- Kable, Monday 27 July 2009 11.31 BST
Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels for (BIS), says in the document that departmental 'tweets' should include exclusive material, including insights from ministers and updates on their speeches and activities.
Williams has published a generic version of the department's strategy through the Cabinet Office's digital engagement blog.
Twitter is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for organisations as well as individuals, despite its limitation of individual messages, known as tweets, to 140 characters. The length means they can be sent or received as SMS text messages.
Williams warns that Twitter users can be hostile to too much automation, such as tweets which recycle RSS feeds and press release headlines. "The tone of our Twitter channel must therefore be in informal spoken English, human edited and – for the most part – written/paraphrased for the channel," he writes.
According to the paper, Twitter can have value in building relationships with influencers including journalists and bloggers. It can help engage individuals through providing "an informal, 'human' voice of the organisation".
Despite this need, the strategy says that departmental press releases will automatically be tweeted unless there is a reason not to. Other material to advertise through Twitter includes marketing campaign messages, online videos and pictures, blog posts and website updates.
Williams says that use of Twitter demonstrates an organisation is committed to digital channels, and provides an easy way for audiences to interact with government departments.
But he adds that there are also risks, such as publishing embargoed, sensitive or protectively marked information. The paper says this can be mitigated through having all tweets cleared through the departmental digital media team.
There is also a risk of tweets being too formal or dry, especially if they are anonymous and required to provide a consistent departmental voice. Williams says this can be reduced by providing varied content.
His paper recommends sending two to 10 tweets each working day, with at least 30 minutes between each. This should require less than an hour a day of working time, plus one day every three months for evaluating the output.
The paper also recommends the departmental Twitter account starts by following (publicly opting to receive tweets from) relevant organisations and professionals, and then automatically following anyone who has themselves started following the department's Twitter account. Vetting then manually following them would take too long.
"You might think a 20 page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter," writes Williams in his blog post, but adds: "I was surprised by just how much there is to say - and quite how worth saying it is, especially now the platform is more mature and less forgiving of mistakes."
