The Foreign Service Journal, May 2017

20 MAY 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL comment; and when they do, they almost never get an answer from an actual Ameri- can diplomat. In the digital age, that kind of silence is fatal. It’s also an indictment of our PD presence online, which misses the entire point of social media: engagement. Engagement is the conversation that happens between followers onWeb platforms; it’s more than a “like” or a “share.” Engagement is access, influence, conversation and communities of interest that form around a particular issue. It’s empowerment . Unless the State Department starts engaging with foreign publics online, how can we hope to be part of the global conversation—much less influence what non-Americans think and do? Digital Diplomacy—Not All That Quick or Easy There are a number of structural constraints holding back State’s public diplomacy efforts in the digital arena. The first of these is time. Skill, tools and techni- cal know-how are additional constraints. Back in my TV days, every minute that went to air took two to three hours to produce. In other words, a three-minute news segment took, on average, six to nine hours to make. Understaffing of digital operations at State exacerbates this problem. Posts with tight resources tend to invest staff time in the traditional pro- gramming that has defined the PD field since the heyday of the U.S. Information Agency, rather than in social media. Many PD shops are small to begin with, and sometimes have just one local employee whose job is to “do social media.”These employees may not have a media background and are also likely to be juggling other responsibilities, such as managing the education portfolio. Even if they are able to post a few times a day on social media platforms, they’re severely limited when it comes to creating original content or engaging with followers. Bigger posts may have more PD officers and local staff who can divide up the work by function. Some missions even have the luxury of hiring media-savvy local staff who are wholly devoted to creating media content. This is a huge advantage, but it’s also rare. Either way, a prevailing myth holds that social media is easy and quick to “do,” and can just be piled on top of other PD activi- ties. It can’t. Engaging social media requires good media content, and that requires skill, the proper tools and technical know-how to produce. It can’t just be lifted fromwhite house.gov or https://share.america.gov. And in our sea of bureaucrats, up-to-date skills in photography, graphics and video production are in painfully short supply. Buying Adobe Creative Suite for each post can fill some of these gaps, but PD staff members have to be trained in its use. To create effective media content one needs to know how to tell a good story with words and pictures. Where is the human interest story buried in the Integrated Country Strategy? What makes a good graphic in terms of style, image composition and lighting? Mastering this is hard, and it’s often less about training than experience. Creating good content also takes exper- tise in media analytics—content creators need to have a feedback loop to produce data-driven products. Most social media platforms come with some sort of analyt- ics embedded, which offer unique tools for listening. Merely watching a Twitter feed gives marketers and pollsters a quick snapshot of public opinion on any given issue; but analytics go beyond this, offering a wealth of data on audience behavior. Skilled media practitioners mine this information, and use it strategically to craft targeted messaging. Painting the Mona Lisa with Spaghetti At the State Department, most of the cutting-edge tools and expertise have been consolidated in the Bureau of Interna- tional Information Programs inWashing- ton, D.C., and have yet to be deployed to the field in earnest. Officers in the field who do make the investment in these tools find they are unable to make the most of their potential for lack of the relevant knowledge and skill sets. Although there are a few digital and social media classes at the Foreign Service Institute, they are considered electives and are offeredmainly in the summer inWash- ington or at a few international locations. Many PD officers do not have the time in their schedule to take them. Moreover, FSI is ill-equipped to offer a high level of technical training in content creation. There is also, despite the rhetoric, very little practical emphasis at State on how to monitor and evaluate the impact of com- munications in the field. This leaves many PD officers feeling stranded, unable to do the job they wish they could. One colleague with more than a decade in the department struggled to revamp his post’s online presence. Using part of his limited budget to buy industry- standard photo and video production equipment and software, he then found he didn’t have the resources to teach himself and his team how to maximize their use. “It’s embarrassing,” he says. “Right now, it’s like being asked to paint the Mona Lisa by throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something sticks. But you can’t, because you need paint, brushes, tools, practice and skill. At State, there’s really no way to get it.”