Monday, May 18, 2009
News AJC: Atlanta's mayoral candidates are Twits
Posted by Asher Smith on Mon, May 18, 2009 at 8:56 PM
As reported by the AJC, Atlanta's mayoral candidates have taken to Twitter, utilizing the public text-messaging service to keep in constant touch with supporters and potential voters, keeping their name out there as election season rolls around and likely voters are just beginning to familiarize themselves with the field of candidates. And where there's a seemingly-innovate new political outreach tool, there's almost always a predictable new catchphrase for it:
“This will be the Facebook election,” said Emory University associate professor Michael Leo Owens.Four candidates — [City Council President Lisa] Borders, Councilwoman Mary Norwood, state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) and Thomas, a former city employee — each have pages and videos on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Candidate Rod Mack, who works in logistics, has a MySpace page that plays the Sam Cooke classic “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
The campaigns do concede that, most often, it's their staffs who are updating these accounts for them. City Council President Lisa Borders, for example, has three individuals from the firm Relate Media Group on staff to manage her social networking accounts.
Like everything else in politics, this is a competition — one that State Sen. Kasim Reed and Borders would seem to have a head start on. Reed can boast more than 4,000 Facebook friends, while Borders has approximately 1,700. Each have more than 1,100 official supporters listed on their Facebook pages. On Twitter, Borders has more followers than any candidate; 749 as of last Sunday.
like
dislike
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Time and Place: Get off my head ASAP
I found the reaction of the kid getting surfed on to be absolutely hilarious.
-
Developers considering apartments next to Atlanta Waterworks reservoir on the Westside? 6
Firm asks city to rezone five-acre former steel supply company along Huff Road
-
First Slice 2/16/12: Facebook to the rescue
- More »
