Successful, engaging policy-focused social media must incorporate input from a knowledgeable policy specialist or two to give the channel depth and authority. A communications manager will usually manage the channel to ensure that there is a balance between policy information and dialogue, and corporate messaging. This helps to ensure consistency, interaction and organisational ‘tone of voice’.
Here’s one that is run directly by a policy person: @baotcot
But most are run by social media managers. Working on social media for the King’s Fund, a health policy think tank and Independent Age, an older people’s charity, has given me a foundation for more recent social media policy work for Nacro. One example has been the Nacro programme Beyond Youth Custody, which has recently been set up to develop best practice and discussion on the resettlement of young people, primarily by means of a blog and a Twitter account.
With little resource, I do the general management and divide the work between an ad hoc team spanning media and policy. This enables me to cover effectively the main issues of media awareness, engagement, sharing, horizon scanning, event blogging, policy debate and activity updates.