Friendly tone of micro blogs takes mayor to people

A Sina Weibo booth displays at a conference on September 24, 2013 in Beijing. [Photo/dfic.cn]

ZHAO HUI is the mayor of Deyang, a city in Southwest China's Sichuan province. On Wednesday, he opened a micro blog account under his real name to interact with the public. China.com.cn comments:

Many youngsters obtain information and share ideas via micro blogs. And many officials have micro blogs, too. However, the majority of them do not register under their real names. Many simply use the platform to get information. Seldom do any officials use the micro blogs to express their ideas or share their moments.

Zhao is obviously an exception. He not only registered for the micro blog account using his real name, but also issued several micro blogs and interacted with those who commented on them.

Deyang officials say that Zhao opened the micro blog because he hoped to help his city get more support in the China Central Television competition Charming China. He succeeded, because he had already got 30,000 followers by Sunday, many of whom expressed support for Deyang.

A glance at Zhao's micro blogs shows that instead of writing them in a bureaucratic style, he adopts a friendly voice. It is this that has ensured his popularity. The comments under Zhao's micro blogs prove that people welcomed the move. People want to see their mayor living like they do, instead of showing just an official stance.

The trend of officials using social networks is irreversible. If they do not speak online, they might lose the trust of the people. In this sense, Zhao has set a brilliant example to all the officials nationwide and we hope more officials will follow suit.