US state department spent $630,000 to win Facebook `likes’

The US state department has come in for heavy flak for spending $630,000 over two years to win millions of "likes" on its Facebook pages at a time when the government had introduced severe austerity measures.

A scathing report by the department's independent watchdog excoriated the coordinators of its social media outreach policy and said the need of the hour was to "direct its digital advertising to specific public diplomacy goals."

According to the report by the Office of the Inspector General, two advertising campaigns launched in 2011 and 2012 with the "goal of building global outreach platforms for engagement with foreign audiences by increasing the number of fans... on four thematic Facebook properties," cost some $630,000.

"Many in the bureau criticise the advertising campaigns as 'buying fans' that may have once clicked on a post or 'liked' a photo but have no real interest in the topic and have never engaged further," read the report released late last month.

Though the four thematic pages run by the Bureau did manage to attract some 2.5 million fans by mid-March, only about 2 per cent of those actually actively engaged with the sites by 'liking' topics or sharing information posted on it.

However, defenders of the initiative argue that advertising was needed to increase visibility as it was difficult to find a Facebook page using the website's general search tool, the report said.

The report said that it had been recommended to the state department bureaus that they reduce spending by focusing their advertising on specific public diplomacy goals and not on raising the number of Facebook "likes" on the agency's pages.

According to state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki who spoke at yesterday's press briefing that the agency currently spent $36,000 a year on the Facebook outreach programme.

According to Psaki, the initiative continued to target "a broad range" of people "living internationally" and that the bureau behind the programme was working to implement inspector general's recommendations.

"We take the valuable feedback of the [Office of Inspector General] seriously, and we're committed to addressing the recommendations and the concerned outline – concerns outlined in this assessment," Psaki told reporters.