
Social media for diplomats
From Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin to selfies, emojis, and even cats… All you need to know, or close to it.
In the past few months I tried to expand on my 2013 Twitter for Diplomats (free via the DiploFoundation) and my 2015 Digital Diplomacy: Conversations on Innovation in Foreign Policy (via Rowman & Littlefield and Amazon). The goal was to collect best practices and better understand how world leaders, governments, and the diplomatic community engage on social media.
The result is a collection of posts here on Medium. Hopefully, they’ll nurture more engagement in the area of foreign policy, inspiring new best practices and better engagement.
After all, the use of social media and digital platforms is increasing among government entities around the world. And new trends are now consolidating.
Two recent polls I posted on Twitter:
Click the images below to explore how different social media platforms can improve your outreach — more will be added in the future. And feel free to comment and suggest additions.
Social media platforms (click images below):
Trends on social media:



Cats, politics, and digital diplomacy
Why does a digital diplomacy blog write about cats?
😂🌍🇺🇸 Emojis for diplomats
Storytelling via round smiley faces, thumbs up, and flags.
#selfies for diplomats
No matter the platform, world leaders love selfies! But what about ambassadors, embassies, and diplomats?
Medium for diplomats:
In the past 12 months, I tried to understand how the international community is experimenting here on Medium.
The monthly series — the last post of Digital diplomacy on Medium was published in June — also includes a list (I’ll be updating it soon) of world leaders and governments currently using Medium, a list of embassies, as well as of international organizations.
“One of the beauties of Medium is that it covers an almost-infinite variety of topics,” the platform’s co-founder and chief executive officer Ev Williams wrote in a March 2017 post.
And indeed, the foreign policy community and many international actors have found a home here on Medium.
Digital Diplomacy, the publication:
Digital Diplomacy is a publication here on Medium. It started in the summer of last year and has grown to almost 8,000 followers.
I’m grateful to the many contributors who have agreed to participate with their amazing posts! And thank you to the many who contributed with quotes, including ambassadors Arturo Sarukhan, Tom Fletcher, and Euripides Evriviades, and Medium head of politics Matt Higginson.
Please explore their Medium channels, and follow them on social media. So far, the contributors to Digital Diplomacy are (in alphabetical order):
- Hend Alhinnawi
- Altoros
- Corneliu Bjola
- Rob Bole
- Noémie Buffault
- Noel Dickover
- Nancy Groves
- Victor Guzun
- Danny Hajjar
- Neil Lawrence
- LiveStories
- Matthias Lüfkens
- One Young World
- Chris Painter
- Siftery
- Sebastian Woller
Let me know if anybody is interested to contribute.
And don’t forget to clap 👏 👏👏👏 !!!






