APRIL 9, 2019
Use all the tools: Facebook Stories, create events, use locations, tag people
By Alexandr Roitman @AlexandrRoitman, Spokesperson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Moldova @Diplomacy_RM
As a worldwide tendency, Facebook becomes more and more popular in the Republic of Moldova, therefore we are intensifying our range of activities to reach the audience we want, and the one which wants to know about us. Taking into account that our Facebook followers are predominantly from Moldova and Romania we use one language only to deliver our messages via Facebook. We use Twitter exclusively in English mainly for our external audience. That neatly “divides” our audience, so we can create targeted messages for every category of people which follows us.
Facebook is growing rapidly in Moldova. There are currently 940,000 Facebook users in the country, more than a quarter of the total population. – Facebook has the biggest audience compared to its competitors show that Instagram has 610,000 users, Odnoklasniki (800,000), VKontakte (208,000), Linkedin (174,000).
As we see in the global statistics, in 2018 one billion Facebook users have created Facebook stories every day. Lately we started to use this mechanism to engage with our followers. It gives you not only the possibility to highlight your message, to put the „cherry on the cake”, and drawing special attention to that particular subject, but also allows you to see the number of engagements, to gather likes and to see what’s the most popular theme or situation for your audience.
We’ve noticed that the most liked, shared and viewed posts are the ones with videos in it. Thus, we increased our communicational video products (special occasion messages). Here I can bring up as an eloquent example a poetry recital by our young diplomats on the day of memory of our greatest poet, Mihai Eminescu, a video that went viral. Besides a very favorable reaction within the institution, and a positive feedback outside of it, seen by the number of likes and shares the post has received, we’ve reached an encouraging outcome in people to people contacts, and even unexpectedly in the local media.
In the last few months, we are operating under the formula 70/20/10, and it means 70% of video content, 20% photo with text (it worth mentioning that photo albums have a better reach to the audience), and 10% text messages. I would add here that due to this proactive, video-oriented activity, our reach has increased several times, making the Facebook page of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration more visible to a broader audience.
n regard to reaching a higher visibility and making your page more visited use the latest tools Facebook offers, and here I return to the Facebook Stories, but also interactive Facebook tools and addons. Proceed also to tactics which trigger your audience to interact with the page you manage, create events, use locations, tag people-try them all in order to see which is more suitable for your topic, region or interests.
In some situations, challenge your audience, experiment, dare to try new ways to reach the community you need. Facebook can also be used as the main and only communication channel. Let me explain: imagine you have a semi-official message to be sent to the press, just make a Facebook post announcing it, for example a new position opening at your institution and send it to the press. You’ll be amazed by the positive effect it will have on your page.