Fireside21

There is an ever expanding list of Senators and Representatives who are communicating with Twitter.  There are now cool services that let you track all the tweets and statistics about activity and followers.  So what is Twitter and why should you care?

David Pogue, well-know technology columnist for the the New York Times, recently jumped on the bandwagon and posted his Twittering Tips for Beginners.  At first, even he was skeptical:

I’ll admit that, for the longest time, I was exasperated by the Twitter hype. Like the world needs ANOTHER ego-massaging, social-networking time drain? Between e-mail and blogs and Web sites and Facebook and chat and text messages, who on earth has the bandwidth to keep interrupting the day to visit a Web site and type in, “I’m now having lunch”? And to read the same stuff being broadcast by a hundred other people?

What follows is a pretty good primer on what Twitter can do and some tips to get started.  There are a lot of conversations going on out there, and some members of Congress are right in the middle of it all.  It surprises me that offices spend so much time on mail and keeping up with their constituents that this real-time one-on-one method of communication is largely overlooked.

Of course, that might be the very reason more don’t participate.  It’s too fast and offices too often work to insulate their boss from constituents. 

I say the same thing to every client who ask if their boss should be on Twitter: Yes, but be authentic. For me the best thing about these folks on Twitter is the authenticity.  Unlike press releases and many “member” blogs, it is clear that this is a member of Congress and not a staffer posting clips (in most cases!).

As a matter of fact, authenticity is is what social media is all about and it is exactly why it works!