Diplomats in all parts of Canada's Beijing embassy are being encouraged to learn how to use China's version of Twitter.
The embassy launched a "weibo" microblog account on Chinese Internet portal Sina.com in June 2011.
But internal Foreign Affairs documents show that not all Canadian diplomats rushed to type out 140-Chinese character updates when the account went up.
Memos show that workshops were held to "demystify" tweeting so it wouldn't be seen as a chore for diplomats.
The weibo documents highlight the power of microblogging to let embassy staff stickhandle around state media controls for access allowing them to "take the pulse" of web-savvy Chinese citizens.
The embassy account currently posts several updates a day to more than 231,000 followers.
