Official accounts are user accounts that are created to represent an organisation in Freejna.

Official accounts are attached to a Freejna user’s regular account. An official account should only be used by a single user. If more than one person are representing an organisation, then they should all have their own official accounts.

Official accounts serve as a way for organisations and their representatives to communicate with a community. Official accounts use the Freejna app in a similar capacity to regular accounts, with some notable differences, such as not being able to vote in polls.

Differences from Social Media verified accounts

There are a few key differences between regular social media accounts and Freejna official accounts.

Most social media outlets allow organisations and individuals to ‘verify’ their accounts, which are used to communicate and engage with communities on those social media platforms. While this is true for Freejna as well, there are a few key points to keep in mind:

• Freejna is about local communities.

While most social media platforms allow organisational accounts to be handled by teams working at a global or international level, Freejna’s focus on local communities means representatives using official accounts should be closer to the community they are engaging with. Thus, rather than having a centralised social media team for the entire platform, on Freejna your representatives should be community level representatives, each speaking to an individual community.

For smaller organisations such as a local business, this could be the owner/manager using an official account to represent their business. For a larger fast food chain, it may be worth having branch managers act as representatives in each of their communities.

In the case of larger organisations with no local presence, it may be beneficial for them to partner with community-level partners who they can work with to engage local communities.

• In Freejna, the communities are ‘pre-built’

In Freejna, each local neighbourhood has it’s own feed. When user’s join Freejna, they join their neighbourhood. Rather than focusing on individual timelines, Freejna’s community timeline is identical for all users in a neighbourhood, with some differences based on follows and adds. As such, an organisation with representatives using official accounts will not need to invest much time in building it’s own community. Rather, official accounts will need to work to engage with the communities they are in.

• Freejna is aimed at public participation and civil engagement

Freejna as a platform is built to enable civil engagement and public participation in issues that impact our communities at a local level. Thus, functions such as polls, projects, public consultations and others are available. Official accounts play a key role in how these functions work, as they let organisations, government bodies and businesses engage directly with the communities they serve at a local level.

 

Best Practices

The following best practices are applicable to all official accounts:

• Use a real name

All official accounts should use the account-holder’s real name. Do not use a pseudonym, or the name of the organisation, as the organisation name will be visible in any case. Using real names humanises the official account and helps in building a relationship with the community and is more approachable.

• Respond to tags and mentions

Notifications are sent to official accounts associated with an organisation or project when that project or organisation is tagged. Responding to the tag in a comment shows responsiveness and can serve as a quick way to answer questions and learn about community needs.

• Communicate with the community

Use official accounts to act as a liaison with the community. An official account should be personable and should engage with the community they are in on a person to person level, not at a B2C level.

• Introduce yourself

When a new official account is created in a neighbourhood, it is advisable to post an introduction. Be specific about who you are, what your function is within the organisation you work for is, and what you will be communicating with the community about. You may want to also introduce your organisation to the community and inform them of any specific touchpoints you have within the community.

 

When to use official accounts

Official accounts can be used as representatives for government offices and public bodies as well as private companies, charities, and organisations. Generally, an official account should represent their organisation in a single neighbourhood.

You can use official accounts to:

• Moot early ideas

Official accounts can be used to informally test the waters on new ideas that are too early-stage to be formulated into a poll or public consultation.

• Respond to social events

You can use official accounts to comment on most types of cards in a community, similar to regular accounts. You may want to engage with social cards and post congratulations, condolences and other types of comments in your capacity as a representative of your organisation, but be sure to have a clear policy for this in place beforehand!

• Respond to queries in comments

You may see people asking questions, especially in poll responses and public consultations. If these were published by your organisation, then you should respond to them via the official account, as they are not immediately visible from the admin panel.

• Occasionally advertise

Businesses and other organizations which have an official account representing them in a neighbourhood can use that account to advertise, in a limited manner. It will be up to the administrators of each neighbourhood to define how frequently advertising is allowed, but a limit of two to three advertisements per month per organisation should be sufficient. Advertisements should be relevant to the neighbourhood.

You shouldn’t use official accounts to:

• Post announcements everybody should see

Use the announcement function from within the admin panel instead. You can use official accounts to inform your community about things that are not urgent or necessary for them all to see,

• Post irrelevant content

Avoid spamming your community with content which is not directly related to your role, organisation and the community. For Example, while you can post a general card telling the community about an initiative happening within the neighbourhood, you don’t want to be informing them of things your organisation is doing which has no effect on the community. Freejna should not be used as a platform for pre-packaged marketing content either. General news, press releases or other things which do not directly impact your community should not be posted on Freejna, but may be better placed on mass-communication social media such as Twitter or Facebook.

• Misrepresent your organisation

While official accounts can be used by commercial entities as well as government bodies as a way to connect with communities, be sure that as an official account user, you are abiding by the policies and procedures of your organisation.