BenNesvig.com

For the last four months I ran a prominent politicians Twitter account. Over the course of that time I built up his account to over 8,000 followers with about 75 tweets. His staff recently took over the reigns of the Twitter account and now they are in control of the updates (His com director was kind enough to call me and thank me for starting up his Twitter account). Anyways, for politicians looking to engage in Twitter, here are a few tips to take note of:

- Find your fans. Utilize Twitter Search and start adding people who support you. This is the best way to start off on Twitter: tapping into your fan base first.

- Track your Tweets. You should be using Tweetburner or another similar site to track how many times your links are clicked. My top link that I posted was clicked 500 times. This is a great way to monitor what people are interested in.

- Make it Retweetable. Obviously each one of your tweets will be less than 140 characters, but you should make them even shorter than that. You want to give people the opportunity to Retweet without having to do any awkward edits because what you typed was too long.

- Use Autofollow. You will likely get way too many followers to keep up with. There is no way I would have followed back 8,000 people on my own. Some people are turned off by the use of Autofollow and feel as though it makes Twitter less personal, but I think politicians and other notable people get a pass on this. I saw numerous tweets from people who were excited and happy that I followed them back. This is another way to gain positive feedback on Twitter. I used the autofollow feature on SocialToo.

- Give them Content. Use Twitter daily to link to news stories, videos of yourself on YouTube, blog posts, and anything else that can inform people on what you are doing. Politics is a battle of ideas, therefore you should be communicating your thoughts and ideas as much as possible.

- Use the @ reply. Answer questions, let people know where they can get more information, and engaged with your supporters. You obviously don’t have to respond to every question, but at least show that you care what people are saying to you.

- Twitter is not solely a campaign tool. Barack Obama hasn’t tweeted since taking office and that is a shame. He could be linking to news stories, his YouTube channel, and a number of other things. Yet for him, it appears Twitter was just a campaign tool. Above all for politicians, Twitter is a great communications tool. Just because you take office, it doesn’t mean you no longer have to sell your ideas to the public.

Feel free to leave your own advice to politicians in the comments. Bonus points if you can guess which politicians account I was running (hint: He is a Governor).