Application status of official micro-blogs run by health and family planning commissions of provincial level

Objective To analyze the current situation of the official micro-blogs of the health and family planning commissions of provincial level, and to understand its application approaches. Methods The internet crawler software was used to collect the 102 899 micro-blog posts published by 24 official micro-blogs of health and family planning commissions of provincial level, and analyze the information of crawling by using content analysis method. Results At present, except for a number of provinces in the eastern regions where such micro-blogs were active and interactive, most of these official micro-blogs were found poor in operation management, especially in the spreading capacity; their micro-blog content was focused on science popularization (59.50%). Part of the content lacked scientific basis, and was short of planning in their information release form and content. Conclusions These micro-blogs need optimization in operations management, service positioning, information release specifications, and content audit. Such efforts can help improve their spreading capacity, influence and user viscosity, in order to better serve the public, achieve the goal of a service-oriented government. Key words: Information management; Information services; Web crawler; Governmental micro-blog; Content analysis