Countries should promote themselves more on Twitter: Burson-Marsteller

While all the English-language country names of the UN nations have been registered, only a third of them (71) are actively used. The rest are either dormant  (43 accounts), inactive (30 accounts), protected (13 accounts) or suspended (36 accounts).

Almost half of the 71 active accounts are tweeting an automated news feed broadcasting news about the country.

The nine nations that have secured their country name are: @AntiguaBarbuda, @Barbados, @GreatBritain, @Israel, @Lithuania, @Maldives, @SouthAfrica, @Spain, and @Sweden.

The accounts of  @Ireland and @NewZealand are run by a group of private citizens taking turns to manage the account day-to-day in what has become known as ‘rotation-curation’.

Unsurprisingly perhaps for a country that has banned Twitter, the @China account was registered by a private individual who identifies herself as Laura. The account is protected, but there has been no activity at all.

So far, the best examples of country promotion on twitter are @Great Britain, @Israel and @Sweden, said the PR firm. 

@Sweden, which handed its account to 'ordinary' Swedes, even took home the Cyber Grand Prix at this year's Cannes Lions. The Curators of Sweden project was launched in December 2011 and has been copied with varying success by @Ireland and @NewZealand. The project has also inspired volunteer groups in over 20 countries to engage in what has become known as the rotation-curation movement.

@GreatBritain is part of the ‘Britain is Great’ campaign launched in March 2012 to highlight everything that is great about the United Kingdom.

@Israel is the country’s official Twitter channel, maintained by the Foreign Ministry's digital diplomacy team and is one of the most followed country accounts, with more than 66,000 followers.

“Looking at the findings it becomes clear that few governments and tourism organisations have understood the power of country branding and marketing on Twitter,” said Matthias Lüfkens, head of the Burson-Marsteller EMEA digital practice. “There is a huge opportunity for countries to use Twitter as part of their communications to engage with a large and growing audience.”

However, three out of five country accounts are either protected, dormant, inactive, or suspended and almost half of the 71 remaining active accounts are tweeting an automated news feed broadcasting news about the country.

“Looking at the findings it becomes clear that few governments and tourism organizations have understood the power of country branding and marketing on Twitter,” said Matthias Lüfkens, head of the Burson-Marsteller EMEA Digital Practice. “There is a huge opportunity for countries to use Twitter as part of their communications to engage with a large and growing audience.”

Data used was taken in November 2012 looking at the Twitter handles of the 193 UN member countries. Burson-Marsteller used Twitonomy (http://twitonomy.com) to analyze tweeting patterns and the Twitter history of each account.