Why does Michelle Obama need two Twitter accounts?
Michelle Obama is on Twitter! That was big news on Thursday, the first lady鈥檚 birthday. The White House announced that Mrs. Obama had launched a new Twitter account, , and lots of folks chimed in with messages welcoming her to the world of micro-blogging social media.
But hold it 鈥� wasn鈥檛 she already on Twitter? We鈥檝e been following since the beginning of the 2012 presidential campaign. Is this a reboot, a dual account, or what? Is it the equivalent of the grand opening of a store that鈥檚 been in business for months?
Sort of, yes. Except it鈥檚 a retail establishment that has two branches kept separate for legal reasons.
The invaluable Mashable has the . The @MichelleObama feed is paid for and run by the Obama/Biden political campaign machinery. That鈥檚 why it was so active during the summer and fall, as it exhorted everybody to get out and vote, and in general pushed the fortunes of the incumbent presidential ticket. It鈥檚 an overtly political use of social media.
The first lady鈥檚 Pinterest site is run the same way. Most of those photos of her and her family, and favorite recipes (grilled peaches with yogurt and pistachios?), and exhortations about 鈥渨hy we vote鈥� were put up by campaign staff.
Mrs. Obama鈥檚 new @FLOTUS handle reflects her official White House duties, however. It鈥檚 run by people from her office who are executive branch (and hence official US government) employees.
Legally speaking, @FLOTUS tweets will have to be stuff that deals with her official duties and the nation as a whole, as opposed to President Obama鈥檚 political fortunes. Thus on Thursday she tweeted 鈥淛oin me and Barack for #MLK Day of Service鈥� after thanking everyone for sending birthday wishes.
Hmm. @FLOTUS has sent three tweets, and it鈥檚 got more than 78,000 followers. That鈥檚 a pretty good tweet-to-listener ratio.
Most of this social media stuff is done by staff, of course. The few that she sends herself are supposed to be signed 鈥�-mo.鈥�
Is the White House actually good at social media? We think that question can be answered definitively only by someone more versed in the dark electronic arts than we are. But from our point of view, it's a pretty shrewd operator. Take the . You can put up a petition on anything, and if it reaches a certain signature level in a certain period of time, the White House will respond with its point of view.
Most of the coverage of this 鈥淲e the People鈥� effort has focused on the weird stuff: petitions for Texas to secede, to deport CNN's Piers Morgan, and so forth. And responding to them has to be a pain for staff. in which anonymous staffers gripe about having to spend time actually writing about why the US won鈥檛 build a Death Star, and things like that.
But to us, 鈥淲e the People鈥� really is a clever technique for harvesting e-mail addresses. When creating an account to sign stuff, you can check whether you want to receive missives from the White House. Most of the petitions are in fact about real policy 鈥� the need for more or less gun control, for instance. What the White House may get out of this is a continually growing list of voter contact information segmented by policy interest. To push the president鈥檚 new gun policies, for instance, they may send targeted e-mails to pro-control addresses, urging them to contact Congress.
We think this because media organizations do the same thing with interactive questionnaires and quizzes. We figure out who鈥檚 interested in what kind of stories and we direct those subjects their way.
Surprised? Don鈥檛 be. Building brand loyalty 鈥� everybody鈥檚 got whole new ways of approaching this old problem in today鈥檚 Internet age.
