Join the conversation:
Enhancing participation in the Annual UNHCR/NGO Consultations through Social Media
Why social media?
One of the recommendations of the High Commissioner’s Structured Dialogue on UNHCR-IFRC-NGO
Partnership was to review partners’ existing fora for consultation. A
subsequent evaluation of the UNHCR-NGO Annual Consultations
recommended the use of technology and social media to increase
participation in the consultations by those who are unable to travel to
Geneva for the event. To date, the consultations have not included a social
media component, nor have they used technology in order to increase
participation in the consultations or give refugees a seat at the table. This
year’s Annual UNHCR-NGO Consultations will be using various social media
technologies with the view to achieving the following key objectives:
1. To raise the profile of the consultations and create public awareness of the work of the
refugee community;
2. To enable NGO staff to participate who may not otherwise be able to attend the
consultations; and,
3. To encourage the refugees and beneficiaries to have a voice within the consultations.
How to get involved?
 Tune into the Livestream for the opening and closing plenary (links to follow).
 Join the conversation via Twitter: Follow @UNHCRIAU and use the hashtag #UNHCRNGOs
 Share your input and submit your stories and media via Tumblr at: http://unhcrngos.tumblr.com
Start the conversation early
 Ensure that your colleagues, in the field and at headquarters, and project participants have the
access to the social media information (hashtags, Twitter handles, livestreaming links, etc.) well
in advance and are informed about how they can participate.
 Encourage your colleagues and project participants to start following @UNHCRIAU on Twitter
and visiting the event's Tumblr website, to keep up to date on the Consultations.
 Create videos, photos and other media about ongoing projects and encourage project
participants to create their own, and submit it to the event's Tumblr website.
Start joining the conversation – June 17 – 19th, 2014
 Tweet! – See below for dos and don’ts
 Check out the Storify stories at the end of each day of the Consultations.
 Submit interesting and relevant information and media to the event's Tumblr website.
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Quick Tips
Do
 Include an introductory tweet about the
conference. This initial tweet lets your
followers know where you are and what you
will be tweeting about for the upcoming hour
or days.
 Use and follow the conference/meeting
hashtag (e.g. #UNHCRNGOs). Using the
conference and meeting hashtags allows
followers to easily track the entire conference
conversation. Following the conference
hashtag allows you to make sure your tweets
are findable and contribute to the
conversation. – Introduce the presentation
you will be live tweeting from. If you are
tweeting from the conference and will be
attending multiple presentations be sure to
keep your followers in the loop with a quick
introductory tweet.
 Tweet direct quotes/concepts from
presentations. Use short concise quotes to
convey the presenters overall idea. Pictures of
presenters or slides are a great way to grab
attention too. BUT be sure to respect the
wishes of those who request to say something
off-the-record, particularly on sensitive topics!
 Find Twitter handles of presenters and the
handles of the organizations with which
presenters are affiliated and use those in your
tweets. If you know what presentations you
will be attending ahead of time make a list of
Twitter handles for presenters and their
organizations. This is a great way to interact
with presenters and will increase retweets. It
will also link your followers to more
information on the presenters without having
to tweet a biography.
 Link to interesting programs discussed in
presentations. When you want to provide
more information on a program or
Don’t
 Tweet for the sake of tweeting. Be picky
about what you send out. Try setting a limit for
the number of tweets you send per
presentation. You don’t want to overwhelm
people’s twitter streams. If a presentation is
going too fast to keep up wait until the end
and tweet one or two takeaways.
 Get engaged in a back and forth with other
Twitter users. If a follower asks a simple
question about a presentation that would
benefit other followers to answer then
absolutely answer. If a follower has a more indepth question that you’d like to address but
not have to send it out to your entire Twitter
following ask them to DM (Direct Message)
you. However, if someone is clearly trying to
pick an argument do not engage them.
 Use a bunch of abbreviations or slang. Yes,
that pesky 140-character limit can be quite
frustrating sometimes! However, when
possible do not overuse slang or abbreviations
such as 2 for to or too, or b4 for before.
 Directly criticize any presentation. If you were
tweeting from your personal account then you
should feel free to share your opinions, but
when representing an agency or organization
Twitter account, it’s probably best to keep
your personal opinions to yourself. Think of
the old saying: “If you don’t have anything nice
to say don’t say anything at all.”
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presentation, but don’t want to send a flood of
back-to-back tweets, look for an informative
website to point followers to.
 Send a Thank You tweet at the end of the
conference. Sending a “Thank you” tweet at
the end of conference is both polite and
signals to your followers, “that’s a wrap!”
Don’t have a Twitter account? Sign-up now!
Sign-up to Twitter:
https://support.twitter.com/groups/50-welcome-to-twitter/topics/204-the-basics/articles/100990signing-up-with-twitter
Beginners guide to Twitter:
https://support.twitter.com/groups/50-welcome-to-twitter/topics/203-faqs/articles/13920-new-userfaqs
ANNEX A: Glossary of Terms
Tweet: A 140-character message.
Retweet (RT): Re-sharing or giving credit to someone else's tweet.
Feed: The stream of tweets you see on your homepage. It's comprised of updates from users you follow.
Handle: Your username.
Mention or Handle (@): A way to reference another user by his username in a tweet (e.g. @UNHCRIAU
@refugees). Users are notified when @mentioned. It's a way to conduct discussions with other users in
a public realm. However, starting a tweet with a handle (e.g. @UNHCRIAU) greatly reduces the number
of people who see the tweet – only those who follow you and the person mentioned will be able to view
the tweet.
Direct Message (DM): A private, 140-character message between two people. You can decide whether
to accept a Direct Message from any Twitter user, or only from users you are following.
You may only DM a user who follows you.
Hashtag (#): A way to denote a topic of conversation or participate in a larger linked discussion (e.g.
#WithSyria, #TyphoonHaiyan). A hashtag is a discovery tool that allows others to find your tweets, based
on topics. You can also click on a hashtag to see all the tweets that mention it in real time — even from
people you don't follow. One of the most complex features of Twitter for new users to understand is
the hashtag, a topic with a hash symbol ("#") at the start to identify it. Twitter hashtags help spread
information on Twitter while also helping to organize it. The hashtag is a favorite tool of conferences
and event organizers, but it's also a way for Twitter users to organize themselves: if everyone agrees to
append a certain hashtag to tweets about a topic, it becomes easier to find that topic in search, and
more likely the topic will appear in Twitter's Trending Topics.
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ANNEX B: Session Specific Hash Tags*
Geographic Sessions
1. MENA Bureau - #MENA
2. African Bureau - #Africa
3. Asia Bureau - #Asia
4. Americas Bureau - #Americas
5. Europe Bureau - #Europe
Thematic Sessions
1. Partnership (including the Structured Dialogue on Partnership) - #Partnership
2. Livelihoods and Self Reliance - #Livelihoods
3. Protection of Children and Youth - #ChildrenYouth
4. Protection at Sea - #ProtectionatSea
5. Detention - #Detention
6. Internally Displaced Persons - #IDPs
7. Mental Health and Psychosocial Support - #MentalHealth
8. Statelessness - #Statelessness
9. Community Based Protection - #CommunityBasedProtection
10. Advocating for Protection Together - #Advocating4Protection
11. Resettlement - #Resettlement
Side Meetings
1.
2.
3.
4.
Cash-based assistance (follow-up) – #CashAssistance
Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity - #LGBTQIRights
Civil Society initiatives on regional protection (Asia-Pacific) - #RegionalProtection
Refugees for Ransom (follow-up) - #Refugees4Ransom
5. Faith Based Organizations - #FaithBasedOrgs
6. Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) - #SGBV
7.
8.
Girls Education - #GirlsEducation
Women’s Participation in Drug Abuse Treatment - #DrugAbuseTreatment
9. Alternative Models for International Protection of Forced Migrants - #AltProtection
10. Housing, Land and Property Rights - #HLPR
11. Rohingya - #Rohingya
*Don’t forget to ensure that you always use the #UNHCRNGOs hash tag along with the session specific
hash tags, to ensure that your tweets are linked to the general Consultations discussion
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