Color me Doubtful: Barack Obama to Tweet “Personally”

By June 20, 2011Public Relations

Barack ObamaAfter what already seems like a long summer of mis-tweeting politicians and executives, the news of our most senior executive composing his own tweets seems out of place. Obama for America has been managing the president’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, but now, going into the 2012 presidential campaign, President Barack Obama will contribute to the Twitter timeline signing his personally authored tweets with a “– BO.”

Now, I may be a jaded, cynical public relations person but my gut tells me this is not so. Would the leader of the free world really be allowed to update Twitter personally? Will Barack Obama be allowed to DM? To use hashtags, to Twitpic and @reply? Will he get to add new users to follow — or, better yet, choose who to unfollow? What if he makes a mistake? What then?

What do you think? Is there anyway the Twitter account @BarackObama would ever be tweets straight from the man himself?

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/BarackObama/status/82505176849711104″]

7 Comments

  • AshlynBrewer says:
    June 20, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    I’m not so doubtful. Plenty of politicians tweet for themselves (as we’ve all learned recently), and they didn’t usher Obama into an ivory tower upon his inauguration. I imagine he’ll still have a team handling account management (the follows/unfollow type of functions you mentioned), but I see no reason he can’t compose his own 140 statements every now and again. 🙂

  • MollyFulton says:
    June 20, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    and is he really going to be signing off each tweet with “BO”? Let the prepubescent twittering begin.

  • RaquitaHenderson-Photographer says:
    June 20, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    THAT’S WHAT I SAID MollyFulton! And I wonder if he knows that pause he does when spacing won’t translate in twitterland

  • RaquitaHenderson-Photographer says:
    June 20, 2011 at 2:36 pm

    Spacing = speaking dang on auto correct

  • KenMueller says:
    June 20, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    I’m with you on this. Last time around we were led to believe that it really was him, and then he admitted he didn’t even know how to use Twitter. Numerous articles, etc hailed Obama as leading the way in technology, and yet…it wasn’t him. To me this is nothing more than the online equivalent of a photo-op, throwing the public a bone. bah humbug.

  • Marijean says:
    June 21, 2011 at 9:25 am

    @KenMueller Should we tell the rest of the non-PR people the truth about letters to the editor, too? Or Santa Claus?

  • RaquitaHenderson-Photographer says:
    June 21, 2011 at 9:35 am

    @Marijean @KenMueller SANTA TOO?? DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!