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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Tweeting the Prez


I've written a little about the use of social networking by the Presidential candidates during the campaigns. I didn't "friend" any candidates during the campaign even those that I supported, because to be honest, I would rather seek out political information than have to endure the constant barrage of PR spam. However, I am really interested in the use of social networking in political campaigns, especially twitter. Barack Obama's account has become the highest "friended" account in twitter, overtaking longtime twitterer Robert Scoble.

...but will he (and his staff) continue to twitter? Will they post tweets (aka posts) of news and other bits of information? Obama's tweet stream has been quiet since the election. Were the twitterers used and dumped as some are suggesting?

I decided to "friend" Obama anyhow, to see what would happen. I got friended back, which is kind of cool (but maybe they are using an autofriend service? It's hard to say, he's following more than he has as followers) . I realize now is a very busy time and considering the state of the economy, it's understandable that the focus might be elsewhere and the tweets not so frequent. However, twitter seems like a very easy way to push content (change.gov, perhaps? Cabinet decisions? What kind of dog will the presidential puppy be? lol)

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