How Switzerland Can Use Social Media to Protect and Promote Its Country Brand

International University in Geneva Master of Arts in Media and Communication

How Switzerland can use Social Media to Promote and Protect its Country Brand

by Beatrice Curtis

(under the supervision of Professor Patricia Goldschmid)

May, 2011

HOW SWITZERLAND CAN USE SOCIAL MEDIA

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Abstract

Background: Swiss and quality have always been synonymous.

Switzerland’s economy depends on it – from its banks to its watches to its picture-

perfect tourism and top-rated system of governance. But since 2008, Switzerland’s

reputation as one of the world’s most admired and competitive countries has been

jeopardized by sustained attacks in online media on its banking secrecy practices and

referenda seen as limiting the rights of foreign residents. In light of these media

attacks, this research aims to define how an integrated, best practices use of Swiss

social media channels can protect and strengthen Switzerland’s country brand image.

After reading this thesis, the audience will understand how well Switzerland’s

communication strategy abroad is currently being supported by its social media

compared to best practices and a benchmark country. It will also be able to see a

correlation between best practices social media use to promote a country brand and

losses or gains in that brand’s position in the major country ranking indexes.

Analysis: Because the Swiss government uses the results of country brand

ranking surveys to identify the strengths and weaknesses on which it bases its

Communication Strategy Abroad, this research focused on the qualitative elements

used to rank countries by Anholt’s Nation Branding Index (NBI) and IMD’s World

Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), such as perception of a country’s culture and

people. An interview with the Director of the WCY helped to verify a correlation

between drops in certain elements of Switzerland’s image abroad and intense negative

online media attention.

The head of Presence Switzerland was interviewed to discuss plans for using

social media to support the government’s Communication Strategy Abroad.


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Government officials were also interviewed on the feasibility of extending the term

and/or social media presence of the presidency.

Six major Swiss social media channels, which correlate with the NBI Hegaxon

and the aims of the communication strategy, were identified: country brand image,

information gateway, tourism, governance, investment, and news media. These were

evaluated for their integration and depth as well as their ability to engage their target

audiences. Swiss social media was then compared to that of Sweden, which was

selected as a benchmark for its equivalence to Switzerland in country competitiveness

and for following social media best practices. Finally, Swiss head-of state social

media was compared to Australia.

Results: It was determined that compared to the benchmark countries and to

its own strategic aims, Switzerland’s social media was not using best practices. Even

though the investment and news media channels have social media depth, they are not

integrated into the other main strategic channels. In particular, the Federal Department

of Foreign Affairs’ (FDFA) Presence Switzerland, which is mandated to fulfill

Switzerland’s communication strategy, is not using collaborative social media

channels, which could help lead positive and neutralize negative perceptions of

Switzerland’s actions. The Swiss presidency is only using one social media channel

in a limited way, compared to a three-channel best-practices use by Australia’s Prime

Minister.

Conclusion: The outcome of this research is a list of six recommendations as

to how official Swiss social media integration could be improved and social media

channels extended to promote Switzerland’s country brand and protect it from attacks

that weaken elements of its brand and endanger its strong position in ranking indexes.


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Acknowledgements

I wouldn’t be writing this acknowledgement if the idea to pursue an M.A.

hadn’t been proposed to me by IUG’s chancellor Dr. Claude Martin and seconded by

its president, Eric Willumsen, at IUG’s 2008 Christmas dinner. To Claude for

encouraging me to add an M.A. to my name, and to Eric for funding it, I express my

profound thanks.

The topic of my thesis I owe to my supervisor, Patricia Goldschmid, who

required (and inspired) me to start my own blog in December 2009 for one of my

favorite media and communication courses, ‘New Media’. The research I have

undertaken to validate my blogs posts on Switzerland’s image since then has served

me well in writing this thesis, as has Patricia’s support.

I would also like to thank the other professors at IUG who trained me in the

fundamental marketing, media and communication concepts and theories that

informed this research: Surhabi Agarwal, Rosita Ericsson, John Dolivio, Glen O’Neil,

and John Santantoniou. Not only did they teach me well, but they are also valued

collegues.

Not to be overlooked are my class project team leaders and partners, who not

only accepted a grandmother and IUG professor as their peer, but helped her achieve

Phi Beta Delta membership: Anita Donay, Carolina Clavijo Martinez, Khalid

Ebrahimi, and Elodie Fichet.

Lastly, heartfelt thanks to the family and friends who cheered me on as I ran

the Master’s Degree marathon and staggered, exhausted but proud, to the finish line.

You know who you are, because you’re reading this!


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………. 7

1.1 Purpose of research…………………………………………………………... 7

1.2 The Swiss country brand……………………………………………………… 8

1.2.1 Why it is a top country brand………………………………………........... 9

1.2.2 Why it needs a social media communication strategy..……..……………. 10

2. LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………………...... 12

2.1 Definitions……………………………………………………………………. 12

2.1.1 Communication…………………………………………………………… 12

2.1.2 Social media………………………………………………………………. 12

2.1.3 Social media tools………………………………………………………… 13

2.1.4 Country brand ranking indexes……..……………………………………. 14

2.2 Country ranking relevance to social media…….…………………………….. 15

2.2.1 Swiss brand losses in ranking indexes……………………….…………... 15

2.2.2 Effects of technology and globalization on brands………………………. 16

2.2.3 Identification of brand strengths and weaknesses……………………….. 17

2.3 Social media communication best practices ………………………………… 18

2.3.1 Channel alignment to target audiences…………………………………... 18

2.3.2 Channel integration and depth…………………………………………… 20

2.3.3 Channel tactics…………………………………………………………… 20

2.4 Benchmark countries for social media best practices ……………………..… 21

2.4.1 Sweden……………………………………………………....................... 21

2.4.2 Australia…………………………………………………………………. 21

3. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………… 22

3.1 Types of research…………………………………………………………….. 22

3.1.1 Purposes…………………………………………………………………. 22

3.1.2 Approaches………………………………………………………………. 22

3.2 Scope of research…………………………………………………………… 23

3.2.1 Data collection…………………………………………………………… 23

3.2.2 Data sampling……………………………………………………………. 24

3.2.3 Limitations……………………………………………………………….. 24

4. DATA PRESENTATION and ANALYSIS……………………………………. 26

4.1 Primary research on Swiss brand ranking and communication strategy…….. 26


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4.1.1 Swiss brand ranking – Head, IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook….. 26

4.1.2 Swiss brand communication strategy – Head, Presence Switzerland……. 28

4.1.3 Swiss presidency and social media – Swiss president, Chief-of-Protocol.. 30

4.2 Evaluation of Swiss social media channels…………………………………... 32

4.2.1 Brand communication strategy…………………………………………… 33

4.2.2 Information gateway……………………………………………………... 34

4.2.3 Tourism…………………………………………………………………... 37

4.2.4 Investment and Trade…………………………………………………….. 39

4.2.5 Governance ………………………………………………………………. 42

4.2.6 News media………………………………………………………………. 44

4.3 Evaluation of Swedish social media channels……………………………...... 47

4.3.1 Brand communication strategy…………………………………………… 49

4.3.2 Channel alignment to target audiences…………………………………… 49

4.3.3 Channel integration and depth…………………………………………… 52

4.3.4 Channel tactics…………………………………………………………… 53

4.4 Evaluation of Swiss and Australian country leader social media…………… 54

4.4.1 Swiss president…………………………………………………………… 55

4.4.2 Australian prime minister………………………………………………… 57

5. DISCUSSION of RESULTS ………………………………………………….. 60

5.1 Swiss versus best practices channel alignment to audiences………………. 60

5.2 Swiss versus best practices channel integration and depth………………… 65

5.3 Swiss versus best practices channel tactics………………………………… 67

5.4 Swiss versus best practices country leader social media…………………... 67

CONCLUSION and RECOMMENDATIONS……………………………………. 69

APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………... 74

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………. 83


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Figures

Figure 1. UDC Party posters supporting minaret and deportation referenda….. 1

Figure 2. Anholt-GfK Roper NBI Top Ten Nations 2009/2010.…………….... 8

Figure 3. Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brand Hexagon…………………………. 8

Figure 4. Top 20 Facebook Swissbrands 2011………………………………… 10

Figure 5. Total Swiss Exports 2008 – Economy Watch……………………….. 10

Figure 6. Stakeholder of a Nation Brand – The Branding Institute….………… 19

Figure 7. Top 20 Country Brands – IMD WCY 2011………………………..... 21

Figure 8. Switzerland Overall Performance – IMD WCY 2010………………. 28

Figure 9. Levels of Swiss Strategy for Communication Abroad 2010-201..….. 28

Figure 10. Swiss social media channels map…………….…………………….. 32

Figure 11. Swiss country brand SWOT analysis……………………………….. 33

Figure 12. Swiss Country brand external environment analysis…………… ….. 34

Figure 13.Aims of Swiss Strategy for Communication Abroad 2010-2011..….. 36

Figure 14. Swedish social media channels map………………………………… 48


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How Switzerland can use Social Media to Promote and Protect its Country Brand

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose of research

The tenet of this thesis is that Switzerland needs a best practices use of social

media channels to help support the goals of its communication strategy to promote

and protect its country brand abroad.

Switzerland has one of the strongest country brands in the world, but its

reputation for integrity, reliability, humanity, and governance has been compromised

by attacks in both traditional (print and broadcast) and new (digitized online) media

ever since the financial crash of 2008. Accusations of banking tax fraud have

tarnished its integrity, (France24, 2009), longtime Swiss resident and renowned film

director Roman Polanski’s arrest in September 2009 its reliability, the 2009 and 2010

referenda (Figure 1) to ban minarets and deport foreign criminals and their families its

humanity, and a costly two-year dispute with Libya beginning with the arrest of

Gaddafi’s son and ending with the release of Libya’s Swiss hostage, its governance

(Muslimmatters, 2009) (France24, 2010).

Figure 1


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To counter this tarnishing of the Swiss image by negative coverage of its

actions and policies, this paper will show how social media best practices can help the

Swiss country brand improve the alignment and depth of its six major channels to

support its communication strategy and maintain its high position among the world’s

top ten country brands (Figure 2). It will also explore the possibilities of establishing a

multi-channel social media presence for the Swiss presidency to give Switzerland an

online capability to react with speed and high visibility when its policies and actions

come under social media attack (Gaines-Ross, 2010).

Figure 2 Figure 3

1.3 The Swiss country brand

Country brand or image has been defined as “the sum of beliefs and

impressions people hold about places” (Kotler and Gertner, 2002). Simon Anholt,

who created the concept of nation branding in 1996 (Anholt, 2011), identified six key

elements of a country brand in his Nation Brand Hexagon ((Figure 3) (Anholt-GfK

Roper, 2010): tourism, exports, governance, investment/immigration, culture and

heritage, and people. Switzerland’s major social media channels are aligned to facets

of this hexagon, although there are both overlaps and lapses of image projection,


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particularly in the areas of culture, heritage and people, as will be seen in the

evaluation of these channels in chapter 4.

1.2.1 Why it is a top country brand

Quality: Switzerland is like one of its major exports, the watch: small, precise,

and indispensible. “Like a premium brand, Switzerland is positioned as an

aspirational country, a model State, with a feel of exclusivity and privateness…(it) is

like the Swarovski of countries - select and limited” (Markessinis, 2010).

Rankings: With just over 7.785 million people living in an area of 41,285 sq

kms (PRS, 2010), Switzerland only ranks 94th in population and 132nd in size among

countries (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). However, in terms of its competitiveness or

quality of life, it is among the top ten countries on the four major ranking indexes :

no. 8 on the NBI- Nation Branding Index (Nation Branding, 2011), no. 5 on the CBI-

Country Brand Index (FutureBrand, 2010), no. 1 on the WEF Global Competitiveness

Index (WEF, 2011), and no. 5 on the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (IMD -

WCY, 2011). The methodology of these indexes will be defined in chapter two.

Exports: Cheese, chocolate, and watches are Switzerland’s best-known

exports, according to Switzerland’s image-branding channel (Image Switzerland,

2011). Swiss food exports have risen only 1% in the past ten years (Trading

Economics, 2010), to 3.1% of total exports, yet they represent nine of Switzerland’s

top 20 brands on Facebook (Miller, 2011), while watch exports, at 8%, represent six

of the top brands (Figure 4).


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Figure 4 Figure 5

Swiss chemical and pharmaceutical exports are three times higher than foods

and watches combined (Figure 5), but they are not associated with Swiss culture.

Banking, which is, contributes 70% to the country’s GDP. These high-performing

sectors help Switzerland achieve a per capita income (GNI) of $46,990, the 4th highest

in the world (World Bank, 2011).

Investment: Thanks to its location in the heart of continental Europe and its

political stability, legal security, a highly skilled labor force, and tax advantages,

Switzerland attracts many major multinationals to move in. Even online giants like

Google and eBay have moved their R &D or HQ to Switzerland (Brooks, 2011).

Switzerland’s stability has also ensured that “ The United Nations Office at Geneva

(UNOG) is the most active centre for multilateral diplomacy in the world. The UN, as

well as all major NGOs have their HQs in Switzerland” (FDFA, 2011).

1.2.2 Why it needs a social media communication strategy

Even Switzerland’s strongest sectors face threats: its exports and tourism due

to an appreciation of the Swiss franc of between 16-30% over the past two years

against the currencies of its major trading partners (Bradley, 2011), and its banks due


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to continued demands to ‘liberate’ billions deposited by tax evaders and deposed

dictators (Cobley, 2011). Thus its needs a communication strategy abroad that

strengthens Switzerland’s weaker brand elements, like innovation, immigration, and

the attitudes and values of its people (Markessinis, 2010).

Presence Switzerland (PRS), which was established in 2000 to promote

Switzerland (Slater, 2008), is responsible for “ selling Switzerland’s image abroad ”. 1

Nicolas Bideau, head of PRS since January 2011, concurs that “ our job is very

similar to what the advertisers in the Madmen series do ” (Germanier, 2011). The

objectives, audiences, and instruments (channels) of promoting the Swiss image are

defined in the Communication Strategy Abroad 2010-2011. (Image Switzerland,

2011) According to Kotler and Gertner (2004, p. 51), “Strategic image management

(SIM) is the ongoing process of researching a place’s image among its audiences,

segmenting and targeting its specific image and its demographic audiences,

positioning the place’s benefits to support an existing image or create a new image,

and communicating those benefits to the target audiences using appropriate channels.”

PRS’s current strategy focuses on personal involvement, information

exchange, and special events (Smith R. D., 2009, p. 189). Experts call interpersonal

communications ‘the most persuasive and engaging of all the communication tactics’.

But online social media channels can reach and interact with a country’s wider

audiences in a controlled way (Smith R. D., 2009, p. 199). PRS currently uses two

non-interactive social media channels that “describe Swiss life and institutions.”

(Image Switzerland, 2011). By comparing Switzerland’s major social media channels

to two countries that follow best practices, this thesis will evaluate how well Swiss

social media is being used to strengthen and protect the country brand.

1 Interview with William Hold, February 14, 2011, Fribourg, Switzerland


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2. Literature Review

2.1 Definitions.

2.1.1 Communication

For the purposes of this research, it is important to distinguish between

asynchronous (one-way) and sychronous (two-way) communication. As noted by

Windhal et al, interactive communication technology in the form of online social

media has led from simple information transmission, the purview of traditional print

and broadcast media, to shared perceptions of that information, a shift from the

‘source’ and receiver’ communication model to a ‘participant’ model (Windhal, 2009,

pp. 12-4).

2.1.2 Social media

Social media involves “activities, practices, and behaviors among

communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and

opinions using conversational media” (Safko and Brake, 2009, p. 35). Brian Solis

further defines social media as “any tool or service that uses the Internet to facilitate

conversations” (Solis, Engage!, 2010). The Social Media Bible identifies 15

categories of tools (Safko and Brake, 2009, p. 449), of which four will be applied to

country branding in this paper: social networks, blogs, microblogs, and video. This

paper will also analyse websites as gateways which encourage and enable their target

audiences to participate in more interactive platforms.

2.1.3 Social media tools

Web site: A web site is group of web pages connected by hyperlinks made

available on the world wide web by businesses, governments, or individuals. Its main

purpose is to encourage audiences to stay, explore, and be persuaded by the site’s


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messages, as well as interact with its other social media channels (Safko and Brake,

2009, p. 142).

Social networks : Online networks build communities of friends or fans

around personal, topical, or organizational profiles. While the primary motivation is

social, organizations are increasingly using social networks because relationships can

lead to business or support advocacy (Safko and Brake, 2009, p. 26).

Blogs : Blogs are online journals which enable instant self-publication. They

can be unique websites or hosted on blogging sites. Many of them, especially those

written by web leaders or ‘contributors to watch’ (Safko and Brake, 2009, p. 48)

include lengthy online conversations via comments. Government generated blogs

first appeared in the USA in 2001 (Safko and Brake, 2009).

Microblogs : These are a platform for instant messaging of up to 140

characters that can be sent to a group of followers via cell phones or the microblog

website. (PC Mag, 2011). But unlike social networks, microblog followings aren’t

necessarily reciprocal. Microblogging began as “ small, intimate communities that

are centered on topics” (Safko & Brake 2009 p. 263), but many major figures, like US

President Barack Obama, have millions of followers. 25 other world leaders have

followings from 15,000 to as much as 1.5 million (Digitaldaya, 2010).

Video : While there are several providers of video content, including the major

search engines, the most interactive and social is the user-generated YouTube

network (Banking.com staff, 2011), which exceeds 2 billion views per day (Youtube,

2010). YouTube is increasingly being used by countries to promote their ‘products’

or politicians to run for office, such as the 2008 US presidential debate (CSPAN,

2008).


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Social media mobility: Due to wireless local networking (Wi-Fi) and smart

phones, which are cell phones with built in applications and Internet access (PC Mag,

2011), social networking has become increasingly accessible and pervasive. People

can e-mail, post on Facebook, or tweet on Twitter from anywhere – even in mid-air.

By the end of 2010, 2000 commercial aircraft offered Wi-Fi, compared to 700 in 2009

(King, 2010). The Pew Research Center found that 59% of adults in the USA

accessed the Internet wirelessly in 2010, an 8% increase over 2009 (Smith, 2010).

2.1.4 Country brand ranking indexes

There are many country brand rankings, but the four most often used by

countries to promote their brands are:

1. GfK-Anholt Nation Branding Index (NBI), published annually since

October 2006, is the most extensive qualitative sampling. In a questionnaire

completed by 20,000 individuals in 50 countries, the NBI congregates perceptions of

26 countries’ NBI hexagon characteristics (Anholt-GfK Roper, 2010)(Figure 3).

2. The Country Brand Index (CBI) by FutureBrand focuses on tourism

elements of a country brand. The CBI surveys 3,500 business and tourism travelers in

15 countries about perceptions of 25 countries (SCCIJ, 2010).

3. The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report

surveys 13,500 business leaders in 139 countries as well as publically available

economic indicators in 12 quantitative areas, including institutions, infrastructure, and

macroeconomic environment (WEF, 2011).

4. The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) “ ranks and analyzes

the ability of nations to create and maintain an environment in which enterprises can

compete.” In 2010, it surveyed 4,460 executives in 58 countries on factors that

contribute to a country’s image abroad (IMD World Competitiveness Center, 2010).


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2.2 Country ranking relevance to social media

2.2.1 Swiss brand losses in ranking indexes

Simon Anholt’s public affairs manager wrote that Switzerland’s drop in its

rank for 'people' and 'investment and immigration' on the 2010 NBI is “almost

certainly a consequence of the minarets referendum having a negative impact on

Switzerland’s ‘people’ rank in the 2010 survey. ”2 That year, the Geneva Human

Rights Council condemned Switzerland as being islamophobic (Bradley, 2010).

In analysing Switzerland’s loss of nearly 2% in NBI scores over the past 2.5

years, Anholt says “nations can go out of fashion as public opinion and general moral

views and values evolve around them ”, which can put “ Switzerland and its enviable

pristine image at risk” (Anholt, 2010, p. 62).

Despite lower scores in people and investment/immigration topics,

Switzerland is still no. 8 on the NBI in 2010 due to its no. 1 rank in governance

(Anholt, 2010, p. 62). But in March 2011, the University of Zurich and the Social

Science Research Center in Berlin (WZB) released the results of their five-year study

of the world’s 30 best democracies, which received wide online coverage. As

reported in the Wall Street Journal: “surprising (among democracies) is the fact that

Switzerland (14th) is only mediocre and lags behind 11th-placed Germany” (PR

Newswire, 2011).

In May 2010 the IMD, in whose World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY)

Switzerland had held 4th place since 2008, warned Switzerland that “its image

abroad has been tarnished and the risk in the financial sector was magnified” (Brooks,

2010). A year later, Switzerland dropped to 5th position on the WCY (Figure 7).

2 E-mail from Martina Alvarez-Loewenstein, November 16, 2010


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2.2.2 Effects of technology and globalization on brands

Mass media technology has changed country brand management from a one-

way push process of mass communication to a synchronous selection, reflection,

sharing, and experiencing (Molenaar 1996,2002). The WEF and IMD began ranking

countries by their more quantitative qualities, like GDP, education, and infrastructure,

in 1979 and 1989 respectively (WEF, 2011) (IMD World Competitiveness Center,

2010). But the reach of the Internet has made it possible not only to extend country

ranking surveys to a wider and more diverse audience, but to gather, analyse, and

distribute both qualitative survey and quantifiable country indicators more rapidly and

efficiently (Anholt, Places, 2010).

Nation/country/place branding, as it is variously named, has become more

relevant as “ technological advancement and increased international competition

affect the way in which places are imagined, perceived and consumed” (Grover and

Go, 2009, p. 5). Place branding and ranking on the Internet have become a way for

countries to attract “people who want to experience a place in order to be inspired

through being relaxed and absorbed in its culture, or to determine whether they would

want to live there, invest there or trade products from there” (Grover and Go, 2009, p.

5).

Place branding has also gained importance through globalization. Low-cost

global communication on the Internet has stimulated growing consumer appetites for

multi-national travel, services, and products. In addition, countries compete for

limited international investors and skilled and professional immigrants. In short,

“place branding is mainly provoked by globalization processes where the market

place for ideas, culture, and reputation, in addition to products, services and funds, are

fusing into a single global community” (Anholt, 2005, p. 35).


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2.2.3 Identification of brand strengths and weaknesses

Country brand rankings look at both quantitative and qualitative elements of a

country’s identity, then compare them to their ‘competitors’. A country can identify

its strengths and weaknesses rated by, and against, other countries. Thus country

branding gives two parameters of the SWOT analysis, from which opportunities and

threats can be derived.

For example, Switzerland’s governance in Anholt’s NBI and IMD’s WCY

rankings is no. 1, so it is clearly a Swot strength (Figure 11). Likewise, both rankings

highly rate Switzerland for quality of life and stability, another Swot strength. But the

attitudes and values of the population have been ranked lower in 2010 on the NBI and

WCY indexes, making them weaknesses in the Swiss country brand.

Switzerland itself recognizes the importance of country rankings. It refers to

Anholt’s NBI on the Presence Switzerland site, Image Switzerland (PRS, 2010), and

to IMD’s WCY on its offical business blog, exportblog.ch (Osec Exportblog, 2011).

The Swiss government says: “Based on these analyses, the FDFA develops its

national communication strategy for the attention of the Federal Council…”

(Markessinis, 2010).

As Simon Anholt notes, “All nations need to compete for a share of the

world's attention and wealth, and that development is as much a matter of positioning

as anything else.” He recommends that countries appoint Cabinet-level branding

ministers. ''I've visited a great many countries where they have ministers for things

that are far less important than branding'' (Anholt, 2003). Switzerland’s new

‘branding minister’, Nicolas Bideau, was appointed to head Presence Switzerland in

January 2011 (Germanier, 2011).


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2.3 Social media communications best practices

No social media strategy will be successful and measureable if its main

messages, or content, and their audiences, or stakeholders, are not clearly

differentiated and targeted using the right platforms and tactics. In the

Communication Strategy Abroad for 2010-11, Presence Switzerland has identified its

main messages as: 1) Communicating Switzerland’s political system, 2) Promoting an

understanding of it political values and approaches to implement them, and 3)

Increasing awareness about its competitiveness and innovativeness, especially in

transport and environment. Audiences are opinion leaders and media representatives

in Great Britain, Germany, France, the USA, and China, plus politicians, scientists,

and students in the USA and China. Tactics, referred to ‘instruments’, include projects

abroad, major events, foreign delegations, promotional publications and multimedia,

and two websites. Presence Switzerland also cooperates with tourism and news

websites to promote other facets of Switzerland’s brand.3

This section will set out the best practices used to evaluate Switzerland’s

social media to competitively promote and protect its image abroad. This includes

comparisons to the social media of Sweden and Australia, which have been found to

exemplify best practice use of social media for communication strategy

implementation and engagement with political leaders respectively.

2.3.1 Channel alignment to target audiences

In a best practices world, the alignment between a country’s communication

strategy and the channels it uses to communicate the aims of the strategy will be clear,

targeted, and well-integrated. As noted, Switzerland has used the strengths and

weaknesses defined by major country brand indexes like the NBI to help define its

3 Phone interview with Nicolas Bideau, March 23, 2011


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strategic areas and related messages. To help formulate the right messages, Brian

Solis’s first of five steps for managing a brand online advises: listen and learn by

gathering meaningful, actionable intelligence about your audience.

Country brand rankings not only globally sample a country’s stakeholders to

gather meaningful intelligence, but they also fulfill Solis’ third step: define the distinct

facets of a country brand to which conversations should be aligned.

These facets are variously named by the different indexes but basically contain

the same elements. For the purposes of this analysis, they are defined as: culture and

heritage, tourism, investment and innovation, governance, and population attitudes

and values. Therefore, the first part of this evaluation parameter is: do the channels

and their messages correspond to the distinct facets of the country brand to which

conversations need to be strategically aligned?

Likewise, messages are worthless if they don’t reach and engage the intended

audience, for which both Solis and the Social Media Bible have defined best

practices. But this is more challenging for countries due to “the complexity of the

wide variety of stakeholders, stakeholder touch points and political processes”

(Branding Institute, 2010). Stakeholders are those who can affect or be affected by

that country’s actions, objectives, or policies. The Social Media Bible refers to

stakeholders as your ‘audience’ (Figure 6) (Branding Institute, 2010), and

distinguishes between internal and external (Safko and Brake, 2009, p. 719).

Figure 6


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The Social Media Bible identifies stakeholders by their demonstrated and self-

reported behaviors, attitudes, values and beliefs, and needs and preferences (Safko

and Brake, 2009, pp. 721-2). Measuring audiences by these parameters is beyond

the purview of this report, but whether targeting is evident on the channels is not.

Thus the second part of the alignment parameter is: are the strategic stakeholders

measured and targeted?

2.3.2 Channel integration and depth

The medium as is important as the message, and thus the way the social media

channels integrate to supplement rather than duplicate key messages is as important as

their distinctive alignments. Equally important to engaging audiences to the right

channels is their opportunity to interact on the networking channels of their choice, be

it Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or blogs. The easier it is for audiences to navigate a

country’s social media channels in both directions, the more likely that it will be

persuaded and influenced by the messages. The third best practice parameter therefore

asks: how effective are channel integration and depth?

2.3.3 Channel tactics

Best practices for tactical use of social media to engage audiences are defined

in the Social Media Bible as: 1) communication, 2) collaboration, 3) education, and

4) entertainment. Communication focuses on shaping messages to evoke mutually

beneficial responses or behaviors from the target audience, collaboration on using

channels effectively to encourage and enable audience participation, education on the

channel’s ability to persuade audiences with its expertise, and entertainment on the

use of channel content, particularly multi-media, to increase interest and involvement

of audiences (Safko and Brake, 2009, pp. 675-80).


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To leverage social media tools to persuade audiences, Solis says brands need

to 1) react to and lead conversations, and 2) adapt to negativity by identifying patterns

and perpetrators to enable targeted neutralization. (Solis, 2010). The third parameter

used to evaluate Swiss social media is therefore: are the right tactics being used

effectively to engage and persuade audiences?

2.4 Benchmark countries for social media best practices

2.4.1 Sweden

Sometimes confused with Switzerland because of similar size and quality,

Sweden ranks just after Switzerland in indexes like the NBI (10) and GCI (2), but has

moved ahead of Switzerland on the WCY in 2011 (Figure 7)(IMD - WCY, 2011).

Per Simon Anholt, "Sweden scores well because it is perceived to care about good

governance, the environment, racial and cultural tolerance, poverty reduction and

many of the other borderless issues that people really care about” (Nylander, 2010).

2.4.2 Australia

Also highly ranked on the major branding indexes, Australia launched a

‘Brand Australia’ campaign in September, 2009, "to be better regarded as a dynamic

and creative nation, a good global citizen and a strong business partner” (Markessinis,

2010). As will be shown in chapter 4, this campaign includes a best practices, fully

integrated use of multiple social media channels by Australia’s prime minister.

Figure 7


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3. Methodology

As defined by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009, p. 5), research is

“something that people undertake in order to find out things in a systematic way,

thereby increasing their knowledge.” This chapter will describe the systematic way of

this paper, including types of research and the scope and limitations of collecting it.

3.1 Types of research

Types of research can be grouped under 1) purposes: exploratory, descriptive,

and explanatory, and 2) approaches: deductive versus inductive and qualitative versus

quantitative (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009).

3.1.1 Purposes

Exploratory purpose is best used to clarify a problem that hasn’t been

extensively researched. Descriptive helps picture the issues being studied, and

explanatory focuses on relationships between variables. As there are not definitive

case studies that correlate best practice use of social media and country brand

rankings (Anholt, 2010), this paper primarily conducts exploratory research.

3.1.2 Approaches

An inductive approach builds up a theory based on collected data, also called

the ‘bottom up’ approach, while deductive uses existing theory to analyse the data

collected and draw conclusions, or the ‘top down’ approach. As this paper is an

evaluation of existing theories about nation branding and how its ranking results can

be influenced by perceptions based on social media messages, it is deductive.

Although qualitative research can be quantified and qualitative research

quantified, such as a quantitative survey that measures qualitative judgments, they are

considered distinct and separate here. Quantitative research counts and measures hard

data, i.e. numbers, whereas qualitative evaluates and interprets data. Quantitative


23

processes the collected data, while qualitative uses concepts to explicate. Quantitative

describes, explains, and predicts; qualitative interprets. Quantitative methodology

uses surveys, observation, and experiments, while qualitative uses interviews,

ethnography, and case studies. Quantitative leads to a hypothesis, qualitative to an

evaluation (Goldschmid, 2010). Although this paper uses numbers and content

analysis to draw some of its conclusions, the methodology is based on interpreting

and evaluating, and therefore qualitative.

3.2 Scope of research

Scope includes 1) data collection, 2) sample selection, and 3) limitations on

that collection and sampling, such as reliability and validity.

3.2.1 Data collection

This research evaluates how well Switzerland uses social media to support its

country brand communication strategy aimed at correcting weaknesses and promoting

strengths that country brand ranking indexes have identified. To support this

evaluation, books, periodicals, journals, and online resources were consulted on the

topics of country branding, communications and marketing theories, social media best

practices, Switzerland’s country brand, and the social media of Switzerland and two

comparable countries. In addition, unstructured interviews, defined as purposeful

discussions between two or more people used to gather valid and reliable data

relevant to research questions and objectives (Saunders et.al, 2009), were conducted

with experts and politicians directly involved in the main areas of this research. These

included: 1) the head of Presence Switzerland, which is responsible for the brand

communication strategy, 2) the head of the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, 3)

the Swiss president, and 4) her former Chief-of-Protocol. Appendix 1 lists the

interview questions.


24

3.2.2 Data sampling

To substantiate the proposition that best practices social media can improve a

country’s brand and competitive ranking, the two countries selected as benchmarks

not only meet the criteria for social media best practices as defined in this research,

but also have advanced in qualitative country brand competitiveness rankings.

Sweden, which is similar to Switzerland in its competitiveness, quality of life and

political and social stability, has been selected for its best practices use of social

media channels to fulfill its communication strategy abroad.

A secondary tenet of this research, that the country brand would be

strengthened if the Swiss presidency were lengthened to two years and/or social

media channel use expanded to give Switzerland a more durable ‘face’, has been

supported through the primary research. As a benchmark, the Australian prime

minister’s social media channels are singled out for exemplary use of best practices.

3.2.3 Limitations on reliability and validity

Reliability refers to whether other researchers would find similar information,

and validity to the degree to which they could access the most relevant knowledge

and experience of the subjects and reach valid conclusions (Saunders et. al. 2009).

Data in this report most subject to questionable validity and reliability is the

personal interviews. Not only did the interviewees veer off-topic and provide

information that was beyond the scope of this paper, but their responses - as well as

the perception of those responses - were subjective. Although efforts were made to

include views that did not support the arguments of this paper, it is possible that some

comments were either guided into more acceptable answers or overlooked.

A second limitation, which was raised by the experts interviewed, is that

country rankings reflect historical information: hard data is usually two years old and


25

soft data at least one. Thus the effect of negative social media events on country

ranking surveys could be delayed or offset by subsequent positive events, although

the effect also depends on the impact and subsequent memory of a negative event on

the survey respondents.

A final limitation is the validity of attributing Sweden’s improved ranking in

the 2011 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook and in country brand elements like

image abroad, culture, and heritage, or Australia’s improved ranking in governance to

their use of best practices social media. Thus the emphasis is on their role as a

benchmark through their use of social media best practices to achieve strategic

country branding objectives.


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4. Data Presentation and Analysis

4.1 Primary research on Swiss brand ranking and communication strategy

Interviews with experts in country brand ranking and Switzerland’s image

communication strategy were the source of primary data for this research. They

provide the framework for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the Swiss

country brand and the strategic use of Swiss social media channels to promote

strengths and redress weaknesses.

Switzerland has slipped in two of the four major rankings covered in this

paper, the Anholt NBI (5 to 8)(Anholt, 2010) and IMD’s World Competitiveness

Yearbook (IMD - WCY, 2011). Last year, Stephane Garelli, Director of the IMD

World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), warned that because its image has been

under attack since the financial crisis of 2008, Switzerland “must be a little more

sensitive to what others are thinking…and not sit back and wait for things to happen

or not” (Brooks, 2010). Evaluating how social media can help Switzerland protect its

brand from negative perception of its policies is not only the purpose of this thesis,

but the stated main goal of 2011 for new Head of Presence Switzerland Nicolas

Bideau, (FDFA - PRS, 2011), namely: “to identify the usefulness of social media for

Switzerland.” 4

Questions that were used in the following interviews are in appendix 1.

4.1.1 Swiss country brand ranking – Head, IMD WCY

Background: Stephane Garelli helped develop the Global Competitiveness

Index (GCI) as director of the World Economic Forum and now heads the World

Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) at IMD, where he is a professor of economics.

4 Phone interview with Nicolas Bideau, March 23, 2011.


27

Brand strengths: Garelli confirmed that 30% of the WCY is derived from

perceptions of those surveyed, or qualitative data. When asked how Switzerland had

maintained its no 4 rank in 2010 despite negative publicity, he said it was due to

Switzerland’s greater resiliency than most countries during the financial crisis. Its

burden of debt and its trade deficit are among the lowest in the world, contributing to

a strong currency and economic stability, although the 2010 WCY reflected data that

was one year old.

Switzerland has also been very effective in building up brand image in China,

where Swiss products, particularly luxury brands, are in great demand. Not joining the

EU in 1992 was a ‘blessing in disguise’, as it forced Swiss companies worried about

EU shutouts to look to Asia. The ongoing debt crisis in the EU has increased the

importance of the booming Asian market for Swiss trade.

Brand weaknesses: Garelli noted that the results of the WCY Executive

Survey reflected the impact on public opinion of Swiss referenda and banking secrecy

issues (Figure 8), with a drop in Swiss business efficiency from 3 to 7. Subcategories

affected by the referenda were: attitudes towards globalization (17 to 22), image of

Switzerland abroad (3 to 11), and flexibility and adaptability of the people (24 to 27).

Banking secrecy impacted effectiveness of financial and banking regulation (16 to

20), and financial risk factors (22 to 29) (IMD World Competitiveness Center, 2010).

Garelli concluded that although the image of Switzerland’s stability and quality of life

hadn’t been affected by the negative publicity, government credibility had, and that it

was necessary for Switzerland to protect the perception as well as the reality of its

competitiveness.5

5 Phone interview with Stephane Garelli, March 23, 2011


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Figure 8

4.1.2 Swiss brand communication strategy

Background: Nicolas Bideau has headed Presence Switzerland since January

2011. Presence Switzerland is responsible for implementing the Swiss Strategy for

Communication Abroad 2010-11, which was adopted by the Federal Council on 19

December 2008 (Image Switzerland, 2011). It provides for three levels of

communication abroad (Figure 9):

Figure 9

Country brand ranking: The Presence Switzerland website, Image-

Switzerland, publicizes Anholt’s NBI ranking to help promote brand Switzerland. But

like Stephane Garelli, Bideau pointed out that the information used for the ranking is

not recent. “What we need is more immediate information about how we’re

perceived, and we need to improve our communication platforms for that.”


29

Brand strengths: Bideau said Switzerland’s areas of strength include the

economy, human security, and quality of life.

Brand weaknesses: Bideau identified weaknesses as mainly political and

therefore perceptual. He identified three major areas that had hurt Switzerland’s

image most: banking, EU policy, and human rights. “What’s being written (on

banking) is so wrong, but we haven’t successfully communicated our side.” He felt

Switzerland’s EU policy is not clear, even to the Swiss. As for Switzerland’s

reputation in human rights, “we have a long tradition of being tops in this, but no

longer,” he said. “This has been hurt by referendums seen as intolerant, like the

minaret ban”.

Channel alignment to audiences: Bideau explained that a new electronic

system for monitoring all new media coverage of Switzerland was being developed

for implementation in 2-3 months. To handle situations that generate damaging

negative publicity, “this will help us get the information quickly and respond

quickly.” Bideau agreed with Brian Solis on aligning conversations with the distinct

facets of a brand and assigning those conversations to the facet specialists. He felt his

experience working abroad as a diplomat and his studies at the University of Peking,

as well as his background in the Swiss film industry, qualified him “to do a Presence

Switzerland page on the creative side, where I can provide a lot of content. But for the

innovative side, we need to give this to someone with the knowledge.”

Bideau identified four social media channels that support the image

communication strategy: brand image, information gateway, governance, and news

media. Compared to the other three, the government channels reflect a very

conservative, one way, “let the information speak for itself” tradition. But the news

media channel, Swissinfo, is an important part of his communication strategy, as it


30

promotes Switzerland’s best qualities through the broad coverage of its content. He

said it could do more to defend Switzerland against negative media but, as the Swiss

Broadcasting Corporation runs it, wants to maintain a degree of journalistic

impartiality. He referred to the two Presence Switzerland websites as key instruments

to reinforce brand Switzerland through basic provision of the image and thematic

focal points, which is also stated on the sites (PRS, Presence Switzerland, 2010).

Channel integration and depth: Bideau noted that two-way communication

using social media networks is “very important in the diplomatic world now. We

can’t continue with one-way.” He believed a Twitter account would be a useful

presidential tool. “Using traditional ways to announce now, like press releases, aren’t

effective.” He said Micheline Calmy-Rey’s 2000+ fan Facebook page was a good

start in interactive communication with external stakeholders, “but we have to

develop this platform. And it would really help to have a president for more than one

year. In one year you can hardly establish anything.” Originally, the president was the

head of the foreign affairs department for as long as that person was a member of the

Swiss federal council. But now five major parties each wanted their turn. However,

there were examples in Swiss cantons such as Vaud where a four-year presidential

term “works very well indeed.”

4.1.3 Swiss presidency and social media

Background: Willy Hold, Chief-of-Protocol during the 2007 presidency, was

asked about the politics in the Swiss federal council in general and the Swiss

presidency in particular, as well as the feasibility of extending the presidential term so

that durable presidential social media channels could be established and used to


31

promote government policies the presidency.6 A short interview was also conducted

with Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss president for 2011.7

Presidential cabinet: Mr. Hold explained that the public relations support

staff for both the president and the council member departments had increased. The

president’s support team was now was a permanent team of 3-4 staff that would serve

for four years, providing more continuity to the image of the presidential office. In

addition, each federal councilor now has a support team of 10-20 staff to handle

departmental communications instead of just one press officer. Thus more resources

were available for social media-related activities.

Government social media: Micheline Calmy-Rey has about 20 staff in the

FDFA who handle her social media presence on the FDFA website and Facebook

(Appendix 4). She said she is pleased that her fans have reached the 2000 mark, it

remains to be seen how much her page would help. Both she and her chief press

officer said that they still don’t have adequate communications staff to expand into

other social media channels for the president, like Twitter or a blog.

Mr. Hold agreed that it would be difficult to allocate communications staff

from a department team to do presidential social media for one year, and that the

presidential cabinet is too small for this task. But he did suggest that PRS could

perhaps work with the presidential team to build up presidential social media.

Longer presidential term: Although both the Swiss parliament in 2004 and

former president Doris Leuthard had pushed for a two-year presidential term

(Wallace, 2010) to increase the effectiveness and image of the presidency, Calmy-Rey

wasn’t in a position to lobby for a change during her second presidential term.

6 Interview with William Hold, February 14, 2011, Fribourg, Switzerland. 7 Interview with President Micheline Calmy-Rey, March 8, 2011, Geneva, Switzerland.


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4.2 Evaluation of Swiss social media channels

Six Swiss social media channels were analysed for their support of the

communication strategy abroad through a) alignment of content to target messages

and audiences, b) social media integration and depth, and c) tactical use of the four

pillars of social media engagement and persuasion (Safko and Brake, 2009). The

channels were: 1) Country communication strategy 2) Information gateway 3)

Tourism, 4) Investment and Trade, 5) Governance, and 6) News media. Figure 9

shows the current integration and depth of these channels via their website home

pages. As the brand strategy channel, image_switzerland.ch, is only accessible as a

bookmark on the Presence Switzerland subpage of the FDFA website, eda.admin.ch

(Appendix 2.1), it doesn’t appear on the structural chart.

Figure 10


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4.2.1 Brand communication strategy

Image_Switzerland.ch

Alignment to audiences: This site defines the communication strategy and

Presence Switzerland’s responsibility for “presenting and fostering a positive image

of Switzerland and for implementing the Federal Council’s strategy on Switzerland’s

communication abroad.” (FDFA - PRS, 2011). It will help achieve these two aims

through measuring its image abroad, for which it also uses the Anholt Nation Brand

Index. It presents a Swot analysis of the brand that does not reflect all the strengths

and weaknesses identified by brand indexes like NBI and IMD’s WCY. These have

been added to the brand Swot in Figure 11. The site also identifies target audiences

by countries and functions, on which Switzerland’s external stakeholder analysis in

Figure 12 is based. (Image Switzerland, 2011)

Integration and depth: This site is only bookmarked at the bottom of the

foreign affairs department (FDFA) home page (Appendix 2a), which is not a key

brand communication channel. An FDFA link is on Swissworld’s ‘about’ page, and

Swissinfo (news media), hyperlinks to it at the 3rd level (Swissinfo, 2011).

Figure 11


34

Figure 12

4.2.2 Information gateway

An information gateway should perform two key functions: a) provide an

overview of the main elements that define a country, such as its culture, heritage, and

values, and b) drive audiences to channels that help support the competitiveness of the

country, such as tourism, investment and innovation, and governance.

Switzerland.com

The original portal to Switzerland’s main sites, this is managed by the Swiss

National Tourist Office. It provides text hyperlinks to tourism, information, and

business sites. The tourism section includes Swiss Airlines and Europcar, giving the

impression that this is a commercial portal. However, the three sites listed under the

information section are sponsored by the Swiss government: swissworld.org

(Switzerland in its diversity), swissinfo.ch (news and info), and ch.ch (the Swiss portal

for everyday questions) (Appendix 2a).

Swissworld.org


35

Alignment to audience: ‘About Swissworld’ explains that it “promotes an

authentic image of modern Switzerland worldwide”. (PRS, Presence Switzerland,

2010). One of this channel’s self-defined strategic aims is to improve Switzerland’s

relatively low ranking of 20 for culture and heritage. But according to the site tags,

the cultural facets of the Swiss brand that this PRS site promotes best are the alps,

food, watches, Heidi, Zurich and Bern, which do not indicate that the target audience

is being reached. Nevertheless, the content covering strategic areas: people, culture,

education, politics, and scientific innovation, seems aligned with the aims of the

communication strategy (Figure 13). The site is available in eight languages.

The site’s priority stakeholders are opinion leaders and media representatives

in politics and business in England, France, Germany, Austria, and the USA, as well

as all education-related stakeholders in the USA and China. One section that appears

aimed at these stakeholders is a series of DVD audio and video presentations

produced between 2005 and 2007 on political and educational topics (Presence

Switzerland, 2007), but it is at the bottom of the home page’s right sidebar, which is

dominated by a weather map and a memory squares game that is also available on the

government portal, ch.ch.

Integration and depth: Presence Switzerland calls this ‘the gateway to

Switzerland’ (Appendix 2a). However, it is in the second level of the Swiss channel

hierarchy (Figure 10), under Switzerland.com. Related site links are accessible from

two to three levels down and their information is sometimes duplicated on the site’s

subpages. The government links page doesn’t identify eda.admin.ch, where Presence

Switzerland’s structure and mission are described. A third level page,

home>resources>link directories>official Swiss links, finally identifies sites by their


36

strategic function, such as governance, nation branding, tourism, news media,

population, and economy. There are no social networking media bookmarks.

Figure 13

Tactics: Communication ** The content is rich, but if it is being tapped by its

target audience, they must be passing through the sites RSS feeds to other channels

like Swissinfo (news media) or government sites. The site’s layout is static and

dominated by hard-to-read text. Collaboration * The only opportunity to interact

with this site is widgets for sharing content with various social networks. Education

*** With its multilingual content and comprehensive topics of interest to educators

and students, this site is clearly aimed at the audience under objective three of the

communication strategy. However, ThinkSwiss.org, which is an FDFA- Presence

Switzerland program “promoting exchanges and sharing knowledge between the US

and Switzerland” uses several social media channels in the USA to target the same

stakeholders there. (ThinkSwiss, 2011) Entertainment ** Pictures, videos, and games


37

are available through the three home page tabs: Swiss pics, specials, resources, but

there is tab hover description.

4.2.3 Tourism

mySwitzerland.com Alignment to audiences: Tourism is an area where Switzerland has lost

ranking on the NBI index since 2008, dropping from position 8 to 11. This site

obviously targets paying tourists and is full of relevant content. But the home page,

with a crowded center panel layout, looks like an outdated tourist catalogue rather

than a well-integrated representation of the whole experience of visiting Switzerland.

Tabs lead to information that overlaps with other tabs or doesn’t seem to suit the tab

category. The meetings tab has a section on Switzerland’s record in sustainability, for

example, and the Swiss update tab about weather conditions includes private school

information. There is liberal use of multimedia to engage audiences, although videos

are not clearly distinguished, and an amusing home page video of two Swiss

mountain men getting the big city treatment in Geneva. The site is available in 12

languages (Swiss national tourist office, 2011).

Integration and depth: The site is only accessible through the portal,

Switzerland.com, and has no bookmarks to its Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube social

media channels or to other Swiss channels which focus on building knowledge of and

interest in Swiss culture, governance, and current events. It also has no blog.

Tactics: Communication ** Primarily one-way, but covers all Swiss tourism

options. A useful feature is audio versions of some of the content. Collaboration *

Has a rating feature but not comments in the hotel evaluation section, which requires

three clicks and attentive reading to find. There are widgets for sharing content with

social networks, but they only at the bottom of each page. Education** Good


38

coverage of geographical, sports, and events tourism, as well as hypertext links to

other sites providing more in-depth information. Entertainment** There is good

audio/visual content to stimulate interest in the natural sights of Switzerland,

including 360 degree railway tours through Switzerland. There is also a feature for

creating and sending a postcard, but it’s at the third level below the fold (bottom half

of screen).

Facebook- Switzerland/Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera.

Alignment to audiences: A year ago this page had over 145,000 fans. It is now

at 60,000 (Swiss national tourist office, 2011). Perhaps this is due to a clean up of the

fan base to eliminate advertising by sellers of everything from art to music to online

poker games. Bi-monthly posts promote Swiss tourism, but there is no interaction

with the commentators. There is no indication that messages are aligned with

audience interest, as they never generate more than 40 comments despite the large fan

base. Video posts of ads from the YouTube channel generate the most interest outside

Switzerland, whereas postings about Swiss cities tend to engage Swiss residents. The

stakeholders appear to be both internal and external supporters, and many of them

provide information about activities and sights of interest in Switzerland, which is a

good way of doing mySwitzerland’s work for it if content is also provided by the

host.

Integration: There is a website reference on the info page and a sidebar link to

the latest YouTube video in all available languages on a page that looks like the

website. There is also a link to the Flickr account, but no reference to any Twitter

accounts.

Tactics: Communication ** Collaboration * Entertainment ** Education **


39

Twitter – myswitzerland_en,_d,

Alignment to audiences: About 30 tweets are sent out per month in three

languages, with 1/3rd eliciting comments from followers. Tweets, sometimes

duplicated, appear generated by new content on the YouTube and website channels,

but there is never reference to the Facebook fan page. English content focuses on

special offers in Switzerland and Swiss promotional events in the U.K., as well as

Swiss tourism rankings such as its no. 1 spot on the World Economic Forum’s GCI.

Integration: The account has a hyperlink to its website and follows other Swiss

and UK tourism and business accounts. As on the website, there are no links or

tweets to the Facebook page, probably because posts there are so infrequent (Swiss

national tourist office, 2011).

Tactics: Communication ** Collaboration ** Education *

YouTube – myswitzerland

Alignment to audiences: 328 video clips promoting Swiss tourism have been

viewed 650k times since the channel began in 2007, averaging to about one a week.

The most viewed are humorous ads which myswitzerland promotes through its other

social media channels (Swiss national tourist office, 2011).

Integration: There are hyperlinks to all other myswitzerland channels.

Tactics: Communication ** Collaboration * Education ** Entertainment **

4.2.4 Investment & Trade

Osec.ch

Alignment to audiences: Calling itself the business network of Switzerland,

OSEC was mandated by the Swiss parliament in 2008 to be the umbrella organization

“for the promotion of exports, imports and investments, as well as for the promotion

of Switzerland as a business location.” (OSEC , 2010). Its site thus has tabs for these


40

functions. The export and invest tabs are aimed at external stakeholders. Under the

invest tab, specific information on setting up companies in Switzerland is provided for

nine countries in their languages. Six of these are targeted in the PRS communication

strategy: China, France, Germany, Italy, India, and the USA. The site is laid out like

a brochure with very small font, but includes the relevant information for its purposes.

Some of the export subpages are in beta mode, but it has some multimedia

content, with a promotional video and interactive map. There is a separate tab on

Osec for a beta export blog in three languages, although only German is available.

Integration and depth: The invest page has quicklinks to swissworld.org and

the WEF Global Competitiveness Report, but only below the fold in tiny text. It also

has an RSS news feed and bookmarks to its Facebook and Twitter accounts. The

export page has bookmarks for its four social media platforms and a contact person on

Xing and Linkedin that look tiny under large bookmarks for Osec’s business partners.

However, all social media is in German only, and thus appears aimed at internal

stakeholders or Germans.

Tactics : Communication ** The information targets its intended audiences of

potential trade partners, but it is difficult to navigate and read. Collaboration * There

is no opportunity to interact with the site, but there are links to interactive channels.

Education ** Background information about Switzerland needed to make investment

decisions is comprehensive. Entertainment * This is not a manifested tactic of the site.

Facebook - Invest in Switzerland, Osec

Alignment and Integration : Osec is in German and appears aimed at internal

stakeholders for import/export issues. Invest in Switzerland, aimed at external

stakeholders, has 26 fans and infrequent postings that mainly link to its Twitter and

Youtube channels, the latter of which is not accessible from the web site.


41

Communication * Collaboration * Education ** Entertainment **

Twitter - InvestCH, ExportCH

Alignment and Integration : InvestCH has interesting but infrequent tweets in

English (97 in the past year) and a following of 97 with whom it does not interact

here. Tweets often link to YouTube videos which are posted on Facebook. Lately it

has starting retweeting from German-language ExportCH. Both accounts are

accessible to/from the Osec website.

YouTube - Osecworld

Alignment and Integration : This channel was established in September 2010

and has not built up much content (31 videos) or audience (788 uploads) (OSEC

youtube, 2011). The videos in English are posted to the Invest in Switzerland

Facebook page and have content relevant to the targeted audience regarding the Swiss

environment for establishing businesses. It’s possible the small audience and lack of

comments are not a negative indication if the viewers are key investment decision

makers.

Communication * Content is limited, especially for external stakeholders who aren’t

German-speakers. Collaboration * None of the videos have comments, although they

may generate contact through offline communication channels. Education **

Entertainment **

Blog - Exportblog

Alignment and Integration: Labeled as a beta site, this channel’s posts by

Anna Seig are in four languages but have not yet generated comments. The social

media bookmarks for Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube link to Osec’s German-

language channels, and there’s also a social media plug-in for Facebook. The English

tab labels are currently mixed with German content, so it appears too early to evaluate


42

this blog against social media best practices. There is fairly good visual content but

the navigation is not clearly organized (Exportblog, 2011)

4.2.5 Governance

ch.ch/switzerland.ch

Alignment to audiences: There is no home page or map for this site; thus an

overview for site navigation is missing. The default home is the ‘individuals’ tab

page, which is crowded with hyperlinks and categories of information in no logical

order. The ‘About ch.ch’ tab page states that this site, sponsored by the federal

chancellery, is the national gateway to information about Switzerland’s federal,

cantonal, and local (commune) governments, which are primarily of interest to

internal stakeholders and businesses thinking to relocate to Switzerland. The ‘about

Switzerland’ page duplicates much of the information provided by the ‘other’

gateway, Swissworld, for which it provides a bookmark.

Navigating to related sites is not facilitated. It takes three clicks, i.e.

home>businesses> online services, to find the 10 point text hyperlink to the Osec

business channel. Another Osec access is to enter ‘Osec’ in the search field, but it

leads to a screen filled with optional search parameters, which distract from the

hyperlinked article describing Osec listed at the bottom of the page.

The site design is distinct from other official government sites in its use of

images and some multimedia, but it is also crowded with text and hyperlinks, and

there is no consistent organization of information types on each sub page (Federal

Chancellery, 2010).

Integration and depth: The site itself does not feel integrated, as if information

is added on without concerns for structural integrity. A lack of a site map may explain

this impression. As for accessibility to/from related channels, access is through the


43

Switzerland.com portal’s ‘Information’ subheading, as well as the admin.ch (Federal

Authorities) site. Text hyperlinks to other sites for business or tourism are on the tab

pages with related content. There is no bookmark for the site’s Twitter account, but

the newly established blog posts have sharing bookmarks (Federal Chancellery,

2011).

Tactics: Communication** There is a great deal of information but it is all

one-way and difficult to navigate due to the lack of a home page or site map. The site

seems to have been built in increments, without attention to the placement,

navigability, or duplication of previous content or content of sites to which it links.

Collaboration* The hypertext link to the German-language direct democracy blog

affords an opportunity to comment, but there are currently no comments on the six

posts to date. Education*** This seems to be the main purpose of this site, and there

is indeed a wealth of information covering all aspects of Switzerland. Entertainment*

Some multimedia content and widgets for games testing knowledge of Switzerland

are aimed at this function, although they target internal stakeholders.

Twitter – ch.ch

Alignment and Integration: Although this German-language account is for

internal stakeholders, it could serve to improve the image of the Swiss population

abroad by engaging Swiss to participate more in governance. However, it has only

tweeted 155 times since September and has 138 followers. As noted, it is not

accessible from the website.

Blog – Geschichten ueber demokratie (Stories about democracy)

Alignment: As this blog is in the national languages, it appears aimed at Swiss

citizens. It seems to be part of a campaign to improve Swiss voter turnout, which

received bad press recently and could harm the image abroad of both Swiss


44

democracy and its population. However, the blog is only one month old and is not yet

being promoted.

4.2.6 News Media

Swissinfo.ch

Alignment to audiences: At the bottom of the home page, a link to ‘about us’

opens a page where Swissinfo say its role is “to inform Swiss living abroad about

events in their homeland and to raise awareness of Switzerland in other countries”

(Swissinfo - about us, 2010). It does this through nine-language news and current

affairs articles about Switzerland in text and multimedia. (Swissinfo, 2011) The main

topic categories do correspond to the country ranking strengths and weaknesses of

Switzerland, and its news digest shows that it also runs stories about Swiss innovation

and creativity, an area in which Nicolas Bideau has said Switzerland’s image is weak.

(Germanier, 2011)

Since March, there has been an increase of articles that defend government

actions that might be negatively perceived by potential supporters or leveraged by

opponents, like Swiss neutrality does not mean indifference (Swissinfo, 2011), or The

Swiss vote more than any other country (Slater, 2011), which counter recent charges

that Switzerland’s democracy is weak due to low voter turnout for referenda. This

increase in damage control coincides with a March 23rd e-mail from Swissinfo that the

Swiss government would continue to provide 50% of its funding provided it “make(s)

Swiss viewpoints and solutions heard in the global exchange of opinions.”8

Integration and depth: Swissinfo has recently improved its channel integration

and collaboration. Under the topical tabs, major Swiss channels whose content is

relevant to the featured news stories can be accessed via quicklinks. (Appendix 2b) A

8 E-mail from W. Spahni, March 23, 2011.


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bookmark for Swissworld is provided on the pages for business, Swiss news, sci &

tech, and travel & culture. The integration tab provides a new feature for collaboration

as well as widgets to all swissinfo social media channels and blogs (Appendix 2b).

Tactics: Communication *** Appealing format, easy navigation, and multiple

channels of communication are used and linked to via related news story topics.

Collaboration *** Can post photographs, comment on articles and blogs, and

gain easy access to the site’s social media networks where collaboration is

encouraged. Since April, it is possible to link to Swissinfo social media via Facebook,

Google, or OpenID accounts (Swissinfo Interactive, 2011).

Education ** Covers many aspects of Switzerland’s identity and provides

quicklinks to other sites for more in-depth knowledge. Uses all forms of multimedia.

Entertainment *** In addition to the rich content covering Swiss news and

current affairs, the multimedia tab provides videos, audio slideshows, podcasts,

livestream music, and picture galleries. (Swissinfo multimedia, 2011)

Facebook - Swissinfo

Alignment to audiences: The topics of the weekly posts don’t seem targeted at

any particular audience, although the ‘specials’ page features stories about Islam and

Switzerland, Federer, the Gotthard tunnel, and Swiss Unesco sites. (Swissinfo

facebook, 2011) Despite a fan base of nearly 110,000 (Appendix 2b), posts rarely

generate more than a few comments or a few dozen likes. A March 18th comment on a

post linked to the Swissinfo article, How idealism drove Swiss development aid, is

notable: “Swissinfo reminds me of the paper ‘The Hindu’ from South India. After

reading the entire article patiently from top to bottom, u really don't feel any wiser as

to what the article is really trying to say...” (Swissinfo facebook, 2011).


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Integration: This is the only official Swiss Facebook page which can be

accessed to/from the related website. It also has a page for the YouTube channel, and

it is possible to link personal Facebook profiles to the Swissinfo site.

Twitter – Swissinfo_e + eight languages

Alignment to audiences : To date, 3000 tweets in English to 1,600 followers

promote recent news stories from the website. However, if swissinfo is receiving any

tweets, it is not responding to them here.

YouTube – Swissinfo_e + sp, jp, ar

Alignment to audiences: Although this channel has a large subscription and

over 1.9 million total views since it began in 2007, no videos this year have been

viewed on YouTube more than a few hundred times. This could reflect more viewing

is taking place on their website, such as an April 1st video on wind energy, Swiss

support grows for wind energy, with only 61 YouTube views. As an embedded

autoplay on the site, it wouldn’t be counted in YouTube views. (Swissinfo youtube,

2011)

Integration: The channel information has recently been upgraded with

bookmarks to the website, Twitter, and Facebook channels.

Blogs – Write-on, Deutsche in der Schweiz, Migration, and Being Swiss Abroad

Alignment to audiences: These four blogs are aimed at both internal and

external Swiss nationals or residents. Swissinfo has recently added Japanese and

Chinese blogs, perhaps in response to its new mandate to provide a more international

view of Switzerland. It also might reflect the importance of expanding trade in Asia,

which IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook head Stephane Garelli discussed in his

interview (Appendix 1).


47

Of the four original blogs, only two appear to be currently active: Write-on,

and Migration. Both average weekly posts that generate one or two comments. The

Migration blog is written by Swiss living abroad, and Write-on by resident expats.

30% of their blogs are in the ‘habits’ category, which seem to correspond more to

blogger than audience interests, since the more prevalent topics don’t generate more

comments.

Integration and depth: Blog posts are not referenced in any other Swissinfo

social media such as Facebook or Twitter.

Tactics: Interaction is not very evident on any of the blogs apart from the

German, which generated a good volume of exchanges. However, the last post to this

blog was mid-2010.

Communication ** Collaboration * Education * Entertainment *

4.3 Evaluation of Swedish social media channels

Background: Sweden was selected as a benchmark country because: a) it is

equivalent to Switzerland in country competitiveness and ranking on the major

indexes (Figures 2 and 7), b) it has a well-defined communication strategy which

focuses on the distinct facets of the country brand that need promotion or

strengthening, (Swedish Institute , 2011) and c) its channels were found to be aligned,

integrated, have depth, and use the four pillars of social media tactics to support the

strategy (Figure 14). The Swedish Institute (SI), which is the counterpart to Presence

Switzerland, leads Sweden’s brand strategy implementation. The SI “acts as a clear

and coherent representative of Sweden and Swedish skills, values and experience in

the world” (Swedish Institute , 2011). SI is part of the Council for Promotion of

Sweden Abroad, which includes the Swedish trade council, the invest-in-Sweden

agency, the ministry of foreign affairs, and Visitsweden. This council aims to


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collectively “promote a positive image of Sweden”, as well as “to attract visitors,

investment and knowledge to Sweden.” The council explains that by communicating

the same image of Sweden throughout its channels, it strengthens the messages of all

channels (Visitsweden , 2011).

The Swedish Institute is well staffed and funded to fulfill its mission to ‘put

Sweden on the map by using strategic communication that focuses on culture, society,

education, and science’ (Swedish Institute , 2011): 90 staff in Stockholm and Paris,

and an annual budget of about SEK 300 million, or CHF 43.6 million.

As the Swedish channels are under a centralized, coordinated management,

they reflect a top-down coherence, alignment, integration, and depth of social media.

Thus they can be evaluated globally by best practice rather than by channel.

Figure 14


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4.3.1 Brand communication strategy

Si.se On its website, the Swedish Institute gives its mandate to promote

Sweden through “strategic communication and exchange in the fields of culture,

education, science, and business” (Swedish Institute , 2011). It further defines how it

will use social media to that end as follows:

“At websites such as Sweden.se, Studyinsweden.se and Workinginsweden.se,

but also via the web-based community Swedenintouch.se and other social

media, we foster an updated image of Sweden and seek to engage visitors in

dialogue. Also, by being innovative and using the latest technology in our

digital communication, we help create an image of Sweden as a country at the

cutting edge.” (Swedish Institute - About Sweden, 2011)

The website design, with its moving panels of images alternating with text that

can be click-expanded for more details, exemplifies this focus on innovative use of

technology, as do the topics in the panels themselves. These include social media,

studying and working in Sweden (which links to three related websites), international

networks, films, designs for children, and public diplomacy, which has a video clip of

a 2010 seminar on Sweden’s image abroad held in Visby, Sweden. Simon Anholt,

creator of the Nation Brand Index in which Sweden ranks 10th (Anholt-GfK Roper,

2010), was the special guest and expert speaker, and there is a link to his website.

There are also bookmarks for sharing with 335 social media networks (Swedish

Instititute, 2010).

4.3.2 Channel alignment to target audiences

Sweden.se Navigating through Sweden’s social media via the Swedish Institute’s

gateway to all strategic communication channels is like walking through IKEA.

Channels are logically grouped around related content that is clearly differentiated for


50

its purpose and use. Large bookmarks (signposts) above the fold on the home page

alert the visitor to all available social networking channels where interaction is

possible, including Sweden’s news media channel, the Local, where the Swedish

Institute has its own selected content as well as related blog links under the ‘follow

Sweden’ tab. (The Local, 2011)

The home page menu covers each strategic facet of the country brand,

including: society, lifestyle, tourism, work, business, and education. The format and

organization of each subpage is identical, so the navigation is the same through all

Sweden.se subpages as well as the home pages of its linked channels (Sweden.se,

2011). Each page banner has 3-4 scrolling illustrations beside a tagline that reinforces

the strategic aim of presenting Sweden as a ‘cutting edge’ country. The Lifestyle

tagline is ‘listen, read, watch, explore’, business is about ‘embracing new ideas’, and

tourism says ‘explore our horizons’. FAQs in each page’s right bar target the by

anticipating its questions, such as “where can I find tourist information about

Sweden, how can I find information about companies in Sweden, or where can I find

the information I need about studies in Sweden?”

The quick facts menu tab has a social feed which features Swedish fashion,

food, music, and pictures for daily delivery to Facebook, an RSS feed, or an

‘embedded in your website’ option to create a strategic personal communication link

between the individual and news about Swedish culture. (Sweden.se, 2011)

The audience is persistently targeted with messages that support the strategic

aims. The business subpage, for example, underscores Sweden’s skills, values, and

experience with information it labels ‘ethics and business’, ‘business and culture’, and

‘innovation’ as hyperlinks above the bookmark for Sweden’s business channel,

Investsweden.


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Investsweden.se

The business website for Sweden is one of four key facet channels that are

linked to Sweden.se subpages which engage the target audience, then take it to the

channel of specialization and interaction. Although these key facet websites don’t

have the same homepage menu as Sweden.se, they have a similar look and feel in the

use of banner illustrations, font size and style, and overall design. Investsweden has

what Safko and Brake (2010) call ‘sticky’ content above the fold that draws the

visitor in with catchy taglines superimposed on thematic illustrations, such as ’10

Reasons to choose Sweden’, ‘what we do for you’, and ‘Sweden – a green datacenter

location’. These themes underscore the strategic aim to communicate Sweden’s

innovation and use of cutting edge digital technology in an environmentally sound

way (Investsweden, 2011).

Sweden.gov.se

The site of Sweden’s government offices includes several illustrations and a

video of the prime minister’s latest press conference. Bookmarks in the right column

link targeted audiences to Sweden’s gateway Sweden.se, a directory for the subpages

of all Swedish missions abroad, and websites for studying in Sweden, Swedish

environmental technology in China, Sweden’s policies and activities in environmental

and human rights, and the government newsletter, areas which reinforce and are

aligned with Sweden’s strategic communication goals. There is an Accessibility page

on which the visitor can tailor the site’s appearance, including font size, spacing, and

text and background colors. It also provides a synthetic speech function which reads

back website content for those who prefer audio to written communication

(Regeringen.se, 2011).


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4.3.3 Channel integration and depth

The Swedish channel site map (Figure 14) illustrates the integration and depth

of its social media. With the exception of the government site, every channel

has a blog and accounts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, all of which are

bookmarked on the website home page above the fold. However, the government site

links to homepages for all its embassies, as well as tools for tailoring the page layout

to individual preferences (Regeringen.se, 2011). The education website and its related

channels can be used as an example of how all Swedish channels conform to best

practices for social media integration and depth (Appendix 3b).

Studyinsweden.se

The strategic purpose of this website is to attract foreign students to Swedish

higher education institutions. Its reference to learning Swedish as a foreign language

supports the strategic aim is to increase Sweden’s skilled labor workforce with skilled

locally trained immigrants. The channel utilizes all social media channels to

interactively communicate with current and prospective students.

Like the gateway channel, Sweden.se, it has bookmarks above the fold for

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blog channels. Each channel repeats website

content to provide interactive opportunities on the different platforms.

Facebook - studyinsweden

Posts on the Facebook page promoting student bloggers are linked to their

Twitter accounts, and their tweets refer back to the Facebook and blog posts, all of

which focus on promoting higher education in Sweden. The Facebook page also links

to Sweden’s official community website for international students, Swedenintouch.se.

Posts are frequent, as are comments by the fan base (Appendix 3b).


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4.3.4 Channel tactics

Th

e final parameter measuring Swedish social media channels will be their use of the

four pillars of social media strategy: communication, collaboration, education, and

entertainment (Safko and Brake, 2009, p. 675).

Communication*** The Council for Promotion of Sweden Abroad aims to

ensure that the relevant authority optimally promotes the major facets of Sweden’s

brand, be it in tourism, investment, government, or education. Each channel website

explains who its target audience is, such as workinginsweden.se, which is “aimed

mainly at non EU/EEA citizens interested in working in Sweden for at least one year”

(Swedish Institute, 2011). The council believes a unified and consistent image of the

Swedish brand across channels will help reinforce each facet and increase its

competitiveness. This may have helped make Sweden the leading country for image

abroad in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, surpassing Switzerland for the

first time in five years. Even more impressively, Sweden has advanced two positions

to number 4 in the overall IMD ranking for 2011, ahead of Switzerland (Figure 7).

Collaboration*** The Swedish social media site map and the uniformity of

design and navigation via the Sweden.se gateway to all key channels (Appendix 3a)

illustrate how Sweden has integrated and leveraged each channel to support the

promotion of its country brand. Each channel contains links to similar shared content

that encourages audience interaction on the platform of choice, be it Twitter,

Facebook, YouTube, or blogs.

Education*** Notable on all Swedish channels is the comprehensive, clearly

expressed, easy-to-navigate information about all aspects of Swedish life. The

gateway differentiates clearly between Swedish society, lifestyle, tourism, work,


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business, and education. Each channel reinforces the message that the Swedish way is

innovative, technologically advanced, and environmentally aware, whether it is

experienced as an investor, a tourist, or a prospective student or immigrant. Each

website features FAQ’s to help visitors quickly find answers to the most common

questions. Blogs back each channel as well with frequent informative postings. An

April 27th higher education blog, “Study in Sweden (in multiple languages), promotes

the current Chinese version of the blog site and upcoming Arabic and Russian

versions this summer (Petersen, K., 2011).

Entertainment*** The use of multi-media is pervasive throughout Sweden’s

social media channels, including all its websites. Because of the integration and depth

of each channel, it is easy to interact with Swedish bloggers or tweeters. Channels are

updated frequently to maintain audience interest. The sustainability blog, for example,

posts every few days. An April 14th blog about threatened coral reefs, “Images that

want to inspire action”, also featured a 3-minute YouTube video (Jeswani, S., 2011),

and was posted on the Sweden.se Facebook page. Likewise, 68 fans liked a recent

study blog about innovation in Sweden (Boborg, N., 2011).

4.4 Evaluation of Swiss and Australian country leader social media

The main purpose of establishing a strong social media presence for a country

leader is to provide a rapid response platform to negative media, not only because

leadership social media is more visible, but because it is more autonomous from the

other branches of governance. A recent example of a government leader effectively

using rapid response social media was when the US Census bureau neutralized

negative Republican tweeting and blogging about its costly Rose Bowl ad (U.S.

Census Bureau, 2010). However, a limitation to building up a social media presence

for the Swiss presidency has been its collective rather than unitary head of state,


55

which rotates through the seven Federal council members on an annual basis.

Although a recently established four-year presidential ‘cabinet’ can provide more

continuity to the social media presence of the head of state, the personal interviews in

this research also explored the feasibility of extending the Swiss presidential term,

which has been proposed in the past by the Swiss parliament as well as former

presidents like Doris Leuthard (WRS , 2010).

Micheline Calmy-Rey is Switzerland’s president for 2011 and has been the

minister of foreign affairs since 2003. Sweden’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, has

several active social media channels, but its prime minister does not. Thus Australia,

a mid-sized country similar in country ranking indexes to Switzerland but with a best

practices social media presence for its prime minister, Julia Gilliard, was used as a

benchmark.

4.4.1 Swiss president social media

admin.ch/eda.admin.ch

Alignment to audiences: Admin.ch is the website of the Federal Authorities of

the Swiss Confederation, and eda.admin.ch is the website of the Department of

Foreign Affairs (FDFA). The admin.ch homepage is a densely populated, text-based

directory for all government departments. A hyperlink for the Federal Council page

leads to a cutout photo and welcome letter from the Swiss president (Appendix 4a), at

the bottom of which is another hyperlink to a page that describes the presidency and

gives a short bio of Micheline Calmy-Rey, president for 2011.

One of the many admin.ch text hyperlinks leads to the FDFA website,

eda.admin.ch, which has two sections in the left column for internal and external

stakeholders: “traveling and living abroad”, and “traveling and living in

Switzerland”. These sections are ‘illustrated’ with arrows leading from and to a small


56

outline of Switzerland. The News section contains pdf format press releases in

French and German focusing on human rights issues and Switzerland’s provision of

aid and political support to developing countries. The page is static, with few

illustrations, no multimedia, and multiple small pitch text hyperlinks that are difficult

to decipher. Each hyperlink in turn leads to another static page that is full of text and

devoid of images.

Integration and depth: There are bookmarks below the fold of the homepage

for Swissworld.org (Switzerland in its diversity), swissinfo.ch (news and info), and

ch.ch (the Swiss portal for everyday questions) (Appendix 2a), but no Facebook link.

Facebook – Micheline Calmy-Rey

Alignment to audiences: A Facebook page for Micheline Calmy-Rey was

established in December, 2009 to support her position as head of the Federal

Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), which she has held since 2003. She currently

has 2100 fans (Appendix 4a). Her Facebook page has bi-weekly posts that are aimed

at German, French, and Italian-speaking stakeholders. Four round table meetings

throughout Switzerland have been posted as events this year with no Facebook fan

attendees. Other posts cover her visits with foreign dignitaries, important Swiss

institutional anniversaries, and comments on global events such as the social unrest in

Northern Africa. Her posts average 10 likes and a few comments, but her French

Easter greeting had 44 likes, the highest number since she assumed the Presidency.

Her page currently has 35 photos of her activities and four videos.

Integration and depth: There are no links between the government websites

featuring Calmy-Rey to her Facebook page, nor are there links from Facebook to any

other social networks like Twitter, where Calmy-Rey has a protected following of

two, or YouTube, where there is no official channel. The most viewed videos of her


57

in 2011 are her opening speech at the World Economic Forum’s Davos meeting

(1,511) and her appearance on a Swiss-German television talk show in January 2011

(1,279). A July, 31st 2009 press conference with Calmy-Rey and Hillary Clinton to

announce an agreement on resolving the litigation between the USA and UBS has

been viewed 1,027 times on YouTube (US Dept of State , 2009). In general, videos of

Calmy-Rey draw inarticulate, negative comments and less than a hundred viewings.

Tactics: (all channels) Communication**, Collaboration*, Education***,

Entertainment*. One-way communication and education predominate in Micheline

Calmy-Rey’s social media channels, but none of the channel messages are linked or

reinforced by other channels. There are generally positive comments on her Facebook

page, whose messages focus on strengthening Switzerland’s reputation as a

humanitarian, exemplary democracy to German, French, and Italian-speaking

stakeholders. The only attempt to entertain is on the Facebook page, although it

doesn’t use multimedia to engage interest in the postings.

4.4.2 Australian prime minister social media

pm.gov.au

Alignment to audiences: The website of the Prime Minister (PM) of Australia,

Julia Gillard, promotes activities the PM undertakes for the good of Australia’s

internal stakeholders, as well as her government’s support for global events and

initiatives, like International Women’s Day and the UN-sanctioned invasion of Libya.

The content is very ‘sticky’, with a full-width banner which scrolls photos of the

PM’s most recent activities under tabs for a blog, photos and videos, the press office,

the PM, and her cabinet (Appendix 4b) above the fold. Bookmarks to her social media

channels are also located above the fold. Clicking on any of these tabs leads the


58

visitor to pages rich in multimedia content, all of which can be shared via social

media bookmarks.

Integration and depth: The website is accessible as a quick link at the bottom

of the government website homepage (Australian government, 2011), and via all of

the PM’s social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. In addition, the tab for

Government leads to the websites for each of the cabinet members as well as their

related social media channels (Australia Deputy PM, 2011).

Facebook – Julia Gillard

Alignment to audiences: The PM’s ca. 100,000 fan base appears active, as

there are hundreds of ‘likes’ to her frequent posts on topics of both internal and

external interest, from the Japanese earthquake to the UN position on Libya to a

carbon tax in Australia. There are sometimes hundreds of negative comments on

controversial issues, as there are for other leaders like Barack Obama (BarackObama,

2011), although they usually involve a few individuals having lengthy exchanges.

Integration: Featured content from the webpage is repeated in Facebook posts,

as are homepage press conferences by the PM. The info page provides hyperlinks to

the PM’s website, the Labor Party website, and Twitter and Flickr channels.

Twitter – Julia Gillard

Alignment and Integration: The PM’s Twitter channel has over 95,000

followers and follow over 55,000 tweeters. (Appendix 4b). She appears to have an

international following, many of whose twitter accounts are in foreign languages, and

she has tweeted 330 times since beginning in July 2010, or once a day. The channel is

linked to her party’s website, alp.org.au.

Tactics (all channels): Communication *** The PM’s messages are

differentiated for internal and external stakeholders and reinforced through


59

multimedia and repetition on her different social media channels, where her following

or fan base reflects the diversity of her stakeholders. Collaboration ** Presence on all

social media channels affords audience participation. Education *** Information on

the PM’s activities is clearly and concisely explained and reinforced on all social

media channels. Entertainment *** All the PM’s major press conference videos are

available on her website and Facebook channels, and there is a liberal use of

photographs and graphics to illustrate messages.


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5.0 Discussion of results

This research has evaluated the impact of country ranking indexes like the

Anholt Nation Branding Index and the IMD World Competition Yearbook on the

communication strategy of Switzerland and how Swiss social media channels use best

practices to support the strategy. Sweden’s use of social media channels to support its

country branding strategy was used as a benchmark, as was the social media of

Australia’s prime minister.

Presence Switzerland (PRS) is mandated to implement the communication

strategy abroad, but President Micheline Calmy-Rey and Nicolas Bideau, the head of

Presence Switzerland, have said that their funding is insufficient to adequately exploit

social media channels. The Swedish Institute (SI) has a similar mandate for Sweden,

with 90 staff versus 30 in PRS, and an annual budget of CHF 43.6 million versus

PRS’s CHF 7.4 million (Image Switzerland, 2011) (Swedish Institute , 2011).

Sweden’s superior staffing and budget no doubt help contribute to its superior use of

social media channels. While lack of resources might limit the depth of channels that

can be supported, alignment and integration are more a function of coordinated

management of existing resources by the key channel owners, such Sweden’s Council

for Promotion of Sweden Abroad. Thus it is valid to compare Swiss alignment and

integration best practices with those of the two benchmark countries, (Appendix 5)

and make recommendations for how Swiss social media can be better managed to

promote and protect its country brand, even with limited resources.

5.1 Swiss channels versus Swedish best practices alignment to audiences

The communication strategy for Switzerland’s image abroad focuses on

promoting understanding of Switzerland’s political system and policies, and

increasing awareness of its competitiveness and innovativeness, particularly in


61

transport and the environment. Its target audiences are opinion leaders, media

representatives, politicians, scientists and students in its major trading partner

countries (Figure 13). Sweden’s Council for Promotion of Sweden Abroad, which is

led by the SI, aims to promote a positive and consistent image of Sweden throughout

its social media channels to attract visitors, investment, and knowledge to Sweden.

Communication strategy. As the communication strategy unites all key

brand elements to a common purpose, a channel aligned to the strategy provides an

effective way of presenting a country’s multi-faceted brand. The Swiss and Swedish

social media channel maps in Figures 10 and 14 illustrate how each country has or has

not accomplished this. Switzerland’s communication strategy is not the gateway by

which all other channels are accessed. Furthermore, access to Switzerland’s

communication strategy website, Image_Switzerland, is buried in the fourth level of

the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) website, which is not identified as

a key strategic channel.

The Swedish channel for the country’s communication strategy, Si.se, is listed

at the bottom of the Sweden.se homepage as the administrator of the site, which is

both Sweden’s strategic channel gateway and its information channel. It presents the

strategic aims of all Sweden’s key channels, which then reinforce and build on thee

aims in above the fold taglines, clickable images, and short descriptions.

Although the five different Swiss channels do correspond to the strategic

facets of the country brand, their aims and target audiences are not apparent as with

Swedish social media. Their content doesn’t consistently help audiences identify

their interests via tags that correspond to the strategic brand elements, or offer above

the fold FAQs on each brand channel that correspond to target audience interests.


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Information gateway. Switzerland’s information gateway aim to convey

messages about politics or innovation or environmental policies is not reaching target

audiences according to its most popular tags. The abundance of topics to choose from,

all crowded into table-of-contents style hyperlinks which lead to more hyperlinks

indexing a variety of other sites in various languages, makes it confusing and time-

consuming for audiences to find strategic content.

Sweden’s information gateway, by comparison, features strategic topics on the

home page, such as sustainability and innovation. Key content is labeled as tabs with

hover descriptions, or bulleted under major subheadings throughout the site. A media

room link in the footer accesses the pressrooms of all key channels. (Sweden media

room, 2011) The news portal tabs are by target group, i.e. news, business, live &

work, and study. Two clicks reach strategic messages anywhere on the gateway,

compared to three to five clicks on Switzerland’s gateway.

Tourism. Tabs on Myswitzerland target tourists by type, activities, and

interests. It is the most visual of channels, with many illustrations, panoramic views

of Switzerland, and video clips, including a section uploaded by visitors themselves.

But its homepage is cluttered with Swiss geography and hotel options, while Swiss

cultural tourism is hidden on subpages even though it needs reinforcing according to

the Nation Branding Index. The site doesn’t identify itself as official and looks very

commercial compared to other key channels.

Sweden’s tourism site, Visitsweden, calls itself Sweden’s official website for

tourism and travel information. It targets companies and journalists as well as tourists,

with features like a pressroom to help journalists plan press trips to Sweden or write

about Swedish tourism. It also has links to Sweden’s priority country press offices for

Swedish tourism in the local languages. (Visitsweden , 2011)


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Investment & Trade. A comparison of the homepages of the Swiss (Osec)

and Swedish (investSweden) business sites highlights Sweden’s more precise focus

on target audiences. Osec’s banner is a static blurred picture, while Sweden’s is

clickable pictures backing its strategic messages: ‘datacenters’ (green technology),

‘what we do for you’, and ‘why Sweden’. Osec’s main headings are either too general

or too verbose: news, exports out of Switzerland, imports into Switzerland, and

investments into Switzerland. Sweden’s are: competitive Sweden, case studies, and

events.

Osec looks clunky and dated, and lacks an engaging ‘sticky’ interface between

content and the audience. Information is organized into long table of contents and it

takes several clicks through a maze of tiny font hyperlinks to find, for example, 16

informative videos that describe the competitiveness of the Swiss business sectors.

However, there is no way of knowing this until one actually lands on the video page.

It takes six clicks to find content on Swiss innovativeness, a quality Nicolas Bideau

said requires more promotion. The fifth click hyperlink, ‘other organizations

providing assistance’, gives no indication that it leads to information about

Switzerland’s federal innovation promotion agency, CTI.

Invest Sweden’s homepage ‘advantage Sweden’ tab, by comparison, lists 10

illustrated reasons for investing in the country, the first of which is innovation.

Governance. Switzerland’s government channels, as noted by Nicolas

Bideau, reflect a text-oriented, one-way communication style, with lengthy document-

style text hyperlink indexes that lead to other indexes, and pdf downloads without

descriptive hover text. This does little to help “clarify to the foreign public

Switzerland’s political concerns and positions.” (FDFA - PRS, 2011).


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The government’s communication strategy abroad is found on a subpage of

the ‘About Switzerland’ tag, entitled ‘Promotion Switzerland’. It describes Presence

Switzerland, along with the four key Swiss channels evaluated in this research, as

“Swiss organizations fully dedicated to offering services to the public” (Federal

Chancellery, 2010).

While the FDFA homepage, eda.admin.ch, more clearly targets external

stakeholders. It reflects the same crowded, official documentation style of most Swiss

governmental sites, and has no pressroom with multimedia content.

By contrast, the Swedish government homepage uses visuals and whitespace

to highlight key messages, and it has bookmarks for both the brand strategy gateway

and the Sweden abroad website above the fold. The latter links to commonly

formatted pages for every Swedish mission in the world. Its press office clearly

targets media representatives, with frequent webcasts and an International press center

with subscription-only video resources for foreign journalists. (Sweden abroad, 2011)

News Media. Swissinfo, the Swiss news and media channel, very effectively

uses social media best practices to engage and entertain target audiences, although the

connection to Switzerland’s strategy abroad is not clear. It defends the Swiss position

in areas where the image has been weakened (sometimes by Swissinfo news stories),

and links them to the relevant social media channel. Swissinfo recently added a

Swissworld bookmark on four of its eleven tab subpages related to Swissworld topics,

and several Swiss channels link to Swissinfo articles via subpage hyperlinks to help

reinforce their messages. As the only channel which links to and from all other

strategic Swiss channels, Swissinfo functions as the ‘unofficial’ gateway for Swiss

image-building, even though it is not officially responsible for managing

Switzerland’s brand image.


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By comparison, Sweden.se uses its news media channel, the Local, to

reinforce rather than substitute for strategic content. It provides centralized access to

news and commentaries on the Local, and furthermore has its own tab on the Local

homepage, ‘Follow Sweden’, which covers selected content and links to the six blogs

among the Local’s 23 that are managed by SI (The Local, 2011).

Summary. Swiss channel home pages are predominantly content indexes of

text hyperlinks leading to more hyperlinks without a consistent format or apparent

strategic focus. Use of clickable visuals ranges from very good on channels for

tourism and news media to poor on the information gateway, investment, and

government channels. (Appendix 2a). Each Swedish channel homepage, on the other

hand, has commonly placed above-the-fold clickable visuals, taglines, and FAQs that

reinforce the channel’s aims and guide target audiences to strategic content. Swiss

channels make no use of sticky taglines to define their purpose, FAQs are variously

located and formatted, and pictures frequently don’t lead to additional content – they

simply illustrate it, in the static brochure design that predominates on Swiss channels.

5.2 Swiss versus best practices channel integration and depth

Integration: The lack of integration in Swiss social media can be seen in the

comparison table of Swiss and Swedish social media channels (Appendix 5). It

appears Swiss channels were developed independently and incrementally linked on

the detail level, whereas Swedish channels were built top down as a harmonious,

integrated whole. Thus they reflect streamlined homepage commonalities of design

and navigation, while Switzerland’s channels reflect different stages in web design

technology as well as the varying communication skills and style of their sponsors.

Interfaces between Swiss channels are hyperlink add-ons or variously placed


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bookmarks at all levels rather than fundamental, recognizable menu elements at

higher levels (Appendices 2a and 3a).

Not only does Switzerland’s official gateway not lead to all other channels,

but Swiss channel domains range from .com to .org to .ch, a further sign of disparity.

The de facto gateway to which all other channels refer is the Swiss news media

channel, which often replaces rather than reinforces the image-building efforts of

Switzerland’s other major channels. With links to Swissinfo articles usually buried in

Swiss channel hyperlinks, its easier and more engaging to access Swiss strategic

channels, if at all, via the Swissinfo site. Although Swissinfo’s mission includes

raising awareness of Switzerland, it never refers to Switzerland’s strategy for

communication abroad.

Conversely, Sweden’s social media site map in Figure 14 demonstrates how

coordinated management by the owners of a country’s key strategic channels results

in best practices use of social media to reinforce the strategic messages of a country’s

communication strategy in its quest for a competitive advantage.

Depth. The lack of depth in Swiss social media has been ascribed to

inadequate funding by those responsible for the online country communication

strategy. However, government funding of the Swissinfo news media channel was

recently renewed, enabling it to continue to support its well-subscribed major social

network channels and four blogs. Perhaps the government believes its social media

money is better spent on media professionals, but this delegates Switzerland’s image

promotion to journalists whose first priority is to report Swiss news impartially,

however damaging it may be to the Swiss brand. Sweden’s social media channels, by

comparison, disseminate their messages to all interactive networks. The exception is

the government, which has created homogeneous websites for all Swedish missions,


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some of which, like the USA, do have social networking depth (Sweden abroad,

2011).

5.3 Swiss versus best practices channel tactics

The evaluation of Swiss channel use of the four pillars of social media to

engage and persuade audiences found that only the news media channel Swissinfo

scored top marks in communications, collaboration, education, and entertainment. As

noted by Brian Solis, good social media facilitates conversations. Websites should

engage and persuade audiences looking for interaction to move to social networking

platforms. Without depth, channel conversations are very limited, and as illustrated by

Switzerland’s social media site map (Figure 10), only its news media channel offers

multiple networking opportunities. But it does not reinforce strategic messages

throughout channels as effectively as Sweden’s social media.

For example, an evaluation of one of Sweden’s strategic channels, Study in

Sweden, found optimal conversational depth. A recent home page story: ‘low on

cash’ was repeated on its Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels, with a video tie-

in as well, offering audiences four conversational touch points (Appendix 3b).

Switzerland’s presentation of educational opportunities for foreigners, by

comparison, is split among several channels. Swissworld.org and ch.ch have

information about public schooling, while mySwitzerland.com covers private

schooling. No single channel unites all educational opportunities for foreign students,

nor are there social networks for them. A Facebook page that seems to target them has

122 fans and an invalid web site link. (StudyinSwitzerland, 2011)

5.4 Swiss versus best practices country leader social media

Background: As noted, a disadvantage in establishing a social media ‘suite’

for Switzerland’s presidency lies in its short, one-year rotation among the Swiss 7-


68

member governing cabinet. However, a 4-year presidential support team has now

been established to help provide some continuity to the promotion of the office, and

primary research found that the presidential term will very possibly be extended by

the Swiss federal parliament to two years in the near future. A strong social media

presence for the Swiss presidency, however ceremonial, could be key to providing an

effective, rapid counter-attack against negative media coverage of Swiss actions.

Summary: This paper’s evaluation has shown that presidential social media

in Switzerland is compromised both by the dual role of and the one year term of each

president, which is too short a time to build up a significant social media presence

unless the incumbent already has one as a federal councilor. This is the case with

Micheline Calmy-Rey, whose Facebook page was established, and still reflects, her

role as Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs. But her fan base has only grown

by about 2.5% per month, perhaps because she uses no other social media channels to

engage them.

The Australian Prime Minister’s Facebook monthly fan base growth rate is

over 10%. Not only does she use all social media channels, but messages are repeated

across channels linked with above-the-fold bookmarks (Appendix 4b). Her pressroom

uses frequent videos to disseminate and generate interest in her media releases. And

she follows over 50,000 Twitter accounts, setting the stage for counter-attacks to

negative press on multiple platforms, which are as well monitored as they are

subscribed to.


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Conclusion and Recommendations

Summary: According to the country branding indexes and ranking experts

that this research has consulted in publications and through primary research,

Switzerland has one of the strongest country brands in the world. It consistently ranks

among the top ten on all major indexes that assess a country’s competitiveness. This

research has also found that Switzerland uses its performance in the facets of the

Anholt Nation Brand Hexagon to help it formulate its communication strategy abroad,

and has social media channels that correspond to these facets, namely: tourism,

exports, governance, investment and immigration, culture and heritage, and people.

But in the past few years, Switzerland has lost rank in some of the NBI

Hexagon facets, notably immigration and people. Furthermore, this year Switzerland

dropped one position on the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), while

Sweden, which was found by this research to support its communication strategy

abroad with a best practices social media presence, advanced two. Although it was not

the remit of this paper to prove a direct correlation between best practices social

media and country ranking, it demonstrated that Switzerland is not using social media

best practices to support its country brand communication strategy, particularly when

compared to the best practices use of Sweden. Thus a correlation cannot be

discounted.

Country brand analysts have warned that Switzerland cannot afford to rest on

its laurels, as countries are competing more than ever to export their products and

services and import tourists, companies, and skilled labor. Nor can it depend on

traditional one-way or one-to-one communications to promote Switzerland abroad,

such as that still practiced by most of its social media channels, when it is being

attacked through multiple social networking channels on a global, real time scale. It


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needs to better leverage its own channels to promote its strengths and address its

weaknesses.

Although Switzerland is about to implement a comprehensive online

monitoring tool for early identification of negative media events, it also needs to

establish a government social media presence on all major platforms, preferably in the

president’s name. This will help to neutralize attacks from countries or companies

who compete with Switzerland for business before they cause serious damage to

Switzerland’s valuable reputation and endanger its competitiveness.

Recommendations: This research has led to six recommendations to help

Switzerland achieve best practices use of social media to promote and protect its

country brand:

1. Establish a national identity. Switzerland does it better. Switzerland needs

a social media tagline that unites all facets of the national identity. Switzerland has

been called a model state, the Swarovski of countries, exclusive and limited. In his

book, Places, Simon Anholt said that although Switzerland has a strong country

brand, it has a weak national one. If Swiss social media channels featured Swiss

excellence that is not disembodied and is linked to its strategic messages as well as

the products for which it is famous, this could help to brand the national character

irrespective of language or political differences, which are too often blamed for a lack

of a Swiss national identity. Brief descriptions of notable achievements (i.e. he

invented this, or she cured that, or they helped build the longest tunnel in Europe, etc.)

related to a specific channel could be featured in clickable banner images, and

changed on a regular basis or as new achievers made their mark.

2. Harmonize channel alignment. To ensure consistency and pervasiveness

of Swiss national brand promotion, a channel re-alignment, similar to what Sweden


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has established, would transform what now seems like repetitive, uncoordinated

content into complimentary, targeted content.

A top down design would help to reinforce the Swiss national brand image

while still communicating to the target audiences of each channel. Perhaps the

Swissinfo homepage tab design could be used as a basis (Appendix 2c). The key is to

make all channels uniform in layout and navigation, giving audiences one ‘launch

pad’ from which to access different channels that capture and lead them to the content

they seek anywhere in the Swiss social media world with a minimum of effort.

Exclusivity could be further reinforced for special target audiences like opinion

leaders or media and educational representatives by offering subscription-based

multimedia access to special content.

3. Increase channel depth. All major Swiss channels need to establish

themselves on all major social networking channels and provide above-the-fold

bookmarks. Key image-strengthening messages, such how the Swiss vote more than

any country on earth, should be repeated on each social network platform to reinforce

messages and enabling audiences to interact on the channel of their choice. A channel

‘master’ could provide feedback to noteworthy comments to demonstrate that the host

is also engaged. Even Lady Gaga interacts with her 35 million Facebook fans (Gaga,

2011). Countries rarely do this, so Switzerland could stand out if it occasionally

responded on topics that generated exceptional interest, especially if it’s negative.

Given the manpower required to sift through and respond to fan comments, interns

with clear instructions on how to represent government interests online, which has

been established by countries like New Zealand and the USA for government

employees, could be implemented (US Dept of State , 2009).


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Repeating messages on the major networking channels would provide

simplified summaries of text from web pages or blogs to appeal to younger audiences

in particular. The option to tailor screen fonts and colors, such as that provided by the

Swedish government site’s ‘accessibility’ page, could help engage older audiences.

4. Engage through entertainment. Official Swiss social media is no fun.

There’s ample information, but apart from the news media channels, it takes too much

time and effort to navigate to and interact (when possible) with desired content. Swiss

channels need homepages with bigger and better bookmarks to each other’s content

via taglines and clickable images. The extensive video library of the news media

channel should be tapped into by corresponding content on the strategic channels via

clickable pictures, not the text hyperlinks. The Swissinfo multimedia page organizes

videos by themes, which correspond to country elements measured by country

ranking indexes: environment, infrastructure, society, culture, sports, and science.

This library could be enlarged to include strategic aims like innovation and education,

which the Presence Switzerland gateway could then link to on the pages where it

covers these topics (Swissinfo video, 2011). Multimedia pressrooms, which include

government press conferences and other key policy presentations, should be

established on the information gateway and government channels to engage foreign

opinion leaders and other key targets identified in the Swiss communication strategy

abroad.

5. Assign a social media ‘Ringmaster’. In the December Harvard Business

Review, Patrick Spenner identifies the need for a new type of social media marketing

executive who must unite the various actors and their activities of communicating and

fulfilling a brand promise “like a circus ringmaster, expertly choreographing talent in

real time to engage the audience in a seamless, interactive experience.” (Spenner,


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2010). He identifies three capabilities needed for a social media ‘marketing’

executive: integrative thinking, ability to augment lean resources with people from

other channels, and ability to work within short time frames by using social

technologies to rapidly identify and maximize new opportunities or neutralize threats.

6. Establish a ‘chief executive’ high-speed response capability. In terms of

responding to attacks on brands, countries are no different to companies in that they

are slow-moving and consensus-driven. Swiss leadership has demonstrated this

limitation in the past, when its policies regarding banking transparency, the Polanski

affair, the minaret ban, or the Libyan hostage crisis, were communicated through

press releases seen by a few hundred people online. If other world leaders’ use of

social media to promote or defend their policies is any indication, a social media

‘suite’ for the Swiss presidential office that included a blog and Facebook and Twitter

accounts could have helped defuse the negative criticism before it spread through

social media channels and affected perceptions of the Swiss country brand enough to

lower its ranking in two of the major country brand indexes.


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Appendix 1 – Interview Questions

Interview 1: Stephane Garelli 1. Could you explain in more details how the WCY is organized? 2. How does it compare to the other major competitiveness index, the GCI by WEF? What about the NBI and CBI? Are they more/less reliable indicators of the strength of the Swiss brand? 3. What are the major strengths and weaknesses your yearbook has found in the Swiss country brand? 4. Do you think social media can influence perception of these strengths and weaknesses? How? 5. Why is there a variance in the different country brand rankings? 6. Can country rankings be affected by negative media events from year to year? 7. What do you think was/were the most damaging media events in the past few years? Why? 8. With its dependency on quality exports, do you think Switzerland has to be concerned about counterfeiting? 9. The US Census Bureau neutralized John McCain’s tweets against its Superbowl ad to 7 million followers with a speedy response from the Director’s social media platforms. Could this strategy be applied to Switzerland’s extraordinary situations? Why/why not? 10. Any idea if Switzerland will maintain its position in your ranking this year? Interview 2 – Nicolas Bideau 1. What has been your experience since you joined Presence Switzerland? 2. What are your current priorities in terms of the Communication strategy abroad? 3. What Internet media analysis tools are you using and what do you monitor? 4. Do you think non-Presence Switzerland government-sponsored websites like swissinfo and admin.ch protect and promote the Swiss country brand? How/how not? 5. What do you think of the current websites managed by Presence Switzerland? 6. What do you think of the president’s Facebook page? Should she branch out to other social media platforms, like Twitter or blogging? Why/why not?


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7. Do you think the fraudulent use of the identity of the Swiss president on Twitter and a blog is a problem? 8. Would Switzerland’s online image promotion benefit from having a presidency that lasted more than one year? Is it feasible? Why/why not? If so, how? 9. Are there plans to put Presence Switzerland on other social media platforms? Which ones and why? Interview 3 – Willy Hold 1. Could you explain what your main responsibilities were as Chief of Protocol? 2. Your responsibilities included some of the instruments that are referenced in the communication strategy for promoting Switzerland abroad, such as major events and hosting foreign delegations. Could you explain in more detail how these work? 3. How did the president manage her dual responsibilities? 4. How is the PR for the office of the president organized today? 5. What are the responsibilities of PRS versus the Press Office of the president and/or the FDFA in terms of social media? 6. Would Switzerland’s online image promotion benefit from having a presidency that lasted more than one year? Is it feasible? If no, why not? If yes, how? 7. Do you think the fraudulent use of the identity of the Swiss president on Twitter and a blog is a problem? 8. Swiss embassies like the one in Washington D.C. use social media to promote the Swiss image. Do you think this could be useful in other Swiss priority countries? Interview 4 – Micheline Calmy-Rey

1. What do you think of your Facebook page as a tool for promoting the presidency? Who is your intended audience? 2. A recent Swissinfo article said that 25 world leaders used their Twitter accounts, or Twiplomacy, at the Davos conference which you attended. What do you think about using it for your communications? 3. Would you consider having a blog? If not, why? 4. What do you think of other world leaders, like President Obama or Norway’s Prime Minister, maintaining blogs? 5. What is your view on the role of Presence Switzerland in supporting the communication strategy using social media?


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Appendix 2a - Swiss channel alignment


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Appendix 2b – Swiss channel depth


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Appendix 3a – Swedish channel alignment


79

Appendix 3b – Swedish channel depth


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Appendix 4a – Swiss country leader


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Appendix 4b – Australian country leader


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Appendix 5 – Swiss versus Swedish/Australian social media channels

Brand areas/ Country

Main sites (Image strategy site)

Gateway integration

Home pg links

Facebook Twitter/ Languages

YouTube Blogs/ languages

Info gateway CH SE

Swissworld.org Sweden.se (si.se)

no yes

n/a yes

no yes

no en

no yes

no 12/en

Tourism CH SE

myswitzerland.com visitSweden.se

no yes

no yes

yes yes

en,fr,de en

yes yes

no en

Investment CH SE

osec.ch Investsweden.se

no yes

yes yes

yes yes

en, de 4 countries

yes yes

de,fr,it en

Government CH SE

ch.ch/epa.admin.ch (image_switzerland) Sweden.gov.se

no yes

no yes

yes yes

en,fr,de foreign sec.

no no

no foreign sec.

News Media CH SE

Swissinfo.ch Thelocal.se,de,ch

no yes

yes yes

yes yes

en + 8 en

yes yes

6/6 16/en

Leadership home website(s)

Gateway integration

All sites linked

Facebook Twitter/ Languages

Press office

Blog/ languages

Admin.ch, eda.admin. pm.gov.au

no yes

no yes

yes yes

no en

no yes

no en


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How Switzerland Can Use Social Media to Protect and Promote Its Country Brand

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