White House Using Twitter to Communicate

For those of you who have businesses that are not on Twitter, here’s a clue; the White House is using Twitter as a communication tool.

That’s right, press secretary Robert Gibbs is on Twitter as @PressSec.  He just started this month and CNN reports:

Gibbs says he became fascinated with Twitter when he followed a live stream of reporters tweeting President Obama’s press conference in the briefing room on February 2.

The purpose of the account is to provide additional information the press secretary receives on a daily basis.  Gibbs explains,

“There’s a tremendous amount of information that we all get and have to read and go through each day,” Gibbs said. “This is certainly one way to get, on a rolling basis, to see a lot of that information in front of you.”

He follows journalists and pundits, i.e. his target audience.  That’s a pretty good tip!  Social media sites were blocked by the last administration and dealing with the Presidential Records Act when it comes to social media has been difficult, but it appears a policy has been created.

Government is rarely the early adopter of new technology, but when they do, you know that technology is important.  Press secretary Gibbs has done three things every business owner should do when it comes to social media -

1.  He figured out how to use it and then decided to employ it.

2.  He’s following his target audience to figure out what they want from him.

3.  He consulted with the proper technical and legal people to come up with a use policy.

Ok, now I need to start following @PressSec!

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