What is social media?
Social media is an umbrella term covering websites, technology, applications or tools that enable active and participatory publishing and interaction between individuals over the internet.
Social media can be characterised by:
- relationships
- user participation
- user-generated content
- collaboration
- multi-directional conversations
- highly accessible and scalable publishing
- 24/7/365 operation and availability.
How can social media be used in the Queensland Government
Social media can be used as a channel by the community to access the Queensland Government and vice versa. For the Queensland Government, social media represents a channel by which audiences can be used to support or deliver a wide range of activities including:
- community engagement, communication and marketing
- policy development and implementation
- service delivery
- research.
Before you begin – consider the risks
The official use of social media has the potential to compromise compliance with legislation, particularly in regard to accessibility, privacy and recordkeeping. Content contributed by anyone may infringe upon the rights of others in areas such as defamation, intellectual property and fraud. Due to the seriousness of these risks and the association with official government business, the official use of social media must be subject to a risk assessment. The mitigation or acceptance of these risks is the responsibility of senior executives. Appendix A - Implementation checklist (DOC, 53 KB) provides an implementation checklist covering the major impact areas identified in this Guideline.
