India lags behind in Twiplomacy, says study

Report says @India account is owned by an Indian living in Guangzhou, China

India is yet to wake up to the Twitter opportunity for country branding, a recent Burson Martseller study on “Twiplomacy” revealed. Only 9 governments out of 193 United Nations member states own their country name Twitter handle, the study said.

The study also found that the @India account is owned by an Indian living in Guangzhou, China. The account owner shares pictures from his daily life and has made it clear that his Twitter handle is not for sale.

Some of the countries which have extensively used Twitter for promoting their countries include Britain, Israel and Sweden among others.

“Looking at the findings it becomes clear that few governments and tourism organisations have understood the power of country branding and marketing on Twitter,” said Matthias Lufkens, head of the Burson-Marsteller EMEA Digital Practice. “There is a huge opportunity for countries to use Twitter as part of their communications to engage with a large and growing audience.”

The Twitter accounts of AntiguaBarbuda, Barbados, Lithuania,  Maldives, SouthAfrica, and Spain are run by their respective official tourism organisations to promote tourism in each country.

However, three out of five country accounts are either protected, dormant, inactive, or suspended and almost half of the 71 remaining active accounts are tweeting an automated news feed broadcasting news about the country, according to the study.

Data used was taken in November 2012 looking at the Twitter handles of 193 UN member countries.