Preamble

Practice and Reflection on the Operation of Maritime Government Affairs WeChat Official Accounts: A Case Study of "Youth Maritime"
(Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315100)

Abstract

[Objective] This study summarizes the distinctive features of the "Youth Maritime" government affairs WeChat official account, explores its operational and maintenance pathways, and provides insights for the development of government affairs WeChat accounts within the maritime system. [Methods] Taking the Ministry of Transport Maritime Safety Administration's youth government affairs WeChat account "Youth Maritime" as the research object, this study employs participatory observation, content analysis, and questionnaire surveys to examine and summarize the construction思路 and pathways of government affairs WeChat accounts from perspectives including positioning, content, service, and operation. [Results] The construction pathway of the "Youth Maritime" government affairs WeChat official account is clear, balancing political orientation, professionalism, and public opinion guidance in its direction; achieving standardization, institutionalization, and normalization in management; and emphasizing content primacy, quality priority, and service orientation in operation, offering strong reference and guidance for the construction of government affairs WeChat accounts in the maritime system. [Conclusion] As a centrally-administered administrative unit, maritime system government affairs WeChat accounts must adhere to correct orientation and grasp the fundamental characteristics of official account operation; insist on standardized management and strengthen operational safeguards; and persist in deepening thematic content while optimizing mobile service functions to achieve healthy and sustainable development.

Keywords: Government WeChat; Official Account; Operational Mechanism; Government Communication; Maritime
Chinese Library Classification: G240
Document Code: A
Article ID: 1671-0134(2025)03-62-04
DOI: 10.19483/j.cnki.11-4653/n.2025.03.012
Citation Format: Song Zuming. Practice and Reflection on the Operation of Maritime Government Affairs WeChat Official Accounts—A Case Study of "Youth Maritime" [J]. China Media Technology, 2025, 32(3): 62-65.

1. Research Background and Significance

Government WeChat official accounts are functional platforms built by government agencies and departments on new media platforms, possessing capabilities for information dissemination, public service, opinion guidance, government-citizen communication, and image shaping [1]. With the popularization of the Internet, the influence of government WeChat official accounts has expanded daily. The General Office of the State Council, in its Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of Government New Media, explicitly proposed comprehensively enhancing the communication power, guidance power, influence, and credibility of government new media [2]. Government WeChat official accounts have become an important channel and prevailing trend for government agencies to connect with, serve, and unite the masses in the mobile Internet era.

As a national administrative organ, the maritime department possesses distinct political, people-oriented, and economic characteristics. Against the backdrop of comprehensive Internet technology popularization and development, accelerating the construction of maritime government WeChat official accounts can effectively improve service efficiency and administrative effectiveness. This not only promotes the development of a service-oriented maritime organ to better satisfy public demands, but also provides robust support for advancing the modernization of maritime governance capabilities and systems. It represents an inevitable requirement for forging ahead and creating a new pattern of modern maritime development.

2. Problems in Government WeChat Official Account Operation

As an emerging government new media platform, common problems in the operation and maintenance of government WeChat official accounts mainly include the following [3]: First, vague role positioning and unclear construction pathways. Government WeChat official accounts serve as the ears, eyes, and voice of the Party and the masses, needing to timely communicate the Party's policy propositions to the public, requiring both political orientation and popular appeal/traffic [4]. How to identify their proper positioning and strengthen social services without deviating from their original mission is the primary issue confronting government WeChat official accounts. Second, inadequate management systems and incomplete platform construction. Operational management and daily administration have not formed vertically integrated, standardized management protocols. Operation and maintenance personnel are primarily internal staff, and the lack of talent cultivation mechanisms results in insufficient account operation capabilities. Although the WeChat platform appears established, its advantages remain underutilized, wasting preliminary preparation efforts and public resources [5]. Third, low content quality and lack of information appeal. A gap persists between average single-article read counts and fixed user numbers, primarily due to unstable information release frequency, monotonous information formats, and uneven quality. Additionally, language expression lacks appeal, diversified editing is absent, and reader attention cannot be effectively captured. Fourth, incomplete convenience services and functional limitations. Due to the "digital divide" with other government management service platforms, many government WeChat official accounts feature superficial function settings, providing only basic service windows such as website hyperlinks and government affairs disclosure columns. They lack in-depth research on beneficial services like expedited business processing and have not accurately positioned user needs.

3. Current Construction Status of the "Youth Maritime" Government WeChat Official Account

The "Youth Maritime" government WeChat official account (hereinafter referred to as "Youth Maritime") is sponsored by the Youth Work Committee of the Maritime Safety Administration of the Ministry of Transport (hereinafter referred to as the "Ministry Youth Work Committee"). It was registered and launched on April 7, 2021, and officially activated on May 4, 2021, becoming the first youth information release platform in the directly-affiliated maritime system. After three years of operation, it has attracted 12,442 followers, including 10,289 users aged 18-45 and 10,892 users from provinces where directly-affiliated units are located, basically achieving full coverage of the target population (maritime system youth). Its operational and maintenance pathway can provide valuable reference for the development of other government WeChat official accounts within the maritime system.

[FIGURE:1] "Youth Maritime" User Age Distribution

Regarding operational orientation, "Youth Maritime" is committed to building the official account into a government new media platform that closely connects with youth, strengthens ideological guidance, and achieves resource sharing. Through "information + government affairs + service" functions, it provides a platform for youth league organizations at all levels within the system to showcase work effectiveness, conduct experience exchanges, and expand their influence, thereby advancing the guiding role of the official account among young employees and continuously enhancing the account's "political" energy [8].

4. Distinctive Features of "Youth Maritime" Government WeChat Official Account Construction

4.1 Locking onto the "Core Thread" to Consolidate the Foundation for Government WeChat Official Account Development

4.1.1 Identifying Positioning, Firming Orientation, and Clarifying Construction思路

A clear construction pathway is the solid foundation for successfully operating a government WeChat official account. "Youth Maritime" takes maritime youth league work as its main thread, fully utilizing the targeted push mechanism, interactive mechanism, and powerful service modules of government WeChat official accounts to build core competitiveness [6]. In terms of self-positioning, "Youth Maritime" adheres to the tenet of "political nature, youthful flavor, and maritime style," anchoring its government attributes, identifying target audiences, and aligning with professional fields to create a youth learning position that consolidates "protagonist consciousness," a youth growth base that demonstrates "protagonist responsibility," and a youth talent cultivation highland that showcases "protagonist elegance," effectively enhancing the official account's penetration and influence among maritime youth groups [7].

In operation orientation, "Youth Maritime" is dedicated to building the official account into a government new media platform that closely connects with youth, strengthens ideological guidance, and achieves resource sharing. Through "information + government affairs + service" functions, it provides a platform for youth league organizations at all levels within the system to display work effectiveness, conduct experience exchanges, and expand their influence, thereby promoting the guiding role of the official account among young employees and continuously enhancing the account's "political" energy [8].

4.1.2 Coordinated Planning and Strengthened Execution to Enhance Operational Efficiency

Institutionalized management is the strong guarantee for the sustainable development of government WeChat official accounts. "Youth Maritime" focuses on building systematic, standardized, and efficient work mechanisms. Through systematic construction, it strengthens coordinated planning, standardizes operational management, and promotes the healthy development of the official account. In top-level design, the Ministry Youth Work Committee timely grasps new concepts and trends in new media platform development and application, formulates and issues the Interim Measures for the Management of the "Youth Maritime" WeChat Official Account, clarifying the work responsibilities of the Ministry Youth Work Committee, various directly-affiliated units, and the studio in planning and construction, organizational guarantee, and security management, comprehensively strengthening Party leadership. In organizational guarantee, it establishes and improves target assessment and talent cultivation mechanisms, formulates annual task lists for the official account and studio rotation training plans, regularly organizes evaluation of official account operation effectiveness, reports information from various units on submission, publication, and read volume, and incorporates some indicators into the Ministry's annual target task assessment, promoting quality and efficiency improvement in operation and maintenance.

4.1.3 Smooth Channels and Strengthened Gatekeeping to Improve Editorial Quality

Standardized construction is the powerful guarantee for high-quality development of government WeChat official accounts. In daily operation and maintenance, "Youth Maritime" utilizes clearly defined, standardized, and highly operable management rules to effectively improve government WeChat information editing and distribution levels. In system design, it formulated and issued the Notice on Information Submission for the "Youth Maritime" WeChat Official Account, establishing work mechanisms for information collection, submission, review, and liaison officer filing. It requires all units (departments) to select liaison officers with good political quality and familiarity with relevant business to effectively guarantee the orderly conduct of information editing, distribution, and interactive replies. In security assurance, the "Youth Maritime" studio strictly follows the "three reviews and three proofreads" system, implementing a three-tier gatekeeping process of "contributing unit—editor—studio leader" with逐级审核 (level-by-level review),先审后发 (review before publication), and authorized release, strictly controlling quality in the collection, processing, and analysis of tweets to ensure information authenticity, accuracy, and authority [9].

4.2 Innovation in Thinking, Content Primacy, and Enhanced User Stickiness

4.2.1 Enriched Display Formats to Increase Attention

Rich display formats are important means to enhance the attention of government WeChat official accounts. Since its operation, "Youth Maritime" has consistently adhered to being maritime-based, strengthening guidance, and building consensus to enhance its communication power, guidance power, and credibility. In style shaping, "Youth Maritime" fully utilizes H5, long-form graphics, videos, and other converged media technologies to enrich tweet formats, optimizing content presentation with a youth-oriented linguistic style to increase user attention to information content through greater novelty and technique [10]. For example, on Chinese New Year's Eve of the Dragon Year, it produced the article Singing and Dancing to Send Blessings: Here's a "Dragon" Relay from All Corners of the Country, embedding videos of youth relay performances from 18 units to quickly create a sense of scenario and capture user attention, achieving 9,147 clicks in a single day and becoming an annual hit. In user maintenance, "Youth Maritime" focuses on profiling user personas, clarifying audience preferences and needs, and timely selecting and editing information closely related to the audience to achieve better communication effects. For instance, regarding large-scale youth activities in the maritime system, it released series such as 【Maritime Youth Journey】Documentary on Youth Representative Research Activities in the Directly-Affiliated Maritime System and Top Ten Outstanding Youth of the Directly-Affiliated Maritime System, gaining high user attention and enthusiastic responses.

4.2.2 Original Content Quality Improvement to Enhance Audience Stickiness

Tweet quality is the core competitiveness of government WeChat official accounts. "Youth Maritime" consistently adheres to the principle of orientation as the soul, content as the king, and innovation as the priority, promoting original content quality improvement and enhancing audience stickiness. In theme setting, "Youth Maritime" focuses on major Party and youth league thematic education and learning, characteristic youth league activities of directly-affiliated maritime system units, youth league work practices and achievements, and maritime youth role models as primary content, launching series such as Integrity Talk and National Youth Civilization Number Showcase, subtly guiding the majority of maritime youth and strengthening ideological identification. In topic selection, "Youth Maritime" follows hot topics of user concern, planning tweets from multiple angles, levels, and dimensions. For example, following the first internet buzzword of 2024, "Southern Little Potato," it used north-south maritime work as an entry point to publish South vs. North: What's the Difference in Maritime Work?, combining "soft article style + hard topics" to close the distance with the audience and effectively enhance the official account's communication scope and guidance capability [11].

4.3 Innovative Services, Deep Functionality, and Enhanced User Dependence

Government new media is the main front for building service-oriented government organs. While doing well in information release, "Youth Maritime" develops convenient service sub-menus based on its own work functions, walking the online mass line and promoting interactive communication to enhance credibility. In internal services, it further enhances the instrumental value of "Youth Maritime," deeply exploring extended functions of information push. Strengthening ideological guidance and improving business capabilities, it launched the "Study" and "Selection" columns with modules such as business learning, maritime insights, and micro current affairs, providing a platform for the majority of maritime youth to conduct theoretical learning and enhance personal capabilities. In external services, it strives to build "Youth Maritime" into a convenient communication and interaction platform with users, launching an "Interaction" column with question and submission modules, irregularly publishing interactive lottery articles such as Double Eleven is Coming, Come Claim Your Cultural and Creative Prizes, further strengthening government-citizen communication and meeting public needs for online government inquiries, playing a positive role in shaping and maintaining the image of maritime government units.

5. Implications from "Youth Maritime" Government WeChat Official Account Construction

5.1 Adhering to Correct Orientation, Grasping Basic Characteristics, and Strengthening Demonstration and Guidance

First, political nature. In operating maritime government WeChat official accounts, we must adhere to the correct political direction, guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, actively using government new media to promote mainstream values, spread positive energy, and consolidate and expand mainstream public opinion positions [12]. Second, people-oriented nature. Maritime government WeChat official accounts must establish a people-serving value orientation, clarifying the fundamental questions of "who we are, for whom, and relying on whom," focusing on the central task and serving the overall situation, walking the online mass line, listening to public opinion, addressing public concerns, and uniting public support. We must strengthen government-citizen interaction and do practical work for the masses [13]. Third, public opinion nature. In operating maritime government WeChat official accounts, we must grasp mainstream public opinion trends, build scientific government-media relations, understand platform operation patterns, and fully utilize the "fragmented" and "real-time" communication characteristics of new media to set topics, plan activities, tell maritime stories well, strengthen communication power, and deepen influence [14].

5.2 Adhering to Standardized Management, Strengthening Safeguard Measures, and Improving Operation Quality

First, improve the operation and maintenance system. Strictly implement content release review systems, adhere to graded and classified review and先审后发 (review before publication), establish regular supervision and management mechanisms, strengthen safety protection such as summary evaluation, public opinion early warning, and emergency response, and conduct full-process standardized management of production, review, and release for government WeChat official accounts. Second, perfect assessment and evaluation. Methods such as incorporating new media work into annual assessments and formulating assessment measures can be adopted to clarify indicator tasks such as submission and task claiming, with incentives and commendations for units or individuals with good performance, continuously improving全员参与度 (all-staff participation) and cooperation in official account operation and enhancing the vitality and sustainability of official accounts [15]. Third, strengthen team building. Adhere to the concept that talent is the primary resource, establish and improve employment systems, optimize human resource allocation, explore mentorship and job rotation mechanisms, and continuously discover and absorb outstanding talent. Establish and improve talent training systems, strengthen daily online and offline training, and focus on improving operation planning, collection, editing capabilities, and professional technical levels.

5.3 Persisting in Deepening Thematic Content, Optimizing Mobile Services, and Creating Distinctive Features

First, enhance service functions. We must transform service concepts, base ourselves on work responsibilities, stay close to public needs, rely on maritime official account big data and service columns, continuously innovate service models, aggregate service entry points, break down online-offline barriers, smooth interaction channels, continuously improve user experience, and promote the transformation of social governance models from one-way management to two-way interaction [16]. Second, incentivize outstanding original content. We must firmly establish new development concepts, not one-sidedly pursue publication quantity, fully utilize professional advantages and own resources to carefully conduct thematic planning, dare to output viewpoints, focus on ideological depth, extend the content and vision of pushes, and enhance the credibility and guidance power of official accounts [17]. Third, focus on craftsmanship and refinement. We must meticulously craft tweet work, deeply polish titles and content. For example, the "Youth Maritime" column "Youth Dreams, Maritime Future" Youth Journey of the Directly-Affiliated Maritime System underwent multiple rounds of title optimization, finally selecting the research-close expression of "Youth Journey" and "Documentary." Content uses popularized language, audio-video, charts, and other diverse formats, not only achieving prominent themes, fresh content, and beautiful layout to make activity content "come alive," but also using "user thinking" to transform government information from "one-way communication" to "two-way resonance," significantly enhancing target audience attention and recognition [18].

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Author Bio: Song Zuming (1996—), male, from Lianyungang, Jiangsu, bachelor's degree, Level 4 staff member of Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration, research direction: government new media.
(Responsible Editor: Li Yansong)