U.S. diplomats have boosted their public diplomacy through social media. The U.S. government has an active presence on Chinese social media sites; many U.S. officials in China have individual Weibo pages, and the embassy in Beijing and consulate departments update their own sites with remarks by American officials, press releases and videos.

A widely read microblog written by the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai and known for its sometimes tongue-in-cheek comments about China's social and political issues was inaccessible Friday. Sina Weibo, China's most popular microblog site that hosts the consulate's account, said it could be a technical glitch, an explanation the company has given in the past in cases where censorship was at work.

Can a multilateral solution to a violent conflict take place without taking social media into account? Looking at online discussions about Syria since the beginning of 2012, Seib’s theory appears to bear true, as conversations that began in the realm of the official evolved into conversations laden with public opinions.

By Zachary Devereaux and Thomas Ledwell, Nexalogy Environics

If some marketers, fans and athletes have anything to say, these Games will be the first Social Media Olympics -- the "Socialympics," as some are calling them. Even the Olympic movement, which sometimes steps into the future with great caution, has warily accepted the idea.

Secretary Clinton has made 21st Century Statecraft a key part of the Department's foreign policy agenda, using technology, digital networks, and innovation to meet the diplomatic and development challenges of the 21st century. She wants us to take "smart risks," utilizing these new communications tools in innovative ways in pursuit of our policy objectives.

Digital diplomacy can be defined as the use of social networks by states and civil society to further foreign policy goals and influence public opinion, and the AFP e-diplomacy hub shows this in real-time, collating tweets from heads of state and government, diplomats, experts, foreign correspondents and activists from more than 150 countries.

The app displays the most-used hashtags, measures an individual’s influence (think Klout), and maps the relationships between these important figures. The e-diplomacy hub is an effective way to show which figures are talking about what issues, and where these public diplomatic dialogues are taking place.