It has
been nearly three months since the inauguration of the Facebook page of
Vietnamese Minister of Health. Since she was the first high-level official
officially using social media to connect with public, the public has expected
that the Health Minister will set a milestone in Vietnam’s old-fashioned public
administration. To come up with such expectation, it seems that the Health
Minister needs a well-designed social media strategy, rather than a grand
opening but small follow-up like the current fanpage.
The
Facebook page was created in late January 2015, representing the voice of the
Ministry of Health in relationship with the public. Immediately, it attracted
more than 80,000 likes since Vietnam public was exciting to use social media,
which has been quite popular in the country, to connect with the Minister. For
the first two months, the content strategy aims at “updating information about
public health, medical issues and receiving information or complaints about heath
care service”. The “push” tactics have been used to deliver information to the
public, and as a result, the public was informed about latest news and policies
in medical area on time. Some significant achievements were made, and the
Minister was praised for appropriate responding the comments, quick solving the
complaints about notorious public health care service, and even calling for
helps with the poor.
However,
it seems that the Minister does not have a professional social media team, and
this will negatively affect the efficiency of her social media activities. She
is handling the page by herself, and cannot respond or get updates from the
page after 11:00. Normally, the frequency of professional news, updates and
comments are during the working time. Even though the posting policy says that
all comments will be responded after 11:00pm, the audiences can wait, but the
crisis or emergency cannot. For example, if a comment about a reportedly bribe to
get a slot of health checking in a public hospital is posted in the morning or
noon, it will attract a lot of rising voices and criticism about the notorious
health care service in the country. Once responses from the authorized person
come after 11:00pm, it will be too late to stop the scandal from wide
spreading.
Furthermore,
since there is no professional social media team to help the Minister in
administering her Facebook account, the grand, successful opening is resulted
with small follow-up. While in the first 2 months, she keeps posting at least
one time a day, the number of post fluctuates from several times a day to one
for several days. The content strategy has been changed also, from updating the
Minister’s activities, medical information, new policy or humanitarian calling
on, or answering to common questions just sharing information from other
newspapers. This content change is easily realized by the audiences, and may
affect their interest in the page, and drive them out of the page. It will also
negatively affect the engagement characteristic and viral outreach of the page.
In
conclusion, to actively maintain the Facebook page of the Health Minister and
make them a spearhead in Vietnam Public Administration Reform, a social media
strategy for the page is needed. The strategy should include goals, potential
audiences, content strategy and posting policy, including both time and
administration of posting. Some tactics should be used, especially pull
strategy to get more audiences and stakeholders engage in. Personnel
recruitment holds no less importance and should be taken into account for sake
of a more active social media platform of a public manager.
----Trang DANG----
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