Seoul City vowed to actively utilize social media as an administrative tool to better communicate with the public and boost civic participation, officials said.

For instance, disaster and safety alerts will be sent through Seoul City’s official social media accounts, including Twitter and Facebook, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said.

This is part of the city’s “Social Metropolitan City Seoul” project that is based on how about 30 million Koreans use social networking services across the country.

For the project, the city will integrate 150 different social media accounts used by 115 divisions of the capital government.

The city will encourage wider use of social media in gathering opinions of smaller social communities and the public to reflect them in policies. An example would be to receive feedback in real time online while holding conferences or public hearings on the city’s various measures.

The city will also form a special network with social media experts to follow up on the latest social media trends on how to maximize the effectiveness of the use, the officials said.

In order to use the platform to support small businesses, online sales routes will be provided along with free marketing classes, they added.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)