Social media guide for parliaments and parliamentarians

Social media icons on a phone

In 2018, 70% of parliaments were using social media platforms to communicate with citizens, 67% of parliamentarians were using Facebook and 40 per cent Twitter*.

In 2020, with restrictions on meeting face-to-face, parliaments and parliamentarians have intensified their social media presence as a way of maintaining contact with the people they serve.

This guide helps to plan, execute and measure social media campaigns, and to maximize the potential for wider and deeper engagement.

The guide is in 2 parts:

  • Part 1 - the “playbook” - a set of informal ideas that follow a typical social media campaign and help develop social media skills and encourage thinking about how to conduct a successful campaign.
  • Part 2 - a series of 5 case studies (Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK) showing how parliaments have used social media to engage with their public.

The publication was produced by the Centre for Innovation in Parliament (CIP) of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), with the financial support of the European Union, in partnership with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), as part of INTER PARES | Parliaments in Partnership, the EU’s Global Project to Strengthen the Capacity of Parliaments.

For more information and to download the report, visit the IPU website.

 

* IPU (2018), World e-Parliament Report 2018