Social networks have become an integral part of government communication nowadays. The new tools of the "21st Century Statecraft" -- a term coined by U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton -- are rapidly replacing fax and telex, and are becoming just as important for government leaders, ministers, and diplomats as the telephone and email. In 2012 has seen a marked increase in the use of social media -- especially Twitter and Facebook -- by heads of state and government, ministers, and diplomats. The entire governments of Chile and Mexico, and their ministers, are on Twitter.

Twitter is probably one of the easiest social-media tools to use in government communication. It allows the broadcast of short, 140-character messages to a large audience, well beyond any country's borders. No other social network allows a government message to go viral or potentially reach such a worldwide audience. There is no other social network that allows for direct and unfettered interaction with world leaders. Today, anyone can send an "@" mention to a world leader on Twitter. That leader might not see the "@" mention personally, but his or her staff will definitely get the message.

The power of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook is that they connect people globally and bring citizens closer to their leaders. The social-media team of the White House has best understood how to connect the president directly with his constituents using all major social networks available. The White House uses Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even Reddit to connect with Americans. U.S. President Barack Obama has sat down for two YouTube interviews, where the questions were sourced from the YouTube community via video. He travelled to Facebook headquarters for a town hall meeting moderated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who put questions from Facebook users to the president. The U.S. administration organized a twitter town hall at the White House, moderated by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Obama used the occasion to publicly write and send a personal tweet signed "bo," sending himself the first question to kick off the Q&A session. In the run-up to the 2012 U.S. elections, Obama's social-media activity picked up, culminating with an AMA -- "ask me anything" -- session on Reddit. Obama remains the most digitally savvy political leader in the world, with a massive Twitter following of more than 20 million.

Unfortunately, all too often, politicians only discover Twitter during election campaigns, when their every word and deed is suddenly documented by their digital teams in 140 characters or less. In today's election we see how our nominees use social media to gain voters. We have also seen how social media has been used as a form of bullying and a place for deformation of character. Not only from cyber "trolls" but from people of power also. Social media has created a platform to spread not only the positive but also the negative. Discrimination and racism being pushed forward, unfiltered by not only regular citizens but even politicians and people of high esteem too.

I feel social media is a great forum for people of power to stay connected to the communities as much as possible. I feel in the near future, no one will be able to become a leader without digital followers, and no diplomat will be well-positioned to represent his or her country if he or she does not personally engage on social networks. And it is not the size of the followership that matters, but the quality of the conversations started by the individual.