The Malaysian government and social media (part 2).

You know what? Following my recent post on Malaysia gov 2.0, this is my utmost sincere suggestion.

DON'T be on Facebook and Twitter. Get off it. No, seriously.

Huh? You say?

While the whole world watches these two social networks and Malaysia gov just got started and you say DON'T be on it?

YES. I said it.

Here's the cepat-cepat strategy for you (because I understand what happens when you have morons posting demonic comments just to spoil the party). It's hard to be positive when you're surrounded by all these negative little people:

1) Build a social service that allows objective participation with the comment engine disabled. Communicate that this is a 'service' portal meant to serve the people, NOT for complains. Want to complain? Ambik nombor.

2) Utilize FB and Twitter as promotional tools for the portal, NOT political views nor personalities. Disable comment post if possible. Only post on the wall or tweet on updates.

You say: So, there you go. You're not listening again. You're supposed to listen on web 2.0.

Well, we are. Hence the application portal, e.g: Help us plot all the holes on Malaysian roads and we'll fill it up. Once we've fill it up, we'll update you.

It's not that we're not listening. But come on, we cannot listen and be driven by the public's every whim and fancy. Because it's the government for Pete's sake! If they start to be nice to everyone, then they'll be called the NGO (even NGOs don't do that okay). What we need to do is to draw feedback on areas we are focusing on amidst the one million other unhappiness and mosquito bites the population is experiencing. Change. One issue at a time...