Government to advertise on social media platforms, drafts norms

NEW DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry has issued draft policy guidelines to improve social media outreach of various ministries and government departments. Under the guidelines, social media platforms will be empanelled with the Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC), the nodal organisation for the government’s paid outreach campaigns.

Government ads will run on websites that have a minimum of 25 million unique users in India per month and have been operating under the same domain name or access address for a minimum of six months. Social media platforms seeking engagement with BOC for government advertisements should not have been suspended or blacklisted or be under the period of suspension by the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeITY) or any other ministry, department or agency and autonomous bodies or PSUs.

Social media platforms operate on the basis of dynamic pricing or auction. BOC will participate in the bidding process for buying inventory or space for government messages, determining which social media platforms are relevant in light of planned outreach activity of the client ministry or department based on target audience, theme and content of proposed activity, budget and duration of the campaign.