The IAFOR Journal of the Social Sciences
Volume 2 – Issue – I

The IAFOR Journal of the Social Sciences
Volume 2 – Issue – I

The IAFOR Journal of the Social Sciences
Volume 2 – Issue – I

The use of social media in governments is growing rapidly all over the world. Social media
provides public agencies with diverse tools that facilitate their engagement with the public.
However, social media raises different privacy, security and legal issues that need to be
addressed in proper policy guidelines. In Egypt, while social media in government is relatively
new, it is widely used at all levels of government. By logging on Facebook or Twitter you can
follow most of Egyptian ministries’ releases and news. However, the Egyptian government
lacks having social media policies that regulate the use of social media. After interviewing
social media officers in different Egyptian ministries, it has been found that they do not follow
concrete written policies that regulate public employees' use of social media. Being interested
in the power of social media in public agencies, this paper suggests a social media policy that
provides guidance on how public employees can efficiently and securely use official social
media to communicate with the public. To achieve this purpose, the methodology adopted
includes a review of the existing research on social media policies, analysis of current social
media policies in different countries, and interviews with social media officials in a sample of
Egyptian Ministries to examine how they manage their use of social media. The proposed
policy is flexible and can be used by any public or even private organizations willing to use
social media to interact with their target audience.

Keywords: Social media, management, policy analysis, government, Egypt.

Dr. Tingting Ying