Israel’s ongoing efforts to reach out to the Arab speaking world and shape the message itself have been amplified thanks to the digital age. The Israeli MFA has several social media accounts run in Arabic that amass combined 881,000 Facebook and 80,000 Twitter followers – and the numbers are constantly increasing. It shows that digital diplomacy has become one of the “most powerful tools in the diplomatic arsenal today” – a tool to broaden the audience, increase interaction and shape the discourse.

 

In response to this new development the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Partner Institute for Internet Studies at the Tel-Aviv University hosted over 2 days in March the 1st International Digital Diplomacy Conference. Representatives from 21 different Foreign Ministries and scholars and practitioners from around the world were brought together to investigate and advance the practice of diplomacy in the digital age and formulate a research agenda.   

 

Combining public advocacy, or hasbara in Hebrew, with social media, seems to work rather well for the tiny Mediterranean state: According to a study by Gökhan Yücel from the Istanbul Center for Digital Affairs, who presented his findings at the conference in Tel Aviv, Israel ranks 8th worldwide when it comes to its Digital Diplomacy performance. Jonathan McClory, Partner at Portland communications agency, wrote in another research piece, “Israel […] has taken to social media and digital diplomacy enthusiastically. The success of that digital engagement is up for debate, but when many leaders shy away from the lack of control that can come with social media dialogue, Israel has actively embraced it.”

 

According to Noam Katz from the Foreign Ministry’s Media and Public Affairs Division, the Ministry operates some 350 channels on various platforms such as Twitter, Facebook Instagram, YouTube, Vine, Pinterest, other social media sites, and traditional websites, all of which are constantly updated. As all those channels are operated at least in the local language (sometimes in English and Hebrew as well), Israel’s digital diplomacy covers more than 50 languages. As Katz says, “Our public diplomacy is geared to connect government to people, but also people to people. That is part of the power of public diplomacy.”

 

Connecting to your own citizens and engage them in the field of nation branding is also a rather new arena for Foreign Ministries worldwide. But the Finnish MFA boldly took up the challenge and launched a national emoji project that depicts several aspects of Finnish culture that were quickly used by its citizens. The Finns presented their success story at the conference, which lead to one of the main findings: digital diplomacy needs to be boldly creative and innovative.

 

The social network that serves as one of the major tools in digital diplomacy is probably also the best indicator for success of the recent conference: The special hashtag #DigiDipIL went trending immediately after the kick-off and remained trending even the day after the closing of the conference. Another indicator for success was the Twitter account of the Norwegian Embassy to Israel that was live tweeting: they posted a screenshot that showed that their Twitter reach had more than quintupled during the conference.

 

Digital diplomacy is part of the future of the diplomatic sphere. The 1st International Digital Diplomacy Conference paid tribute to this new reality by creating an exchange of views of diplomats, experts and researchers in the field and thus boosting its development. The next conference is scheduled for 2017.

 

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