Obama Tweet-Up/s...and Downs

Social media and the web have played a significant role in the election and presidency of Barack Obama.  In an address to the White House in May 2009, Obama stated that government must “recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking…we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative.”  The New York Times blog, The Caucus, notes Obama has reached over 9 million Twitter followers and has more than 21.6 million “fans” on Facebook.

The strategy and use of technology to connect with audiences and voters has proven successful for Obama’s campaign, election and ultimately his presidency.  Obama, seeing an opportunity to further engage his followers, hosted the first ever White House Twitter Town Hall on Wednesday July 6^th at 2 p.m.

The “Tweet-up”, streamed through an hour long webcast, solicited more than 119,000 timely questions on jobs and the economy using the hashtag #AskObama.  Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, moderated the event and questions were curated through 8 veteran Twitter users.

President Obama used the medium during the town hall meeting as a new tool for an old communication approach –was it a victory, defeat, or rather, a tie?  Let’s weigh in…

Victory or Defeat

Reach

The use of social media by one of America’s youngest presidents has expanded the political spectrum among a demographic group that is comfortable with electronic communication.  The Tweet-up provided Obama with the unique platform to communicate his messages and connect with younger voters.  “The White House wants to continue the conversation between the decision makers, advocates and the country’s youth with the series,” said MTV.com.  The Town Hall had over 26k participants.

Or not?

According to a recent survey roughly 38% of White House Twitter followers are under the age of 35. – Obama, then, potentially missed a segment of the larger voting population that includes baby boomers and seniors. 

Informal

Again, Obama connected with a younger set of generation X &Y, more apt to use informal methods of communication such as Twitter and Facebook.  From a mass media standpoint, Obama addressed questions via Twitter and expanded his reach.  He lent his message greater credibility among the target audience – opening up two-way communication.

Formal

The office of the presidency, arguably the most important position in the country, deserves formality.  Can this movement away from formality begin to devalue or “cheapen” this office?  Even though there was the perception of informality, questions were vetted through a select team and only a few tweets were chosen.  In essence Obama’s filtering of the questions he answered proved to be a completely controlled communication effort.

 

The short

Using Twitter standards, the audience had to keep its questions to the 140 character limit. This allowed Obama to succinctly find out what the target audience was thinking. This again solidifies the future of digital media and the way in which we consume media. The Tweet-up reached members of the Mature generation, digital natives who thrive on social media and operate through short bouts of information, sifting in an abbreviated, informal way.

And long of it

“I know, Twitter, I’m supposed to be short,” the president admitted following another lengthy response.  Of the 170,000 potential questions, the president managed to answer only 18 in the hour long event.  The New York Times reports, “It took President Obama 3,111 characters to answer the question put to him by House Speaker John A. Boehner.”  This is the equivalent to 22 Tweets.  The average number of characters Obama took to answer questions was 2,099.

Healthy Competition

Obama used the town hall to engage in age-old Democratic-Republican scuffle. He answered questions concerning the recession and what he could have done differently – even entertaining a question from Republican House Speaker, John Boehner.

Cat & Mouse

The back and forth between Democrats and Republicans was just another forum for bickering instead of a solution.  Speaker Boehner, a challenger of Obama, sent the following Tweet

Obama’s response – “John needs to work on his typing skills” – spotting an error in Boehner’s Tweet (which was a text formatting error).  Obama went on to refer to the question as “slightly skewed” – further fueling the feud.  Check it out.

Was the Tweet-up a victory?  Definitely.  Was it a defeat?  In some instances, for sure.  All in all, it was a tie.  The president can’t be all things to all people.  And with all things, improvements can be made and systems can be tweaked.  If we can’t learn from our mistakes, what can we learn from?  I propose a rematch.  Obama, you up for it?