An EU funded project managed by the European Union Office in Kosovo
Implemented by a Consortium led by Consulting & Management Ltd (C&M)
Ministria e Integrimit Evropian
Ministarstvo za evropske integracije
Ministry of European Integration

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Whilst this practical guide to social media implementation has been written specifically for Kosovo’s Ministry of European Integration, it is envisaged that it can also assist all
Kosovo Ministries who are working on the EU integration process to increasingly deliver effective social media best practice. It also seeks to improve co-ordination with communications colleagues at the Ministry of European Integration.
There is no single template approach to social media. However, there are a clear set of guiding principles that can be applied to ensure that social media delivery is both strategic and effective. In order to actively demonstrate these principles, a live case study was implemented with the Ministry of European Integration communications team on the opening of Kosovo’s negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association
Agreement with the EU on 28 October 2013 – a historic moment for the country, and a news story of major strategic importance. Primarily focussed on Facebook and twitter, the results demonstrate what can be achieved to step-up engagement when best practice principles are applied to social media delivery.
The Ministry of European Integration communications team initiated this guide to drive forward better co-ordination and delivery of Kosovo’s EU-related communications.
Advance strategic planning and communications across the relevant Kosovo Ministries will support an integrated campaigns approach towards achieving Kosovo’s EU goals
- and this must include social media.
This guide has been written to capture practical capacity building efforts with the
Ministry of European Integration, in order to share these more widely with other relevant Ministries in Kosovo. The author is Zeenat Khanche, who brings over 10 years experience in government communications as a UK diplomat, including in press & public affairs, ministerial speechwriting and policy-led campaigns. She wrote Kosovo’s
National Digital Diplomacy Strategy in 2012 and has been supporting delivery, within the Kosovo Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was invited to work with the Ministry of
European Integration on this short project in October / November 2013, to build the
Ministry’s capacity on social media delivery, as part of the EU Perspective in Kosovo
(EUPK) project, supported by the EU Office in Kosovo.
The Ministry of European Integration, Press, Communications and Information team, is lead by Flamur Salihu, with social media delivery also supported by Gezim Dushi. Both have contributed extensively to the content of these guidelines by providing practical examples and putting to practice the recommended social media communication tools.
They have taken the lead to create a peer support group for the use of these guidelines and to drive forward better co-ordination and delivery of Kosovo’s EU-related communications with the Government Communications Offices.
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Digital and social media is a core communications activity for organisations including government departments and Ministries around the world. In a world of 24-7 media and increasing citizen participation, it has become a vital tool for engaging with wider audiences, who may not necessarily be influenced by traditional government outreach or media activity. It takes serious policy beyond the context of official meetings, and brings it into people’s daily lives on their computers and smartphones. It provides the opportunity for fast, immediate and frequent communications with audiences who have indicated an interest, particularly when they have selected themselves as your followers and fans.
In Kosovo, many of the key Ministries already deliver social media activity. However, the challenge remains in developing an approach for all Kosovo Ministries, which draws on international best practice, and ensures that messages reach the target audience, in order to have the intended impact.
Social media must be integrated into any government department’s traditional media and communications work; it is not simply a standalone activity. It should be part of every Ministry’s overall communication strategy, and be used to support and widen the impact of traditional media work.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY SOCIAL MEDIA? WHICH TOOLS CAN BE USED?
Social media platforms and tools that you may consider include Facebook, Twitter,
Linked In, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Google Hangouts, Delicous, Prezi, Storify,
Bambuser, and many others.
Each of the tools out there has a different function and will connect with audiences in different ways. It is therefore important to make sure that you choose the most relevant platform to reach your target audiences. Carrying out active listening and research on your audiences before you deliver any campaign, will guide you on which social media platforms are the best to reach your audience and achieve your objective. There is no point delivering an ambitious communications strategy on twitter, if your main target audience is located elsewhere.
In addition, it is better to have a high-quality presence on one or two relevant social media platforms, rather than spreading far too thinly across many different channels. It is also important to consider what your actually team has capacity to deliver. For example, the Ministry of European Integration has a small press team, with only two permanent members of staff, therefore the main priority should be to ensure that the
Facebook and twitter presence is as professional and effective as it can be, and that all video content is housed on YouTube. In general, Facebook and twitter are great tools for Kosovo Ministries to communicate with key target audiences - and should be used to their maximum potential, before moving on to more sophisticated social media use.
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Facebook: the best social media channel to reach domestic audiences in
Kosovo
Almost 80% of Kosovo internet users are using the internet for communications; with
Facebook being the most popular social media platform in Kosovo, used by around three-quarters of all internet users, and English being the main language used by younger users.
This is particularly significant, when the latest research confirms that Kosovo citizens are using the internet at least as much as other European citizens and that 86. 8% of
Kosovo internet users are using the internet on at least a daily basis. STIKK’s recently updated report on Kosovo Internet Penetration and Usage 2013 found that internet penetration across the country is comparable to global norms. Internet penetration based on users is 76.6%, and based on households is 84.8%.
Facebook is an excellent platform to share rich multimedia content, including photo albums and video. It can also be used to drive content back to Ministry websites. It should not be used simply to post large amounts of text copied straight from press releases. Shorter, crafted messages will be much more effective in engaging audiences; photos are more effective still.
Twitter: short and effective messaging reaches key international decisionmakers & opinion formers
In contrast, only about 6-7% of Kosovo’s internet users are actively using twitter, however these tend to be a more influential group including politicians, opinion-formers and the media. International media and Kosovo-observers, are also very reliant on twitter as a breaking news feed, especially as Ministry websites are updated in English after a significant time lag. Using #Kosovo helps anyone on twitter who is interested in
Kosovo to track previous traffic on this subject, and find new information more easily.
The main advantage of twitter is that you can share short messages and links which drive traffic back to your websites. Its microblogging function, means that you have to carefully craft your message in less than 140 characters.
Twitter is also extremely useful as it also allows users to build two-way relationships with stakeholders and audiences. The Ministry of European Integration already follows many of its key stakeholders on twitter. But this listening and engaging should be a regular and continuous process. For example, @MEI_RKS has extended its existing audience engagement by following some of these additional accounts as direct result of this project:
@euronews - leading international news channel covering world news from
@ECFR - European Council on Foreign Relations
@Euractiv - EU News and policy debates from EurActiv.com - the European media network in 15 countries
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The main point, for all Kosovo Ministries, is that the list of people to follow on twitter will continue to grow organically, as your organisation continues to build its active listening skills.
Hopefully, at the same time, you will also grow your own list of twitter followers. Whilst the number of followers can give a measure of your social reach, what is more important is how influential your followers are, and how often they engage with you.
For example, one retweet from an influential follower, such as a Minister, can have significantly more value than a higher volume of retweets or “favourites” from less connected followers - however they should all be seen as positive, in terms of growing your audience engagement.
Ministries can engage important stakeholders by getting to know their main stakeholders, and including their twitter handles (for example including @vloracitaku,
@MEI_RKS, @StefanFuleEU) in carefully crafted tweets. This is good way to draw people into the conversation, as anyone who is mentioned on twitter receives a notification alert of this, and hopefully will then be encouraged to retweet and/or respond to the message.
Like Facebook, twitter can also be used to drive traffic back to websites and disseminate photos & videos. It is common practice to include a link in the tweet. Using a “short url” can save on characters. These can be generated using any of the many available shorteners including tinyurl, Google’s url shortener and bitly. To use these, simply take your original url or web site link and convert it by entering onto any of the above-named websites to automatically generate a shorter link. It is best to stick to the same url shortener for consistency, once you have chosen one that you like.
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Key risks and issues to consider before you do any social media
Before embarking on social media implementation within any Ministry, it is worth flagging the following general risks and pitfalls:
If you start doing social media, you need to keep up the momentum.
Content must be uploaded on regular basis. Remember once content is out on social media, it is there to stay. So prepare you messages carefully in advance, avoiding mistakes and typos.
Do not delete posts when once they are made, as this is very unprofessional. If you need to delete content or posts for a strong reason, it is better to explain why you are doing this, rather than doing so - and hoping that no-one will notice. Someone will, and it risks becoming a bigger, more negative story.
Decide on your Ministry’s policy of engagement. Ideally social media should be aiming to achieve two-way communication with audiences, rather than being one-way transmission method for disseminating press releases.
If you decide to reply to comments on Facebook or twitter, be consistent in your approach. For example, don’t engage in a lengthy twitter battle on one issue and then forget to respond to points on Facebook. Institutions must take a more measured tone than politicians.
Try to avoid use of jargon and acronyms. These do not help to deliver a clear message, especially for what is supposed to be a more informal communications channel.
Delivering effective social media is a low-cost communications channel, but adequate time and staff resources need to be dedicated to this, if it is to be successful. Ideally, it should not be something that is done quickly, or only once a press release is issued.
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In the run-up to the launch of Kosovo’s first-round negotiations with the EU on the
Stabilisation & Association Agreement of 28 October 2013, the Ministry of European
Integration media team worked through the four main best practice steps on how to do social media engagement. These include planning, active listening & engagement, publishing high-quality material and monitoring success.
The full live case study setting out the strategic thought process behind the case the delivery can be found in the annex, and the best practice steps will be covered in more detail in later sections of the guide.
1. PLANNING
As planning is a core element of any social media activity. The Ministry of European
Integration press team:
Worked up relevant hashtags to be used throughout the campaign, including
#Kosovo #EU #KosovoSAA #visalib. By sharing with, and encouraging consistent use by other Ministries and relevant stakeholders, this will help to build up a measurable campaign over the course of the negotiating period.
Crafted a number of tweets in English in advance, using twitter handles for key stakeholders meaning that they would be aware they have been mentioned, and then hopefully be encourage them to also engage with our message - a number of them retweeted as result of this approach.
2. ACTIVE LISTENING AND ENGAGEMENT
Listening, monitoring and engaging must be a core part of any social media delivery, as demonstrated by the Ministry of European Integration’s social approach below:
Monitored and engaged with key stakeholders on twitter including @vloracitaku and
@StephanFuleEU, @Petrit and retweeted relevant messages as soon as possible:
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PUBLISHING HIGH QUALITY MATERIAL
As a result of advance planning, the Ministry of European Integration was well prepared to deliver the following in terms of publishing content:
Re-tweeted in realtime, using photographs. A useful and easy-to-use tool for up-loading photographs on twitter is twitpic.
Uploaded an album of Facebook photos and crafted a short Facebook message.
(The time-lag on English language translations is a longstanding issue for Kosovo
Government press offices in terms of publishing real-time social media updates; however planning an interim message can help to manage this.)
Monitored good news coverage resulting from this story, and shared this promptly via social media channels, including a Euronews video piece, which was also sub-sequently shared by the Minister for European Integration, Vlora Çitaku on her own
Facebook page.
Realtime tweeting of photographs lead to greater engagement.
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Minister Citaku shares good news piece via Ministry of European Integration’s
Facebook page:
MONITORING SUCCESS
Following delivery of the Ministry of European Integration’s social media activity during the live case study on the launch of Kosovo’s SAA negotiations, the following evaluation was carried out:
Qualitative assessment of what sort of messages were leading to greater audience engagement. In general shorter Facebook posts with pictures and tweets in English seemed to be more effective.
Quantitative Monitoring of reach on twitter using social media monitoring tool
TweetReach.
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The results demonstrate that social media best practice implemented during the live case study significantly increased engagement with the Ministry of European
Integration’s social media. Posts during this period received increased numbers of retweets and Facebook likes. Posts were retweeted and shared by the Minister for
European Integration, as well as by other Ministers and key stakeholders.
Using tweetreach analytics, it is possible to conservatively estimate that around
100,000 twitter accounts were reached around this major strategic news story. In terms of qualitative feedback, positive feedback was received from colleagues and stakeholders, including the Minister’s Cabinet.
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This demonstrates how it was possible for the Ministry of European Integration to improve its digital communication efforts by applying some basic best principles. Other
Kosovo Ministries responsible for delivering EU communications can also significantly improve social media implementation by applying these principles too.
This, in turn, will help to improve impact and contribute to achieving both the objectives of any individual Ministry, as well as in due course Kosovo’s own objectives, related to its aspiration to conclude successful negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association
Agreement over the next year, and to subsequently join the European Union.
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This section is intended as a short checklist for all Kosovo government communications staff who are responsible for delivering social media. These guidelines are explained in more detail and with illustrative examples in the next section of the guide.
1. PLANNING IS KEY: SOCIAL MEDIA MUST BE PART OF INTEGRATED
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS DELIVERY PLANS
Social media is a key part of all your Ministry’s media and communications activity - it is not a standalone. Be strategic and focussed.
Use social media activity to support your other media work. It is not just a standalone activity: use it to drive traffic back to your websites or to break major news stories.
Identify you goals & objectives. What does success look like? Can you articulate this in just a sentence or two?
Have regular team meetings to review and refresh objectives.
Who is your target audience? Which is the best social media platform to reach them? Don’t just tweet for the sake of it!
Who is the most convincing messenger? Do they use social media? Can you co-ordinate with them in advance, either to craft messages or ensure they engage with your message.
Consider and manage risks in advance.
2. ACTIVE LISTENING & ENGAGEMENT IS ESSENTIAL
Spend 5-10 minutes every morning, after lunch, and before going home on “active listening” and “engagement”.
What are your key stakeholders saying on twitter and Facebook? Monitor them regularly: this should be a core part of your daily routine.
Are you following the right people? Follow key accounts & pages that relate to your issue or subject area.
Retweet stakeholders on twitter or share Facebook content that is relevant to your main news stories and messages.
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Consider using tools such as Google Alerts and dashboards for online monitoring, and to ensure that you are receiving all relevant latest news.
If done properly, active listening and engagement can be a way to create a relationship with key stakeholders and widen the reach of your message.
3. HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT DELIVERS YOUR MESSAGE, AND ENABLES
YOU TO TAKE PART IN A CONVERSATION
Craft messages in advance, and consider who is the most effective channel or messenger to reach your target audiences.
What is your actual message?
Who is your target audience? Consider domestic vs. international. Think carefully about who are you trying to reach, and whether this requires a different nuance to your message.
On twitter, a quick win could be to include handles for individuals and organisations you wish to engage with.
Which languages are your target audience most likely to be engaged in?
Use English if you want international media and opinion-formers to receive you message, particularly on twitter. Of course Albanian and Serbian are national languages too; though these tend to be more effective on
Facebook.
What tone do you need to adopt to be credible and professional? You need to create an appropriate voice for the organisation. Decide on your
Ministry’s policy on responding, whilst trying to make this a more authentic two-way communications process.
On twitter, identify which hashtags you want to use and create recognition for longer-term campaigns. You should also inform your key stakeholders so they can use the same hashtags too.
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4. MONITOR SUCCESS & KEEP IMPROVING
Keep track of progress in order to evaluate and continuously improve your reach.
Measure progress against your original objectives. What were the key indicators of success? And how did you do against these? Make a checklist and save benchmark data at the beginning, so you can refer to these in the monitoring process.
How many people are engaging with your social media content? Keep benchmarks to gauge what works best - sometimes it’s difficult to predict what will engage audiences, and what won’t.
Quantitative analysis: use social media monitoring tools to measure reach, for example TweetReach and do keep track of how many new followers or page likes you may have generated over a specific campaign window.
Qualitative analysis: What type of conversations are you having online and how did key partners and stakeholders engage?
Proactively get feedback from your stakeholders, including colleagues.
Did they engage with your social media activity? If not, why not? What might make them engage next time?
Continuous monitoring is essential to test out what works, and to continue refining an organisation’s overall approach to social media delivery, with genuine engagement being the overall aim.
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Building on the best practice delivery case study delivered by the Ministry of European
Integration, each of the key steps essential for effective digital communications will be considered in more general detail below. This section is also intended to cover issues of wider relevance to other Kosovo Ministries who are responsible for delivering EU communications, so that good practice on EU-related strategic social media delivery going forward can be firmly embedded.
1. PLANNING SOCIAL MEDIA IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF ANY INTEGRATED
SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS DELIVERY
Planning processes which are business as usual in government Press Offices around the world include: team meetings, a forward planning process and a media grid for each Ministry – which would then be co-ordinated with the Prime Minister’s Press
Office and other relevant Ministries. This allows press offices to be proactive and spot potential synergies in advance, rather than simply focussing effort on issuing press releases about Ministerial meetings. This can also be helpful in giving sufficient time to produce interesting multimedia content that can be used and shared during any social media campaign.
In Kosovo, for any government Press Office to be able to deliver effective social media, as part of its overall integrated media delivery, close communication with the Minister’s
Cabinet is essential. This works relatively well at the Ministry of European Integration, with the press team having access to shared online calendars via Outlook, enabling them to anticipate events and draft press releases in advance. If shared calendars do not already exist, it is a good idea to set these up. In government Press Offices around the world, a rigorous grid process is an essential part of planning. Despite the absence of a grid system co-ordinated via the Prime Minister’s office, individual Ministries in
Kosovo may still find it useful to put their own lighter grid process into place.
With the best will in the world, and even with good planning, press release themselves may not be cleared until relatively late in the day due to day-to-day pressures.
Wherever possible, drafting press releases, with accompanying social media messages in advance is recommended, so that these can be cleared together. It is essential to leave enough time to craft social media messages properly; whilst these may be a shorter form of communications, getting these right also takes time. This should not be a mere afterthought.
Remember: once you have published your social media, it remains as a permanent record, so planning is vital.
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2. ACTIVE LISTENING AND ENGAGEMENT
Active social media listening is the first, and probably the most important part of any campaign. It requires doing in-depth research to identify and understands target audiences, how they act online - and where and how online conversations are taking place. This means listening to influential individuals, organizations, media, blogs and forums.
Once you understand whether or not they are already interested in and talking about your policy area, you can find an angle and tone that is relevant to your target audience.
By co-ordinating with stakeholders and forming partnerships with relevant organizations and online groups, you will be able to engage more effectively, and take part in the debate, where it is happening, as-it happens. You also need to be able to understand the appropriate online culture and etiquette for your target audiences.
How can you build your listening skills further?
Listening isn't just something you do at the start of a campaign. You need to keep on listening to the conversation, as part of your daily routine by spending 5-10 minutes checking news feeds of all social media platforms that you manage first thing in the morning, and throughout the day. It should become part of a regular daily routine.
In addition, tools such as Google Alerts deliver relevant news and web content directly to your inbox. The web makes it easy to monitor content in real time, with a number of online tools to pull content together from various different sources.
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A very straightforward and easy tool to use is Addict-o-matic. Here’s an example of what sort of result this can provide, in terms of an instant dashboard:
More sophisticated listening tools such as Netvibes can be tailored to pull in RSS feeds from a number of different news and web sources that you are interested in following, and can be specifically set up to your needs.
Different tools tailor your listening search results in differently, and there are others out there, so it is worth trying several different tools to see which ones work best for your needs. The search terms you use, will also make a difference, so it is worth testing and refining over time.
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Example Netvibes Dashboard:
3. BUILD ENGAGEMENT BY PUBLISHING
HIGH-QUALITY MULTIMEDIA MATERIAL
Quality publishing requires planning to deliver effectively. All messages and posts should be carefully crafted, with appropriate tone and language. To get your message across to the audience, you need to produce good content and then make it available to your audience via social media channels. Multimedia material can very often help to deliver your message more effectively. Share as much varied, interesting, creative content content as possible - this can include photographs, videos, blogs and audio podcasts.
Define your message & ensure it is heard
Having clear objectives will make it easier to define your message, and to write clearly avoiding repetition. Messages often need to be heard a number of times, before they are received, so don’t be afraid to craft similar messages or repeat the same message a number of times. Where possible, do use different types of content to repeat your message.
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All tweets and Facebook messages should be carefully crafted and checked before they are published, as it is not ideal to be deleting posts once these have been made on your social media channels.
Build your narrative into a campaign
Social media needs to be integrated into traditional media activity. It is not a standalone activity, but one which should reinforce media delivery. More complex campaigns require sustained messages that can be developed over time. Key events, such as the publishing of a report, or a key ministerial meeting, should be built into planning processes and used to drive forward the narrative. Any narrative must be able flexible in response to local or world events.
Consider, who is the best messenger. Often, one’s own voice is not always the most convincing. Relevant external contacts can be ambassadors and multipliers in delivering messages that you may wish to see going viral. Do look for opportunities to work with external stakeholders and partners to deliver your messages jointly, or reinforce the message? Can you publish materials on other people’s blogs, for example?
Personal voices are often much more effective than generic, organisational accounts.
Think about how and when you can use them more. For example, the current Minister for European Integration, Vlora Çitaku is very active on twitter in her personal capacity and her account @vloracitaku has an influential following of over 12,000 including many high-profile political figures (plus another 3,638 followers on Facebook). This needs to be used by Ministry of European Integration Press Office to its best advantage.
Have a home
All content should have a home, ideally the Ministry website, which is kept up-to-date in all official languages. Outreach via other social media channels can then be used to drive traffic back to your website. However, if you are publishing a lot of multimedia content, you may consider whether you would want to wish to use other platforms to collate this. Tools such as Tumblr, which will be considered later in this guide, can be useful social media platforms to do this.
The Ministry of European Integration Press, Communication and Information Office maintains the Ministry website and a separate website on visa liberalisation both of which are translated into three languages: Albanian, English and Serbian. The MEI currently uses social media including its Facebook page Ministry of European Integration and @MEI_RKS on twitter. The press office has a steady routine of uploading latest press releases on their website, and then sharing this via Facebook and twitter.
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Produce top quality content and think about user experience
To deliver your message effectively, write clearly and concisely for the web, using images and video to bring your message to life. Content should be easy to find and navigate, with a clear layout.
Where appropriate share content from stakeholders and users, to help build two way communication. Think about where you can most effectively promote content and what type of content is appropriate to the platform that you are using.
All Kosovo Ministries should be thinking about the specific needs of their audience and how to engage them in better two-way communication. The Ministry of European
Integration is trying to move away from one-way communication, whcih had been the norm. Previously the @MEI_RKS twitter feed mostly posted in Albanian language with links taking the reader back to press releases on the website. However, with a move towards posting in English and including photos, there has been greater engagement from followers in terms of retweets and favouriting. Posting in English also helps key international audiences to pick up major strategic news stories.
Whilst twitter is a good way to drive traffic back to your website, it is also important that each and every tweet is crafted a self-standing message.
In order to make information easier for audiences to search and find on twitter, the
Ministry of European Integration, is also now using hashtags more actively when crafting tweets including #Kosovo and #EU and is proactively including the twitter handles of key people (e.g. @vloracitaku) who they need to engage with. A full list of recommended hashtags and handles for use on key Kosovo EU Integration subject areas is included below:
Kosovo’s EU integration process: recommended twitter hashtags
& handles
European Integration Process, steps, benefits and challenges: #Kosovo
#EU Led by Kosovo’s Chief EU Negotiator @vloracitaku
Stabilisation & Association Agreement negotiations: #KosovoSAA and where possible mention EU counterparts @EU_Commission and
@Samuel_Zbogar @StefanFuleEU
Visa Liberalisation: #Kosovo #EU #visalib
Rule of Law: #Kosovo #EU #ruleoflaw
Trade: #Kosovo #EU #Trade is under Deputy Trade Minister @nikaj
Agriculture: #Kosovo #EU #Agriculture under Minister @BlerandS
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Food Safety: #Kosovo #EU #foodsafety
Veterinary & Phytosanitary: #Kosovo #EU #veterinary #phytosanitary
Public Administration Reform: #Kosovo #EU #publicadministration #reform
Environment: #Kosovo #EU #environment
Energy and Energy Efficiency: #Kosovo #EU #energy
Protection of Minorities (Anti-Discrimination): #Kosovo #EU #minorities
Economic Development: #Kosovo #EU #economic development
Culture, Tourism & Cultural Heritage: #Kosovo #EU #Culture #Tourism
#Heritage #CreativeEurope
Consumer Protection: #Kosovo #EU #consumerprotection
Media Freedom and Access: #Kosovo #EU #mediafreedom
Information Society: #Kosovo #EU #informationsociety
Science and Technology: #Kosovo #EU #science #technology
Publish in real time
The 24-hour nature of the web means that journalists expect press offices to publish materials as events are actually happening. Social media can also be used to engage global audiences at any time of the day, so it is important that content is up-to-date and timely.
Ensure that translations are available quickly
It is worth highlighting the issue of translation, as it is an issue common to many Kosovo
Ministries. The Ministry of European Integration’s current translation contract means that English language press releases may not be ready to publish until the following day. This in turn holds up publication on the Ministry’s on social media channels, by which point any story is then far too late to be considered breaking news.
In order to try to manage this issue within existing resources, the Ministry of European
Integration has adopted a policy of tweeting breaking news and a short summary on
Facebook, in English and Albanian immediately.
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The English language tweet and Facebook post will link back to press releases in
Albanian on the Ministry’s website, however that website now has a Google Translate button added, so that readers can get a rough English translation, until the final, correct
English-language content can be uploaded in due course. This is demonstrated below, by sharing on social media channels and directing readers back to the website, they are able to translate via google translate in just one click. So for example, this
Facebook post in English links back to the press release on the website in Albanian:
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However, when you reach the Ministry of European Integration’s website, you are able to hit the Google Translate button at the top right-hand corner of the press release text, so that a rough translation is available immediately, to cover the time lag until the official
English translation will be uploaded:
This is a quick win, which other Kosovo
Ministries can also replicate quickly and easily.
4. MONITORING SUCCESS
Monitoring and evaluation is an important part of delivering social media campaigns. It helps to understand how successful the activity delivered has been, evaluate how far the overall objective was achieved and consider how to improve social media implementation in future. It is also important to get feedback from target audience, stakeholders and partners.
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In order to evaluate effectively, campaign goals should have been set out clearly, early on, as part of the planning process. It should be possible to evaluate your goals using both quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Qualitative measurement:
Traffic
Website and Facebook analytics provide useful information, which should be used to set benchmarks before any major campaign.
Social reach: Number of people engaging with your content
Facebook page analytics provide useful information on the total reach and viral reach of your page. These should be reviewed and recorded regularly, to monitor reach over time. Tools such as tweetreach can provide a useful snapshot of social reach on twitter; this is easier to monitor effectively if the same.
Monitoring Facebook likes/shares and retweets/favourites on twitter can help give a sense of what type of content encourages audiences to engage more. It can give and insight into what your audience wants and what type of content you might want to generate in future.
Monitoring tools such as tweetreach can help measure total reach, whilst tools like tweetdeck and Hootsuite, which are used to manage an organization’s multiple social media platforms, also can provide further insights.
Cost per impression
This is a useful measurement metric if using paid-for advertising as part of a social media campaign, such as Facebook ads or media banners on newspaper website.
Qualitative measurement:
Social reach: Quality of engagement with your content
It is worth looking closely at who has been engaging with your content and how are they engaging. Beyond the simple numbers, tweetreach also provides a useful snapshot of who has been engaged and influential on your policy issue.
By looking at how people are engaging, it is also possible to gauge whether you managed to use social media to drive forward a sensible and intelligent debate about the message you are trying to communicate. It is worth tracking the quality of the debate.
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Stakeholder feedback
Feedback from your key stakeholders, including both internal and external, is essential in terms of thinking about how to refine and improve your approach in the future.
Keeping all of your stakeholders engaged offline, will also hopefully lead to better engagement on your social media channels. By talking to key external stakeholders, you may find ways that you can work together to amplify your social media reach.
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1. PLANNING DIGITAL CAMPAIGNS: THE CAMPAIGN PLANNING PROCESS
Planning for digital or social media campaigns is no different from strategic communication planning processes, which are delivered using traditional media channels. All digital campaigns should be fully integrated with your work across other communication channels. But the way you deliver your message, must be appropriate to the digital platform or channel that you are using; generally you can adopt a slightly more informal tone on Facebook, twitter and blogs.
The strategic communications planning process can be summarized in the following diagram:
SITUATION ANALYSIS
Existing information & identifying gaps
EVALUATION
& LESSONS
LEARNED
TARGETAUDIENCE?
WHAT IS THE
MESSAGE?
Local/global
DELIVERY USING
APPROPRIATE
CHANNELS
CAMPAIGN
STRATEGY &
DELIVERY
PLANNING
OBJECTIVE / GOAL
Clearly articulate
Situation analysis: what do you know already?
An initial situation analysis is essential to build a basic understanding of the current state-of-affairs. It can help identify research gaps, where further information may be required. This could include identifying a need to carry out a survey to gather baseline data, and set benchmarks against which you can monitor your progress once the communication campaign has been delivered.
Using online survey
Online tools such as Survey Monkey can be a very quick and easy way in which to run surveys. Once the questions have been inputted into the survey, a link to it can be disseminated via Facebook and twitter. Once the survey is complete, this tool automatically generates graphs and statistics. This can be used as benchmark data for any communication campaign where you trying to change opinions. The same survey can then be run again after the campaign has been delivered, to provide comparable data.
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Set your objective
Once you have collected relevant data, set a goal for the campaign. Ideally this should be articulated in clear language in one sentence. Writing the goal is critically important to driving forward the success of any campaign.
Objectives should be SMART:
Strategic
Measureable
Acheivable
Realistic
Time-Specific
Example audience/message grid
The simple mapping grid below can help you plan your digital communications campaigns to best reach your different target audiences. By breaking down your target audiences (for example: domestic, international, businesses, students, opinionformers) and what they currently believe, you should be able to design digital communications activities which will persuade them by using messengers who will convince them, on communication channels which you know they are using.
TARGET
AUDIENCE
WHAT DO
THEY BELIEVE
NOW?
WHAT WE
WANT THEM
TO BELIEVE?
WHICH
MESSAGE
WILL MOST
CONVINCE
WHICH
MESSENGER
WILL MOST
CONVINCE
ACTION -
WHICH
PLATFORM
OR CHANNEL
IS MOST LIKELY
TO REACH
THE TARGET?
Stakeholder mapping
If your digital communications campaign is likely to be complex and long-term, you may wish to carry out a stakeholder mapping exercise to understand who your most important stakeholders are, and therefore who you need to keep actively engaged.
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Firstly identify who all your stakeholders are; usually this should be a brainstorming process. Then plot them on the axis below. Place the most positive and active stakeholders on the top-right hand section of the grid, whilst placing those who are more negative on the left-hand side of the grid, and those who are less active on the bottom half of the grid.
ACTIVE
KEEP SATISFIED MANAGE CLOSELY
- negative + positive
MONITOR
(minimum effort)
KEEP INFORMED
INACTIVE
By going through this process, you should be able to identify your most important stakeholders and how much you need to engage with them. This should also help you to identify relationships between the different stakeholders.
Delivery
Following this approach can help to deliver of relevant, successful communications activities, whether digital or using traditional media. This has been covered in more detail in the section related to the need produce top quality content and think about user experience on pages 25-28 above.
Monitoring
Monitoring should be a core part of your activity, and campaigns should be properly evaluated once delivered, to inform the situation analysis in advance of the next campaign. Monitoring has been covered in depth on pages 28-30.
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2. RUNNING A TWITTER PRESS CONFERENCE
Once any Ministry has built sufficient expertise and experience with using twitter, more sophisticated uses of twitter may be considered, such as running a twitter press conferences with the Minister. Twitter press conferences are being used extensively by government press offices, including in countries like the US, UK, Israel and even now
India.
How to run a press conference on twitter?
Set a date and time slot for the twitter press conference, and publicise it in advance using your social media channels.
Make clear whether or not you will accept questions in advance, or only during the press conference itself (pros: advance questions gives more time to prepare answers, cons: advance questions may take away from the momentum of the press conference itself.)
If you are using a Minister to front the press conference, this should ideally be run via their own twitter account and they should actively take part in this process.
Make clear what topic(s) you will be covering in the press conference in advance. Anticipate questions, facts & figures and hashtags that you want to use, in advance.
If possible, start the press conference with some kind of announcement, even better if you have pictures.
Make sure, you've engaged with a few key journalists or stakeholders in advance, so that they know that they need to be taking part!
Answer questions quickly and in realtime, during the conference itself.
This needs to be team effort, as time will run very quickly during the event itself. Ideally, one person should be crafting responses, whilst another person can be actually putting them on twitter and monitoring new questions as they come in.
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3. BLOGGING
Blogging platforms are not currently extensively used by Kosovo Ministries. Whilst many Ministers, including the Minister for European Integration may write informal columns for local Albanian language newspapers, which are published on their websites, this is very different from using a blog to present or explain particular policy priorities in sustained, strategic manner.
Blogs have been used by Ministries around the world to share an alternative and more personal and informal voice on the policy work of the Ministry. Blogs can be written by
Ministers, Ambassadors, officials, and invited guest bloggers. Guest bloggers may include experts and activists on a particular subject.
Blogs will ideally be integrated onto your own websites, or these could be hosted on an external blogging platform such as Blogger, which is Google’s weblog publishing tool.
A good example of how blogs can be used effectively by a Ministry is the UK Foreign &
Commonwealth Office’s Global conversations.
This screenshot gives an overview of the policy of blogging, and sets out clearly its policy on a blogging as personal and informal communications tool:
Global conversations
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4. OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS THAT MAY BE RELEVANT TO KOSOVO MINISTRIES
As social media delivery capacity increases, press teams across Kosovo Ministries might want to consider which other social media channels could help reach target audiences or may be suitable for different types of campaigns.
Tumblr
Tumblr can be a good platform for sharing multimedia content to build up a particular campaign. It can be an alternative to setting up a new website, or ensuring that existing websites are not overloaded with multimedia content.
It can best be described as multimedia blog, with content appearing in chronological order. Video, audio and photographs can all be uploaded to Tumblr, though ideally any video will first be hosted on platforms such as YouTube so that the link can be shared.
Content is very easy to share and upload, using the Tumblr dashboard:
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As well trying to build followers, the link to your tumblr feed can shared across your other main social media platforms, including Facebook and twitter, when new content is uploaded.
An good example of how tumblr can be used to share multimedia content is US
President’s White House Tumblr page. A further example of how tumblr can be used to build long-term multimedia campaigns is the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s tumblr on the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative below:
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Other tools to consider in future
LinkedIn can also be particularly effective if your target audiences are businesses, though further research would probably be helpful in determining whether Kosovo businesses actually use this platform at all, and whether this is their preferred channel for interacting with relevant Kosovo Ministries.
Storify is a more sophisticated platform for bring together and curate content from across the web, to build a particular narrative. It is worth considering for long-term campaigns.
Further tools such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are good for management multiple social media accounts, timing messages to go out at the same time (using for planning messages to go out for events over the weekend) and also provide more indepth metrics on audience reach.
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This case study was developed in the run-up to 28 October 2013, and is included as an example for other Ministries to demonstrate the thought process involved in implementing social media best practice. Whilst it is now retrospective; it sets out some of the key issues around delivery.
Situation Analysis
The first round of SAA negotiations between Kosovo and the EU took place on
Monday, 28 October 2013. This was a moment of major interest from target audiences including both domestic media, as well as Brussels-based, EU and wider international news media. Details of these negotiations were of even higher interest, given that they took place in the run up to local elections on 3 November 2013.
Objective:
To increase engagement with key target audiences around the launch of Kosovo’s EU
SAA negotiations on 28 October 2013, to demonstrate how implementation of social media best practice can help increase engagement.
Target audience
In many countries, Government Press Offices have had to evolve and adopt a more campaign-like approach to keep their multiple audiences engaged and interested.
Target audiences for this particular issue are likely to include: local Albanian & Serbian language media; English language international media; EU stakeholders, other Kosovo
Ministries involved in SAA negotiations, opinion-formers, academics, businesses and the general public.
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Creating interesting content and authenticity
Building real two-way conversation requires communicating in languages that all your target audiences can engage with and producing high-quality multimedia content which can also be shared via these channels.
An individual will always have a more authentic and genuine voice. Personalities such as the current EU Integration Minister will attract media attention and audience engagement, and these connections should be used to tactical advantage by the generic Ministry social media accounts; for example sharing relevant tweets from the
Minister in a timely manner.
Below are number of tweets about the start of the EU SAA negotiations from the
Minister of European Integration Vlora Çitaku. As these are on message, the MEI Press
Office can can also demonstrate its proactivity by disseminating these messages on the MEI twitter feed:
How to build real engagement by listening?
Here is good example of where the MEI has been actively listening and engaging.
Luckily this twitter user is aware of the @MEI_RKS twitter handle and has proactively included it in his message, generating a notification which has encouraged a retweet from both the Minister for European Integration and the MEI:
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42
Who else does MEI need to listen to? Relevant opportunities to engage should not be missed.

Key stakeholders including the Minister for European Integration, who is also Kosovo’s
Chief EU Negotiator Vlora Çitaku (@vloracitaku), the EU’s Enlargement Commission
Stefan Füle (@StefanFuleEU) and the European Union in Kosovo (@EUKosovo) have all been tweeting about the forthcoming SAA negotiations and these should not be missed. Proactive action to engage should be taken as soon as such an opportunity appears.
Action points during live case study
The following actions where completed during the course of the live case study:
Decided on appropriate twitter hashtag(s) for the duration of the campaign, especially as this is going to be a medium-term campaign over a number of months.
Decided to focus on using twitter in English language to reach inter- national audiences, whilst posting in Facebook in Albanian/Serbian to reach domestic audiences, with selected posts where stories are likely to be wider interest to also be in English.
Communicated the chosen hashtags across the Ministry’s communications team, including the Cabinet & the Minister so that everyone can be using these consistently. This makes it easier for twitter user to find all related tweets on a particular subject and makes is easier to evaluate reach.
Decided who we actually wanted to engage with, checked MEI wa already following them and wherever possible included individual’s twitter handles into draft tweets crafted.
Actively listened, and retweeted appropriate stakeholders ASAP include from the Minister/EU stakeholders; which also in turn makes the twitter feed more interesting to followers!
Crafted advance tweets in English using appropriate hashtags and handles.
Delivered messages via social media in real time, including posting more creative messages and content, including photos via twitter and a
Facebook photo album.
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Tried to generate more engagement, by including stakeholder twitter handles in MEI tweets or by naming them on Facebook.
Evaluated delivery by monitoring whether more retweets and engagement were generated than usual and worked out social reach of selected hashtags using tools like www.tweetreach.com
In future, social media reach can be further improved by talking to external stakeholders and partners in other organizations well in advance, asking them to like and share out material around high-profile moments such as these.
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© European Union Office in Kosovo
All rights reserved. Reproduction without prior agreement is prohibited.
This guide has been produced with the assistance of the European Union Office in Kosovo and Ministry of European Integration. However, its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the official views of the European Union or the
Government of Kosovo.
Concept and content: Zeenat Khanche
Design: V. Shabani
Proofreading: Aladin Tunuzliu
Manuscript finalised in November 2013
Cataloguing in publication – (CIP)
The National and University Library of Kosova
316.77:32(496.51:4/9)
A guide to implementing social media in support of Kosovo’s EU integration process /
Zeenat Khanche. - Prishtina : N. B. G. T. “Iliri”, 2014. – 50 f. : ilustr. me ngjyra ; 21 cm.
1.Khanche, Zeenat
ISBN 978-9951-8894-8-3
For further information please contact:
Flamur Salihu
Ministry of European Integration, Head of Communications & Information Office
+381 38 200 27043 flamur.salihu@rks-gov.net
Gëzim Dushi
Ministry of European Integration, Communications Officer
+381 38 200 27014 gezim.dushi@rks-gov.net
Ministry of European Integration
+381 38 200 27 001 http://mei-ks.net
European Union Office in Kosovo
+381 38 51 31 200 delegation-kosovo@eeas.europa.eu
http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/kosovo

www.stikk-ks.org/uploads/downloads/STIKK_raport_eng_2013_web_08.pdf
www.mfa-ks.net/?page=2,4,1944&offset=0 www.tinyurl.com
www.goo.gl
www.bitly.com
www.twitpic.com
www.tweetreach.com
www.tweetreach.com
www.google.com/alerts www.addictomatic.com
www.netvibes.com/en www.mei-ks.net/?page=1,1 www.visalib.info/en www.facebook.com/pages/Ministry-of-European-Integration/232561776787179?fref=ts www.twitter.com/MEI_RKS www.tweetreach.com
www.about.twitter.com/products/tweetdeck www.hootsuite.com
www.surveymonkey.com
www.blogs.fco.gov.uk
www.tumblr.com
www.youtube.com
ww.whitehouse.tumblr.com
www.preventsexualviolenceinconflict.tumblr.com
www.linkedin.com
www.storify.com
www.tweetdeck.com
www.hootsuite.com

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