Our government isn't a tweet whore (Entry 9)

We all know by now that social media is so pervasive that anyone who knows how to make proper use of it puts themselves at a great advantage.The effect of social media is too great to ignore. Take, for example, the McDonald's curry sauce debacle.

McDonald's recently had a shortage of curry sauce. We now know that it's because they were coming in with a new shipment of curry sauce with new packaging and all (and some people say it tastes funny), and there was a delay in the shipment. However, during this period, hundreds of people were outraged with McDonald's because they thought that McDonald's had discontinued curry sauce like they did with mayonnaise.

This was a guess at best, because McDonald's never released any official statement on the matter because they didn't think it was a big deal. Temporary shortage. So what? The only thing that people had to base their information from is when they went to Mackers and the lady at the counter says "No more curry sauce." They probably meant "We are out of curry sauce" but people probably heard "We no longer supply curry sauce". This rumor spread like wildfire on the social media networks, and before you knew it, a significant part of the population was lit up over Macs not having curry sauce anymore. Only a few days later did McDonald's respond on their Facebook page explaining the temporary shortage, but the damage had already been done.

On to my main point. We all know by now that social media is an important tool in any company ot organization's PR efforts. Why, then, does the government still insist on not utilizing Twitter properly? Anybody who follows the PAP on Twitter knows that there's almost no point in following the PAP on Twitter anymore. Their Twitter account is practically dead!

Let me compare two shots, one of the Democrats' Twitter page, the other of the PAP's Twitter:

The Democrats

The PAP

Can people not see the disparaging difference in usage between the two? It only seems that the PAP tweets during election or National Day Rallies, basically only during times when they want the people to listen to them. That shouldn't be the case. they should be up to date and connected all the time, for when the people want to hear from them. The Democrats tweet all the time, as they understand how they can use these social media networks to further disseminate their information effectively, not only by tweeting it, but by their followers retweeting them.

In terms of usefulness, it's obvious that not a lot of people find the PAP Twitter the least bit useful, considering the 5,124 followers as of this post, as compared to the blogger Xiaxue, who has 84,571 followers. The government needs to step up and recognize that here lies a very crucial tool that they are letting go to waste. They could be utilizing this and become more credible and connected in the eyes of the people.

The Prime Minister recently pledged for a new PAP. Let's hope this includes being more well-connected and in touch with the population.