How a tweet is turned into a powerful message

Twitter filters tweets that need responses, connects public with officials

When Faizan Patel tweeted to Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj seeking help after his wife lost her passport, he certainly did not expect a reply from her saying: “My office has reached you already. You will get a duplicate passport tomorrow.” While the media went gaga over his luck and Ms. Swaraj’s ‘coolness’ factor, few knew of the role played by Twitter Seva.

Twitter Seva is a platform which converts a celebrity’s ‘vanity matrix to impact matrix’, said Sree Srinivasan, chief digital officer of New York City, who was in Bengaluru on Friday to deliver a talk on how individuals and businesses can leverage Twitter.

“It helps celebrities and officials create a real impact on the lives of people,” he said. Impact is created when a tweet results in action in the real world.

Raheel Khursheed, head of News, Politics and Government at TwitterIndia, explained to

The Hindu how the process works. “After our filters throw up relevant tweets that need responses, a team goes through the tweets and prioritises the important ones,” he said. Twitter Seva then draws the attention of the person or organisation to the relevant tweets.

The impact has been immense: the number of tweets to the Ministry of Railways now exceeds the number on calls to its telephone helpline. The Twitter option now handles 7,000 complaints a day.

The Ministry of External Affairs has handled more then 10,000 problems till now. It has helped relatives get in touch with loved ones in troubled countries and given expatriates a way to communicate their problems to the government.

Closer home, the Bengaluru police has leveraged Twitter to respond to citizens’ issues quickly and efficiently. It has handled more than 5,000 complaints so far. The Hindu had reported that city police (@BlrCityPolice) have more followers than their counterparts in New York (@NYPDnews), U.S.