understanding language usage can be an important element of defining primary and secondary messages to various audiences. As more governments and state/non-state actors engage in these back-channel public diplomacy tactics, new subtleties and dynamics will begin to emerge in the world of digital diplomacy.

Digital Diplomacy is A New Soft Power Element

Digital Diplomacy…is it worthwhile? What is the impact if any? Why even bother with digital diplomacy? And there are more questions than that as the U.S. and the UK lead the way in digital diplomacy. So what does digital diplomacy even mean? In short, it means a government putting out it’s foreign policy messages via social media channels, looking to engage in dialogue with the target countries. It’s not without some controversy and there are those who suggest it’s just a form of cultural export…

Digital Diplomacy is certainly an aspect of Soft Power, of which one element is cultural exports. Hard Power is the use of force, such as military elements deployed to project force to ensure a foreign power understands the threat and the potential of damage to them from the use of Hard Power. On the other hand, Soft Power is a complex set of tools ranging from embargoes through to exporting ones culture; such as Bollywood movies entering the Western entertainment field and American television being broadcast into European households. Or MacDonalds in many countries.

Digital Diplomacy is a new element of Soft Power. It enables countries that use it well, to reach an audience through social media channels that it might not otherwise reach. By the US State Department and the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) use of the same tools, they have the ability to project their foreign policy views into other countries. It also enables the average citizen of the U.S. or UK to participate in communicating the message of a government through their own choice. A prime example may be the diaspora of a country living in America sharing and discussing US foreign policy issues to people in their homeland.

As a result of this citizen to citizen (C2C) engagement, a foreign government can engage in dialogue and undermine a dictatorship or ensure a greater understanding of their objectives, bypassing the rhetoric of a totalitarian regime such as in Burma or Syria. It can also bolster the support of rebel groups, such as those in Syria, that a foreign country acknowledges their issues and mission.

The Best Part of Digital Diplomacy
Diplomacy is all about ideas, ideologies and views of how the world could be. Most importantly, when properly executed, digital diplomacy can help foster more open dialogue. When we understand each others views, opinions and concerns more clearly, we are less likely to seek conflict as a method of resolution. By the U.S. and UK and increasingly Norway and Sweden, use digital diplomacy by engaging in dialog through Twitter, blogs, Google+, Facebook and other tools, they provide a second viewpoint than that of a particular State.

When such engagements deepen the reach into civil society in a state of conflict or where the leaderships rhetoric is more violent in its intent, dialogue might more easily happen. This is a good thing. As long as people are talking, there is less chance of violent outcomes. Social Media tools enable an opportunity to engage civil societies in more dialogue. That can’t be a bad thing can it?

How Men & Women Deal With Content in Social Media

With the rapid and almost surprising rise of content curation or “social bookmarking 3.0″ site Pinterest, we wanted to take a deeper look into just how men and women curate their digital content. This represented a challenge, as we don’t use surveys to ask these kinds of questions, we passively collect and analyse information and turn it into “intelligence” – you see, it’s intelligence we use to make decisions, not information (as stated by JFK.) The methodology we used is below if you’re interested. Our sample size was 250 men and 250 women; treated as blinds in aggregate, no personal information was collected/analysed.

Women & Content Curation in Social Media
Women are “gatherers” and to some degree “hoarders” of digital content. But while they collect more content online, they are also more organised with their content and tend to share across a broader network. Women also collect more text content than men, such as blog posts. Women discuss societal issues (laws, education and healthcare etc.) about 20% more than men. Men, however, discuss politics 24% more than women. Women “tag” content more than men as well; part of their being better organised on content curation. When it comes to discussing technology such as apps or devices, women will focus on the benefits.

Men & Content Curation in Social Media
Men are haphazard collectors of content. They prefer video and images and rarely tend to share text information. Men don’t collect and organise content as much as women either. There is also a tendency to “one-up” each other in groups by sharing content that would be seen as being “better”, as in funnier or more interesting than the last piece of content shared. Men also tend to share “humorous” content more than any other kind, preferably video format. For men when it comes to discussing technology such as as apps or devices, they will debate the features over the benefits, including price. Men also share less across networks they aren’t as familiar with, whereas women are more open and social in new apps.

Similarities
As we’ve seen in general trend analysis, the preferred forms of content to be created and shared and also curated it turns out, is video and images. Text is still common, but less of it. We’ve seen the average blog post dwindle from 800 words in 2009 down to less than 300 in 2012. Both men and women prefer video and image. And when it comes to ranting or opinion-making on news sites, we see both men and women almost equally sharing their views. Both men and women tend to curate more content on sites that are easiest to use, such as Pinterest or Storify, perhaps in part explaining their success. We also found that women would recommend an online app or tool 40% more often than men. But men would recommend technology devices more than women by 15%.

Some Conclusions
For apps designers and developers – keep thinking ease of use. For marketers, women remain in Cyburbia as they tend to in the real-world, the best networkers and the ideal target to drive popularity of general consumer apps and products. Women return to and keep content (in social bookmarking sites, social networks etc.) more than men and are far more organised overall.

Methodology
To do this, we looked the profiles of 250 men and 250 women who had active (engaging in each platform at least three times per week) publicly available profiles in sites such as Pinterest, Gentlemint, Delicious, Google+, Storify, Cowbird and Twitter. We also looked at 50 open Facebook groups where 25 had predominantly male membership and 25 with predominantly female members (over 98%.) We then ensured they were within the age bracket of 30-45 using our methodology for doing this (which is proprietary to us but has a 87% accuracy rate.) We also ensured a cultural distribution across Caucasian, African American/Canadian and Asian ethnic groups. Profiles were random across the United States, UK and Canada. We did not collect any information from profiles that were not publicly available. We do not collect names or locations of test profiles, no such data is retained on our servers at any time. Names may be reviewed as part of gender validation only, but are not kept or stored in any form after analysis and verification. None of the information is re-sold to a third party unless it is in aggregate form.

Posted By: Davis for the team which included almost all of us and a lot of debate and statistical fights in which the CEO often left to get “coffee”….

Where Twitter Apps Fail Miserably

There are a number of Social Media Engagement apps on the market, such as Hootsuite, Siesmic and TweetDeck. They all offer pretty much the same capabilities with Radian6 offering “nice dashboards” to help you, apparently, understand sentiment etc. So we tested Hootsuite, Seesmic and TweetDeck and here’s what we found…their ability to “search” and then actually find users was surprisingly limiting. In part this may be largely due to the cost of the feeds they buy. It costs upwards of US$30,000 a month to get real-time feeds from Twitter and other sources. While storage may be cheap, processing and bandwidth remain expensive.

Methodology: For all of the above tools we used 20 different account profiles with each service. We then identified 50 different Twitter accounts with a range of 30 to 5,000 followers and 20 of the top trending hashtags over a 5 day period. We also used some localisation hashtags including #Halifax, #Calgary, #Toronto, #SanFrancisco, #Chicago, #London, #Liverpool and #Boston to get an international sense of tweets.

Hootsuite: We found that Hootsuite failed to identify known Twitter accounts 46% of the time and didn’t register hashtags 39% of the time with a 3 month window.

TweetDeck: With this app we found TweetDeck failed to identify known Twitter accounts 54% of the time and didn’t register hashtags 76% of the time with a 3 month window.

Seesmic: Was the worst with failing to to identify known Twitter accounts 76% of the time and didn’t register hashtags 82% of the time with a 3 month window.

So What? You Could be Wasting Serious Money:
Well, if you’re using these apps, it means that on a mean average, you will only find 22% of the accounts talking about your brand, service or issue. That means that “keyword” analytics are nice, but are weak and have a long way to go. The fact is, human oversight and integrating third party tools along with more sophisticated software is what makes the difference. These tools that enable digital engagement and also known as “social media monitoring” apps are okay for major brand keywords but can fail when it comes to hyper-local or evolving results.

Who Won’t Be Engaging in Social Media?

There’s always the marketing hype of “everyone’s on social media, so get on board…” But not everyone is engaging in social media. Or at least, not as themselves; and we’re not talking lurkers, creepers and hackers. We’re talking every day folks. Here’s a list of the types of people you’re not likely to hear very much about or from and if they are online, they’re usually quiet and lock down their privacy.

Prosecutors: Having an open Facebook profile (or perhaps a Facebook account at all) or Google+ profile or putting their name out there in a significant form and contributing a lot – not likely. It would be easy for criminals they convicted to get information on them. This could put themselves, family, friends and co-workers at risk.

Correctional Workers: Pretty much for the same reason as prosecuting attorneys.

Military Personnel: Some military personnel work in rather classified areas. They may use anonymous avatars, but will be very low-key if engaged.

Police Officers: Some may be more visible than others, but they run the same safety risks as prosecutors and corrections officers.

Lawyers: Some are very active in social media, while others will keep a low profile or be very conscious of how and when they engage.

Government Personnel: Some government personnel, perhaps senior management, won’t be very active in social media. This may range from not wanting to engage with staff to being very busy as it is or to having to maintain a low or zero profile due to the nature of their work.

At Risk Executives: By this we mean senior management in companies that are in controversial sectors, such as the resource extraction sector or chemicals. There are activist groups that are more militant in nature and may pose a security risk, while there are others that might spam them or cause problems. These executives need to keep a low or zero profile.

Can you think of others? Why not add them here…