I have been researching social media in the Czech Republic as a part of my group project. This has been an interesting topic because the Czech Republic has been really trying to revamp their PD efforts and become a presence on the world stage. Thus far Czech PD is currently utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube with varying degrees of perceived success. The Czech Republic has the right idea in that they need to be utilizing this new social media in order to compete in the PD world, but the real question here is: is anyone out there listening??
As it has been mentioned before social media is not an immediate fix for a nation’s PD problems, thus it seems that he Czech Republic is trying but they do not have that many followers, tweets or likes. In the twitter department they are being beaten by Hugo Chavez and Georgetown Cupcake, just to name a few, though its not hard to beat around 56 tweets and roughly 600 followers. The Czech Republic needs to be active in engaging people on social media platforms, not just posting things because if one just keeps posting items, nothing is accomplished unless their messages are actually reaching an audience. Engaging with other on the web is key and also making it known that these types of sites exist for your nation because the numbers of people who follow the Czech Republic on these forums is disproportionate to the number of exchange students the Czech Republic claims to have because exchange programs would be a great starting point for them on social media because chances are that most if not all of those students utilize at least one or two forms of social media.
Overall the Czech Republic has great potential, but in order to realize it to its fullest extent they need to be engaged in their social media PD if they are going to have it because if they do not do this, what is the point of having it? If it is not working in their favor it is silly to put forth effort if no results are coming back and no one is listening.
CZECH out some of their pages:
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46170110@N05/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/CzechOfficial
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Czech.cz?v=wall&ref=ts
Hello Czech Republic: http://czech.cz/
You can even make Czech Republic e-cards!!!
Adding to the topic, I think that Czech Republic made a huge step in the public diplomacy programs since the end of the communism. However, it has still a lot of opportunities to use and also needs to organize its programs more effectively. The coordination between its organizations is still minimal. Also, major aspects they need to work on its promotion among the other than European countries. They already made a minimal progress in the area of tourism. Creating the organization CzechTourism that is promoting Czechs culture and heritage abroad. CzechTorurism is presenting the country as a perfect tourism destination for the people that want to relax, also as a perfect tourism business destination. Especially, consider the amount of the business center and recreation centers this small state has.
ReplyDeleteCzech Republic has still more to offer then it presents. Nevertheless, the progress they made in this short period of time is pretty impressive.