Developing Social Media Policy for Public Agencies in Egypt

Abstract

The use of social media in governments is growing rapidly all over the world. Social media provides public agencies with diverse tools that facilitate their engagement with the public. However, social media raises different privacy, security and legal issues that need to be addressed in proper policy guidelines. In Egypt, while social media in government is relatively new, it is widely used at all levels of government. By logging on Facebook or Twitter you can follow most of Egyptian ministries’ releases and news. However, the Egyptian government lacks having social media policies that regulate the use of social media. After interviewing social media officers in different Egyptian ministries, it has been found that they do not follow concrete written policies that regulate public employees' use of social media. Being interested in the power of social media in public agencies, this paper suggests a social media policy that provides guidance on how public employees can efficiently and securely use official social media to communicate with the public. To achieve this purpose, the methodology adopted includes a review of the existing research on social media policies, analysis of current social media policies in different countries, and interviews with social media officials in a sample of Egyptian Ministries to examine how they manage their use of social media. The proposed policy is flexible and can be used by any public or even private organizations willing to use social media to interact with their target audience.