For some reason, I’ve given alot of thought to Twitter lately. I’ve interspersed thoughts of “how do people have the time to Twitter, anyway?” with “Twitter is an extremely effective tool, and could be utilized quite readily by politicians”. Handily, I came across an extremely interesting article on Yahoo about just that topic – political twittering.
However, the article discussed two negative examples of Twitter being used by politicians, namely Sarah Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger (all I can say to the latter is: “What???”), and then goes on to briefly examine other politicans’ use of Twitter. As this article states, “In March, columnist Charlie Cook of the National Journal wrote that he has ‘yet to hear a single intelligent remark twittered by an elected offical.'”
If you read The Christian Science Monitor’s post on political twittering, you’ll see much room for improvement. Granted, Twitter does pose a security threat (politicans blythely twittering about secret locations, classified info, etc.), and too often it is uselessly and pointlessly used as a “where am I now” commentary (“at the gym!”).
However, that just means there’s alot of room for improvement. Imagine the possibilities! Barack Obama did – his campaign’s use of social media tools helped get him elected. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Twitter can be a very effective tool, if used properly and strategically.
