We raised a concern on this platform about government officials using their personal social media accounts when Shahbaz Sharif assumed the office of Chief Minister Punjab and started using his personal handles for Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Shahbaz Sharif currently has over 2.1 million followers on Twitter and another one and a half million on Facebook. He gathered all these followers while being the CM of the Punjab.
Now Shahbaz Sharif will have to leave Chief Minister-ship one day, whether it’s a year or 10 years from now, and his social media accounts are going to go along with him.
New CM Punjab, whoever he will be, will have to start from scratch with ZERO followers.
ISPR made exactly the same mistake as Gen Asim Bajwa used his personal handle (@AsimBajwaISPR) for official tweets.
Gen Bajwa gathered over 3.05 million Twitter followers, who are assumed to be key decision makers, government officials, journalists, businesses and other cream of local and global Twitteratis.
These immensely important followers are apparently going to go along with Gen Asim Bajwa as Gen Asif Ghafoor, new DG ISPR, has already made a new Twitter handle that had just 17K followers at the time of filing of this report.
Not to mention, there’s one twitter handle for ISPR Official (@ISPR_Official) but that’s barely used as it only re-tweets the Facebook posts.
At a time when one tweet can actually topple governments (remember 2014 Dharna and impact of Gen Asim Bajwa’s tweets), a well planned social media strategy is a must.
In such circumstances its important to make sure that public office holders are made to use social media accounts that are retained with the offices they bear after they leave positions.
New DG ISPR is apparently making the same mistake once again, as he has setup his own Facebook page (FB.com/MajGenAsifGhafoor) instead of using ISPR’s official Facebook account for daily updates.
Here’s the takeaway:
- Public offices must have their official Twitter and Facebook accounts
- Public office bearers should be bound to use only official social media handles
- Public office bearers should refrain from using personal social media handles for official matters
ProPakistani has become GEO – Sensational headlines and no content in the post except the least important points exaggerated…
e.g Very important followers like decision makers, seriously :D
I won’t argue with someone who can’t imagine the worth of Gen Asim Bajwa’s followers.
You argument is obselete, new studies show you need a face to the designation on social media, people don’t like talking or replying to company logos. Social media is not a website, the more human factor u have, the better the results.
So you can display your own images, change handle identifiers to match your name, instead of creating new accounts from scratch.
@aamir7:disqus bro, my point is that ProPakistani has a substantial audience and lately we all think that the quality of the content is getting lower and lower.
We want exceptional stuff, inside news, product launches, new entrants, VC fundings, Telco’s key growth plans.
Its not the end of the world, but i see your point. There are hundreds of tools & hacks for twitter, that can auto follow all of general bajwa’s followers and then put up a pinned tweet to ensure majority of those come back to follow the new DG.
The headline looks 100% correct to me. No exaggeration or anything. In fact, the headline is an understatement and only mentions that ISPR will lose millions of followers.
In this age of social media and connectivity, you think losing “a few million” followers is a small matter?
logical and nice observation.
if according to you his followers are not that important than why create a social media page at the first place ? Were Asim Bajwa and ISPR wasting their time on twitter ?
It’s the 21st century and technology is important.
I think ARY, Dhunya, Sama and Express spread more 3rd class news.
Felt sorry for writer saying “one tweet can topple governments” , if that is assumed true then Pakistan’s name should be immediately changed to Generalistan and Civilians should be officially declared slaves.
Making own handler to earn money. simple
It doesn’t matter at all, as it makes no difference, no one is serious around here
You nailed it
True
@aamir7:disqus Ideally it should be done the same way like @Potus. Or a simple solution would be to get in touch with Twitter and ask them to move all the followers to new DG’s account. It’s not rocket science and I guess our military has very experienced IT professionals as compared to the civilian government.
Mazak kar rahay haina bhai ap sach btaiay ga:D
Americans already have solution to this
http://time.com/4567113/barack-obama-donald-trump-twitter/
Shahbaz Sharif is political person and will keep the presence even if he is not CM whereas a Govt employee will vanish from scene when out of office so it was a huge mistake by Mr. Bajwa.
Handles and name can be changed in Twitter but these mafia-like Generals are after social name, that’s all start from Pasha till now.
This is ISPR’s new official twitter account https://twitter.com/OfficialDGISPR
I was thinking same when new DG ISPR created his new twitter account with vanity url showing official dg ispr,what about this when he retires from the dg ispr post?
Good Catch
I totally agree with the concerns raised in this article.
Really folks it is indeed a serious matter that they will lose followers and the followers have to follow new DG ISPR or CM of any province really it is:)… Sochna chahiay yar is baray main committee banai jaye Admin Sab ya JIT bithaa dayn?????
OK but this mistake can easily be rectified by telling Gen Asim to hand it over. All faujis are owned by the GHQ for life – in service or out especially the senior ones.
I think it is better the way it is. You must understand that twitter comes with history of tweets. You are concerned about Followers, but what about tweets based on personal interest. For example if there was a @CMPunjabPK ONE handle.
Shehbaz Sharif on @CMPunjabPK tweets will be like ” Dharna politics is against development of country”.
And he may block all PTI members as he does :D
After 2 or may be 7 years When Chaudhary Sarwar becomes CM Punjab (Farz ker len :)), He might like to remove his predecessor’s tweets, because it will be shown as images in social media from same account.
He surely will like to unblock PTI members and may block PMLN members :)
Similarly ISPR Official in democracy will be like “We support democratic Govt in Pakistan”
ISPR Official when imposing Marshal Law (Far or Near Future) :D
“Democracy can not resolve issues of Pakistan”
You see how much mess I created? :D but this is true and best approach is make you own tweets and followers.
When policies and interests are changed with person, then keeping the same tweets and followers becomes irrelevant.
i totally agree with the writer. DG ISPR should use official ISPR twitter account instead of personal account.