During the first month since the introduction of the new version of Saeima’s website, the number of persons who have visited the Saeima’s profile on Twitter, Flickr and YouTube has increased. Links to these social networks have now been included in the parliament’s website, and visitors of the website show an interest in learning about the Saeima’s work as reflected in photos and videos.

The Saeima’s profile on Twitter - @Jekaba11 – already has about 1,900 followers; moreover, the Saeima’s website has been visited more than 1,300 times by clicking on links included in tweets on the Twitter website.

Each day, photos on www.flickr.com/saeima are viewed an average of 1,000 times. The Saeima’s profile on Flickr was visited the most frequently (almost 5,000 times) on 2 November, when the 10th Saeima convened for its first plenary sitting. There is also great interest in photos related to the main building of the Saeima and its interior, as well as to various events, such as Open Door Day, Job Shadow Day, the awarding of commemorative medals to participants of the Barricades of 1991, participation of MPs in sports games with colleagues, etc. In total, the Saeima’s account on Flickr contains more than 2,000 photos which have received more than 100,000 hits.

All photos can also be downloaded and used for informative and educational purposes, as well as for preparing news reports. This feature is actively used, for instance, by creators of the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The number of hits on the Saeima’s profile on YouTube has also increased during the last month. The most popular video features the first plenary sitting of the 10th Saeima; it has been viewed more than 1,800 times. In total, the www.youtube.com/SaeimaSAB channel contains more than 180 videos which are also placed in news portals and other websites.

In November, the Saeima’s website had almost 50,000 visitors; of those, 22,000 were unique visitors.

The most popular sections of the website are Press releases and Work of the Saeima. The opportunity to use audio and video recordings of the plenary sittings, as well as the database of parliamentary documents, has also been taken advantage of very often.

The English version of the Saeima’s website was launched at the beginning of December.

As of 2 November, the website of the Latvian parliament - www.saeima.lv – has become more user-friendly and it provides new opportunities to follow the work of the Saeima. The website has been improved by using the resources which were saved by giving up the printed version of the publication The Gazette of the Saeima of the Republic of Latvia.

Saeima Press Service