Winners of the 7th Geneva Engage Awards answer our questions | 14 February 2022

What are the objectives of your digital communication?

Our mission is to communicate for a world where everyone thrives in peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet. For this, on our social media we speak about the solutions that the UN family and broader International Geneva bring to today’s global challenges by sharing a mix of professional, unique and behind-the-scene images, videos, and news.

The 1.75 million followers of our five social media accounts (an increase of 33% compared to 2020!), coming from countries as different as Myanmar, India, Ethiopia, the United States, Nigeria, and Switzerland, engage with us on global news and related UN actions, and are kept abreast of Geneva-based events, such as the talks on Cyprus, Syria, and Libya, the US-Russia summit, Human Rights Council sessions, to mention just a few. In the year ahead, we will certainly continue to wear both of our hats – as a global news and information platform, but also as a local content producer and a source of reliable, timely information on what is happening in International Geneva.

Let me add one word about multilingualism. One of our objectives is also to speak in the languages of those we serve in Switzerland. In June 2020, we have launched a Twitter account in French, to get closer to French-speaking audiences in Geneva and beyond, and the success has been incredible! We have witnessed an exponential growth in the number of followers, +114% in 2021 compared to the 2020 figures. This confirms the need to place the local population at the heart of our communications efforts.

What are the characteristics of a successful tweet?

An ideal tweet should inform, move and/or engage followers, prompting them to care and to take actions on their own for a better world. A successful tweet is informative, includes an engaging visual – photo, GIF or video – and a link for those who wish to know more. It should include several relevant hash tags and also tag related accounts. The more connection the tweet builds with other accounts and trending hash tags, and with the causes we defend, the better its visibility will be, the more people it will reach and the stronger its message will resonate!

What are your pieces of advice to Geneva-based international organizations to better engage with the people they serve?

Not sure that this kind of advice is needed! As we can see from the Geneva Engage Awards, which recognize the power of virtual communications of International Geneva, our incredible network of Geneva-based social media colleagues operate day-in and day-out to engage audiences worldwide and contribute to bring hope and solutions to global challenges such as climate action, fight against misinformation and fight inequalities – and we thank them all very much for their great work! We hope that the Geneva-based organizations will continue to collaborate as well as they have in previous years and to actively amplify each other’s messages through their respective channels.

What are the objectives of your digital communication?

To provide engaging, informative and verified information about the benefits of vaccination and the role of the Vaccine Alliance. During the pandemic this has become particularly vital, as we battle a wave of misinformation around vaccines which risks both the global effort to defeat the pandemic as well as our work to increase access to routine vaccines. We have done this through both expert scientific news and advice as well as content sourced from the countries we serve showing the impact of vaccination.

What are the characteristics of a successful tweet?

A successful Tweet should provide a powerful quote, a useful piece of information, a fresh perspective or a thought-provoking data point that encourages people to learn more about the topic and read the article. Adding photos, videos and infographics can bring these elements together to make them more engaging and shareable. Above all it should condense an idea or an argument into a concise few lines that can be understood by any audience.

What are your pieces of advice to Geneva-based international organizations to better engage with the people they serve?

The big change at Gavi over the past few years has been the systemisation of a regular flow of informative, trustworthy content that can keep our audience engaged and informed. We also try to be as responsive as possible, spending a lot of time going through comments and questions to make sure we’re led by what our audiences want rather than the other way round.

What are the objectives of your digital communication?

A core objective is to communicate in simple terms - both for a global audience and for Americans back home - the importance of the work we do together here in Geneva.  At the same time we are actively engaging in an online conversation with our partners in multilateral diplomacy. Digital communications in Geneva are both essential public information, and an alternative form of diplomatic engagement. Digital conversations flow in parallel to the many meetings taking place daily in this multilateral hub, and it is important to be equally engaged in both realms.

What are the characteristics of a successful tweet?

We like to take things tweet by tweet. The characteristics of success are different depending on context. I think the question of audiences is very challenging in multilateral diplomacy. One day you may be focused on the human rights situation in a specific country, another on a highly technical standardization issue. For issues of global significance, our audience can be broad and international. In other cases, we are focused on talking to our international partners here in Geneva, letting them know that we value their efforts and our work together.

With topics and audiences that are constantly changing, identifying the right handles and hashtags is absolutely critical. In assessing our success, we don't focus too much on analytics or numbers, but much more on whether a specific tweet reaches its intended audience, even if that audience is relatively small.   

What are your pieces of advice to Geneva-based international organizations to better engage with the people they serve?

I think that Geneva's IOs are doing a generally excellent job of engaging the public and their stakeholders - and in recent years they have continued to up their game! Sharing positive news about efforts by donor countries, partner NGOs, and stakeholders adds to impact, and we've seen more and more of this.

In broad terms, I would say that partnerships in communications are just as important as at the negotiating table. Get to know your fellow communicators. Keep them informed about what you are doing and collaborate with them. We at the U.S. Mission are deeply inspired by the digital engagement and creative communications of Geneva's IO's, NGOs and permanent missions, and consider them partners in all we do.