White House Engages Followers For First Town Hall Using Twitter
The White House’s first ever “Twitter Townhall” is part of the administration’s attempt to find new opportunities to connect with people across the country, said Macon Phillips, White House new media director. On Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT, President Barack Obama will respond to questions from Twitter users during a webcast, a White House blog post said. People began posting questions for the president Tuesday using the Twitter hashtag #AskObama, Phillips said during a teleconference with reporters.
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"We've entered a different information age where people get news and information in a different way than they have in the past,” said Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director. “It’s no longer sufficient to simply do it through traditional mainstream media.” When the administration uses Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, “it’s similar to what previous presidents did with broadcast networks and papers,” he said. The White House account has about 2.25 million followers, Pfeiffer said. The account is used “to share breaking news and engage the public about big issues."
By teaming with Twitter, the administration is trying to facilitate a conversation and “bring in new voices in the conversation with the president,” Phillips said. “Twitter knows their platform better than anyone.” The administration expects most of the questions to focus on jobs and the economy, he said. It’s about using technology to bring more people into the discussion about these issues and “do it in a way that’s exciting and [to] get a sense of what the national conversation is."
Twitter is responsible for choosing the questions to be answered and it will gather data on the most popular themes in different geographic areas, they said. “They're applying filters to look for popular themes and hot topics,” Phillips said. As of Tuesday, “thousands and thousands” of questions were submitted and “Twitter is working with partners to do much more comprehensive analytics,” he said. The site’s 140-character limit will allow Twitter to better capture these trends, he added.
The event will be moderated by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Thirty people from around the country were selected to attend the event at the White House and “tweet” about their experience, Phillips said. After the event, the audience will meet with Twitter representatives and White House officials to discuss uses and benefits of social media, he said. A Twitter representative did not participate in the conference. Adam Sharp, Twitter’s government and political partnerships manager did not comment by our deadline.