Goodbye Red Phone, Hello Blue Bird

The Russian Foreign Ministry plans to launch a Facebook page soon and is offering “special courses to teach diplomats how to make the most of their Twitter accounts to help promote Russia’s position on the world stage,” the state-owned Ria Novosti news service reported Monday.

The ministry also launched a YouTube page last week made up mostly of news conferences and speeches with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Ria Novosti credited Kommersant, a Russian-language newspaper, for the report. Here’s the background:

During a closed-door meeting with Russian ambassadors last week, President Vladimir Putin urged diplomats to actively use new technologies to improve Russia’s image and defend its interests, Kommersant said, quoting an official who attended the meeting. “It’s not enough to just crow something once… We should explain our positions again and again, using various platforms and new technologies, until they understand,” the official, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, quoted Putin as saying.

Some U.S. embassies have also used social media to spread important news and alerts to U.S. citizens living abroad.

Opening up to social media, though, also means opening up to social media users who can be much more blunt and catty than professional diplomats. It will be interesting to see how the Russian page fares.