The blogosphere is abuzz in the wake of President Barack Obama’s statement in Shanghai last night that he doesn’t use Twitter, nor has ever typed a tweet. MG Siegler at TechCrunch reacts and opines:
This is interesting considering the Internet, and social media in particular, was considered a large part of his ascension to the Presidency. Obviously, he had a killer team around him that was able to embrace the web without the then-Senator getting too much involved. Still, it’s somewhat surprising that he never sent any of his own tweets during the primaries.
The Presidency comprises more than the person elected to the office, but also includes aides and assistants and directors and managers. Macon Phillips is one. Vivek Kundra is another. Bev Godwin is a third. They are individuals appointed to roles that (in)directly support the President and are allowed to speak on his behalf — or the Presidency’s behalf.
Should it matter that Obama never tweeted?
Pay attention to the following comment by Brian Ahier, an Oregon city councilor:
As an important clarification to an error in the article, the Whitehouse communications team only send tweets from the official Whitehouse Twitter account. There are very strict rules that regulate the mingling of official accounts with campaign and personal accounts. @BarackObama is the account of the Obama political campaign. @WhiteHouse is the account of the Whitehouse.
I wrote about the connection between social media and the presidential election 12 months ago, and compared the number of Obama and McCain followers on various social media sites between August and November 2008.
It’s no more surprising that @BarackObama’s Twitter followers jumped from 111,000 in November 2008 to over 2.6 million today, than to read about the President not tweeting himself.
It’s also not important that he doesn’t tweet. He has more important things to do.
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{ 5 comments }
Twitter: kirstenwright
November 16, 2009 at 3:35 PM
I absolutely think it matters!
The biggest reason (I believe) that he won the election was his supposed connection to the younger generation, which as tech crunch points out, was partially due to his social media strategy. If he had zero to do with the social media strategy at all, then it seems like he really has zero connection to the younger generation. I find it a little shady that they didn’t release the fact that he was oblivious to twitter until now.
They allowed those who followed his tweets to believe he cared, that he actually tweeted at least once. People would have been silly to think they were all him, but even ellen and oprah, who let’s face it, are just as busy, tweet for themselves sometimes. We all know that celebs have ghost tweeters that help them, but it is assumed they at least know what’s going on a bit, and have tweeted once or twice for themselves. The fact that he has NEVER done it, that is a little c.s. in my opinion.
But hey, I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised, he is a politician after all.
.-= New from Kirsten Wright: Creativity through the years – 1995 =-.
Erm, I’m a politician now, too… so what are you saying I am?
Twitter: kirstenwright
November 19, 2009 at 3:38 PM
Ari, seeing that you are not quite involved with politics in the same way, I would hope that you have still reserved your morals and your behavior is still good. But, I do believe that over time, all politicians lose their morals to an extent. To please the world, you can not please yourself, and vice versa.
.-= New from Kirsten Wright: Creativity through the years – 1997 =-.
Ari,
Would you or did you say or do anything to get elected? That is the true mark of a politician. Until you get to that point in your political career, you are just a politician in training, or even a public servant. Politician and public servant are not synonymous.
It doesn’t surprise me that it was a “team” effort to get the president elected. Every one previously elected, at least recently, has been that way.
What is really surprising to me is that he admitted in a public forum that “his” tweets were a lie, ie that they weren’t his, that it was all spin, etc. Whether those were the words he used or not, that is what his statement means.
After all, his lips were moving.
.-= New from Keith@Norman Rockwell Art: Nov 26, Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving Gallery, page 1 =-.
Click over to my campaign/council blog and you can see I am elected.
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