Office of Government Communication
Interacts with the Public on Twitter and Facebook
Large-scale participation in
theArabSocialMediaAward
The Office of Government Communication at General Secretariat of the
Executive Council, Abu Dhabi launched its official pages on social media.
This came during the 6th session of Abu Dhabi Government Communica-
tion Forum. This step reflects the importance of maintaining and ongoing
and direct communication with the public on social media sites. It highlights
the importance of reaching and interacting with the people and keeping
them up to date with the government work. This comes from the belief
that people ate the main component of any government communica-
tion service. An upgraded website of the General Secretariat of the
Executive Council was also unveiled. It has links to the official pages
of the Office of Government Communication on Twitter, Instagram,
YouTube and Google+. Through social media, the office seeks
to reach a wider base of audience. Participants in the forum
pointed out that the launch of the new accounts reflects
the increasing importance of digital and social media
sites and the important role these new me-
dia tools play.
The organizing committee of the
Arab Social Media Award launched
by His Highness Sheikh Moham-
med bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE
Vice-President and Prime Minister
and Ruler of Dubai stated that there
is much response and participation
from most Arab countries. This was
reflected in the significant rise in en-
tries. The deadline for submissions
was 15 September 2014.
The committee reported that most
entries from individuals and organi-
zations were in the “community ser-
vice” category. This category awards
those who provide innovative and
positive uses of social media tools in
a way that provides useful services
to the society in general or a particu-
lar group. Other categories that re-
ceived large number of entries were
the blog and media categories.
The committee added that submis-
sions came from 22 countries, 77%
of which were Arab countries. The
aware received submissions from
Arab expatriates in foreign countries
such as Germany, Canada, the Unit-
ed Kingdom, India and Italy.
The UAE had the most number of or-
ganizations with entries in the award,
and Saudi Arabia had the most num-
ber of individual participants.
