Dubai: From announcing new laws to restructuring the cabinet and warning people about accidents and crimes, the UAE government has strengthened its public service by connecting to people in real-time, one tweet at a time.
The micro-blogging site Twitter over its first 10 years of existence has become popular among UAE leaders and government agencies. This comes as no surprise as Twitter has become the social media of choice for world leaders, including His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Shaikh Mohammad is one of the world’s top 10 most followed world leaders. He ranked fourth in the World Leaders on Twitter ranking report in December 2015, up by two spots in 2014 and with a growth in followers of almost two million. Since joining Twitter in June 2009, Shaikh Mohammad (@HHShkMohd) has garnered 5.85 million followers and made 3,824 tweets.
Shaikh Mohammad has used Twitter to announce government efforts and decisions such as the major restructuring of the federal government in February, and new policies such as mandatory military service in the UAE, among others.
“The significance of these [social media] channels lies in their ability to reach out easily to all members of the society through personal devices,” Shaikh Mohammad said at the Social Media Influencer Summit in 2015.
Twiplomacy, a leading global study of world leaders on Twitter, described Shaikh Mohammad’s tweets as engaging and have made him “approachable to the masses and his open engagement with audiences on all social platforms demonstrates the UAE government’s efforts to be open to dialogue”.
To further enhance the dialogue process, Shaikh Mohammad transformed the traditional majlis (Arabic for ‘council’) into a technology-based citizen engagement platform during the UAE Brainstorming Session last year, according to the Arab Social Media Report 2015.
Thousands of followers proposed more than 82,000 new ideas and innovative solutions through social media, focusing on the challenges in the public health and education sectors.
As a whole, the UAE leads the Gulf countries in terms of social media use and penetration, according to Twiplomacy. After Shaikh Mohammad, Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has become the second most followed foreign minister on Twitter.
Twitter-friendliness extends to other government entities such as the Ministry of Interior (@moiuae) and Dubai Police that are actively tweeting to their audiences. Both warn people about road accidents, traffic updates, crime prevention, useful hotlines and their latest initiatives.
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (@RTA_Dubai) also tweets about opening new bridges and roads, road closures, traffic updates, and many more. Another source of real-time information is the National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology’s Twitter page (@NCMS_media) that contains the latest weather forecasts, live updates and warnings on rain, thunderstorms, and earthquakes.
