EIDA discovers ‘Social Media’

EIDA discovers ‘Social Media’

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They might have made a remarkable four year long hash of their communications, but EIDA has consistently served up quality entertainment says Alex Mcnabb.

June 19, 2012 4:50 by Alex McNabb

A lovely piece in Khaleej Times today lifted from national news agency WAM telling us how the Emirates Identity Authority is launching “the Social Media engagement service”.

The brave providers of ‘context and analysis’ didn’t even bother changing WAM’s copy, using the official headline and including the redundant definite article and the unnecessary caps for social media. You can read the EIDA announcement on the authority’s website here.

I must confess, they might have made a remarkable four year long hash of their communications, but EIDA has consistently served up quality entertainment.

The “Social Media engagement service” will help customers with queries and “underscored the Emirates ID’s keenness on keeping pace with the development of the modern media and employing the social networking tools for upgrading the ID card-related services and meeting customers’ requirements by responding to their queries and solving their problems most urgently through the channels they prefer in their daily life.”

EIDA has already lauded its own success with the service, replying to over 1,700 customer queries and complaints last month alone. Its followers have grown by 40% over the month-long test period.

If you want to social media engage with the Emirates ID people, you can talk to them on Twitter @EmiratesID_HELP or on Facebook, where you can pick up insightful hints and tips such as ‘Important info! Ensure that all personal data entered in the e-form are correct’.

There is also, by the way, a new ID card status service. I’ve just renewed my visa (itself a somewhat fraught process in the circumstances) and am waiting for my new ID card so I thought I’d try it out. Apparently I’m 15 years old, which is always nice to discover when father time weighs down on one’s shoulders. Quite where my ID card is, I couldn’t honestly say…