A 20 Page Guide to 140 Characters

It took a fastidious government document spanning 20 pages to inform British government officials how to use Twitter, the microblogging tool with a limit of 140 characters.

The Twitter strategy was created by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as a guide to Twitter's importance and why government departments should tweet more, despite the risk of criticism of jumping on the bandwagon and pointless content.

The document presents a series of ideas on how to communicate better with the public, recommending that tweets should be human and credible.

The new guide proposes that officials should consider releasing "exclusive content" – such as insights from ministers, answering questions from voters and tweeting on ministers' whereabouts, provided it does not infringe on security.

One of the biggest problems will be to get the right tone – the informality of the service means that Twitter users might not like "dry" departmental tweets. He added that those running the Twitter feeds will have to put up varied links to other interesting information, rather than just web links to press releases.

"Generally, departments Twittering is a good thing because it allows them to build their own communities of interest and get their message out," said Tom Watson, a former British labor minister. "You give interesting links, you give informative knowledge, you give a flavor of what the departments are doing at the time and what the issues are, and frankly if the they don't give that, people unsubscribe from their link and they're not being very good Twitterers."

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Brian Swann
VCU Brandcenter / Creative Brand Management / 804-690-7048
www.brandcenter.vcu.edu / swannbr@gmail.com