Michelle Obama Twitter Account Suspended
Published by Rodney Rumford October 3rd, 2008 in social media, social networks, twitter.Michelle Obama Hijacked Twitter Account Suspended
The brand hijackers on twitter have taken aim at both potential first ladies and hijacked their names on twitter. The interesting thing here is that while the hijacked Michelle Obama twitter account is suspended; the hijacked Cindy McCain account is not.
What is important to notice here is that the most likely reason that the fake Michelle Obama account is suspended is that the Obama campaign understands twitter and proactively is taking action to recover the name. The McCain Campaign… not so much.
The Michelle Obama hijacked account that was just shut down today on twitter.
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Is it that or are there more Obama supporters on Twitter to report stuff like this to the Obama camp?
Hi Rodney, I always enjoy your posts. It would be interesting if peole would hijack the voices of the over 4000 dead American boys and girls the republican administrations has slaughtered based on a lie of weapons of mass destruction.
Bring the troops home NOW!
With highest regard,
I pray they can rest in peace some day.
Obama does not “get” twitter as you claim (I am not a McCain fan so this is not a partisan opinion/argument). A quick analysis easily confirms this. The official Obama Twitter act “barackobama” follows 95k and is followed by 91k (yea for autofollow!). Since inception (and that is at least since I began following in Jan) the acct has posted 217 Tweets. The majority of these Tweets are auto posts from the mobile Obama site NOT from a real person - (this is inferred by the nature of the messages) The subject is always “at such-n-such location doing something” There is not one reply, not one policy statement or message. Nothing. There is zero engagement. It’ sad actually. I would be completely understanding if he even had a staffer appointed as his proxy to do the engagement. Of course, it’d be great to have a few Tweets done by himself but you can’t expect everything. But let’s not begin to think that the campaign remotely understands the power of Twitter. They merely saw it as another conduit to automatically feed. It’s hard not to conclude that Obama just didn’t like the message put out in this fake acct b/c there are easily 20+ unofficial Obama Twitter acct’s and I don’t know that they are taking action there. Just food for thought.
Michael,
The reason i say Obama gets twitter is he has a multiple of 45X over McCain on twitter.
This just happens to be a different use case: Broadcast. I realize that their use case is of a feed and not a real person.
The other reason that I say they “get” social media is I have studied both parties to see how they have implemented facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc.
Obama has a bit of an advantage with one of the early founders of facebook actually helping their campaign.
Going for engagement coming from a Obama/McCain representative to respond to all tweets simply does not scale based upon the velocity of people talking about them.
It is also worthy to note that McCain just got on twitter less than 3 weeks ago. Obama has been on twitter for a much longer time.
Rodney - I agree with your points. I was just taken a bit by the word “get” I still maintain he and his campaign don’t get it. It’s not different than if McCain’s campaign if they were smart enough to have even created an account 6 months ago and set up a feed. While I see the limited utility in providing a Twitter feed for those who want one (I get my feeds elsewhere) you , of all people, know that it doesn’t constitute “getting” twitter. I would hope you’d point that out. What it really amounts to is someone in Obama’s campaign saying “Hey, we should pump our stuff into a Twitter feed” Whoopie. Almost useless. I’d love to know how many people actually get anything out of the 200 times they sent a message. Imagine the power if they engaged. It’s possible. You don’t have to auto-bot follow 90,000 people. They should have a staff member focused on the engagement part. The velocity of people talking about them doesn’t necessarily translate into inability to engage. It has been done before. Until then, they a re nowhere on the Twitter scale and not much better than McCain in that regard. I just wanted more from them.McCain? He clearly doesn’t get it.
Points well taken Michael.
Ideally they would engage. Kind of disappointing that they have not.
I am not a fan of feeds being pumped automatically into twitter for distribution. Some people find value in this use case. I am not a fan of this use case personally. Like you; I get my feeds elsewhere.
There’s no question that the Obama campaign gets social media. Look at the many ways they are using it in their campaign from text messaging, blogs, YouTube, Facebook groups, iphone apps and his own site, which is basically a social network hub.
It’s true that @barackobama is an auto post, but Twitter isn’t about what you post to Twitter, it’s about how the rest of us pass that message on and react to it. The campaign has been very grassroots and it makes sense to leave the Twittering to the supporters and watch it grow from there.
I agree that Obama can’t have conversation with all of his followers via Twitter. But I also agree that he doesn’t “get” the full potential of the medium. His current Tweets read like a boring “to do”list. Speaking here, watch me there.
He is missing an opportunity to communicate his more personal feelings about what he cares about. He could have found 140 characters to say when McCain suspended the campaign. Or he could ask his followers questions about what they are concerned about. The possibilities of even more engaging broadcast-type tweets are endless.
Engagement is the point of Twitter. Obama’s use of it is a one-way broadcast that falls flat. The only reason I’m following him is I keep hoping that he’ll figure it out and Tweet something interesting. If I send him enough messages, do you think he’ll eventually get it?
In fact, I’ll be tweeting him a link to this page. Wonder if anyone will actually open it up and read your article and comments. Yeah right.
Peggy & Janet
I agree with your well thought out comments 100%!
p.s. I am sure they will never respond to any of us on twitter. That is what pisses me off the most. It is like I am shouting and they are not listening… um kind of like politicians in real life.
Janet, with all dude respect, I think you’re way off on “Twitter isn’t about what you post on Twitter” It sure is! What you post on Twitter defines you on Twitter. it either prompts engagement from others or causes them to turn you off, or even block you. It’s so democratic it’s scary. You create the network YOU want via this pure system. With discipline, you can build a stream of real value adders and real engagement. Peggy and Rodney are spot on. With little effort, Obama could add some flavor of his own. Engage. Use Twitter as those who are really successful do. To say he gets Twitter is unfair to those who do. Heck, Comcast “gets” Twitter. they engage and even do cust support via twitter. Remarkable. What’s worse, Obama’s campaign doesn’t even autopost that frequently! For crying out loud, they could only come up with 200 posts since Jan? How about 15 a day? Sorry but “it makes sense to leave the Twittering to the supporters” actually doesn’t make sense. twitter is all of us
Michael,
I love your passion man. The people that are immersed in this eco-system become very passionate (myself included) because we see the value of the ability to do amazing things with twitter.
“It’s so democratic it’s scary”: That is why i love twitter. If you suck, you are gone. If you are clueless and rude you are blocked. If you tweet garbage you get no followers. If you add value you flourish. What a concept.
I have been on twitter for 2 years this December and what amazes me to this day is how people choose to use it. In many ways that is the beauty; twitter is whatever you want it to be.
Twitter is a tool like a hammer. you can build an amazingly useful piece of furniture, or you can hit people over the head, or you can repair things, or you can break glass or you can build a podium with which to share your thoughts… not the best analogies but you get the point…
Actually, I have lightened up on my initial position against using it as a broadcast tool (rss auto-posting jackhammer); since i can just put earplugs in and ignore/block you and not tell you that you are about to hit a gas main. To each their own. Live and let die (the people that don’t get it).
Again thanks to everyone for their thoughts on this: Michael, Peggy, Janet, Jesse and Mick. Spread the word and let’s see what more people think.
Michael,
I guess what I meant to say is; it isn’t what I (underlined) say on Twitter as much as it is how the conversation evolves from there. One voice does not carry nearly the weight of many and there are plenty out there to carry the theme of the Obama campaign.
So yes, they certainly could talk back more, but I maintain that Twitter is a viral community and it doesn’t take much to start the fire.
Janet - I couldn’t agree more.