A recent question by Howard Kurtz got me thinking, is Twitter worth all the hype? His question was this:
“Is Twitter just a fun hangout, or do you buy the Time-cover argument that it’s changing the way we communicate and get information?”
If you have not heard of Twitter you have not been watching television. It seems every journalist, television personality, and celebrity cannot get enough of Twitter. I know a lot of people that are enamored with Twitter. They use it on their blackberry, iphone, laptops, ect…they are “tweeting” all the time. My clients are interested in how to incorporate this nifty, yet oftentimes strategically confusing medium, into a comprehensive campaign strategy.
My personal belief is that we will get sick of Twitter before it can live out its potential. What is its potential? Twitter is a personal communication and collaboration tool. It has the ability to let people communicate in real time with the people all around the world. Unfortunately if you are familiar with Twitter most of the dialogue descends into unimportant babble. Why? Because you are limited to 140 characters. This is the typical Tweet:
Went to dinner at Olive Garden, it was awesome!5:05 PM Jun 5th from TwitterBerry
It becomes difficult to really share your feelings regarding an issue or an event of importance. The bridge that Twitter has yet to cross is to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking in a real time environment. Twitter is absolutely useful if used correctly, correctly meaning that it is used to announce events, recent news, and make requests. It becomes a bother when it is merely an outlet to describe the last meal you had.
So, should Republicans use Twitter? Yes, but effectively as described above. A carefully designed blogging platform along with other mediums such as Facebook and MySpace is much more effective.
It is sad that the Republican Party is so far behind in collecting the most useful information in politics by not implementing the most advanced methods available. The Arizona Republican Party has a subpar social strategy; they don’t even have a Twitter account which the Arizona Democrats have. ( UPDATE: I guess they do have one but I have not been able to locate it but I stick by my comment because it is not easily found )
A little background on myself. I am in my mid 20’s and I am a social media consultant who also owns a web design firm. Basically, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the technological tools that are available to political campaigns, this includes Twitter.