Matt Sokoloff

An interesting little practice we just noticed at play on the State Department's DipNote Twitter feed: since several different folks regularly tweet on behalf of the institutional behemoth, they try to put a more personal face on things by letting us know which of the State Department's 50,000 or so staffers is "on duty" at any one time.

This is one way to handle multiple people posting on one Twitter profile. I prefer to use something like CoTweet (I posted about CoTweet here.). This method would require you to go into the profile every time you want to switch "duty." That seems like a lot of work and scheduling....but then again I'm sure the Department of State can handle that.

Many have assumed wrongly that I would recommend political campaigns set up two separate Twitter accounts in order to keep tweets from the candidate and tweets from staff or press separate.

The better solution, as Jordan points out, is to just be honest about who is tweeting but to keep everything associated with one brand together.

Ford, Microsoft and oh yeah Twitter are all great examples of brands who actually identify who is posting each tweet. They do it by simply adding a "^" and then the initials of the person tweeting. They then inform users somewhere (usually in the bio field or the background) who those folks are. Yes you loose three characters, but your brand is suddenly human. Something that is very important for social media.

One thing that politicians/campaigns typically do a poor job of when it comes to social media is listening (number three on Jordan's list). All three of the brands mentioned above are using a twitter client call CoTweet to help manage multiple people posting and responding from the same twitter account. They even put the signature in for each users. If your brand or campaign is looking for a way to easily manage their twitter account(s) check out CoTweet and start responding (and following) other people. Twitter is about being social not about pushing press releases.

• Only using Twitter for "the ask."
• Using Twitter as another press release distribution service
• Not listening
• Forgetting that you are human.
• Sending your followers on a treasure hunt
• Lying (or hiding) who is actually tweeting for you
• Tweeting your favorite quotes from historical figures just because you have nothing to say

Newark's Mayor Cory Booker shares President Obama's deep understanding of the power of digital media as a means for community organizing. As of yesterday, Mayor Booker has 833,779 Twitter followers, and 14,768 Facebook supporters.

According to the US Census Bureau the Population of Newark is 281,402 (2006 estimate) which means that Booker has more than 3 times the population of Newark following him on Twitter and the equivalent of 5% of the population of Newark as Facebook supporters.

When he post to his Facebook page, you can see by the volume of "comments" and "likes" that his Facebook supporters are actually engaged in conversation with him. So, what is he doing that fosters engagement?

Authenticity and humor are powerful tools when it comes to getting your audience to engage with you, and Mayor Booker understands this. He, jokingly, used Facebook and Twitter as a platform to challenge Obama. He asked his Facebook supporters and Twitter followers if they thought his jump shot is better than Obama's.

He uses Twitter to warn the citizen's of Newark should they litter, they are in danger of getting pulled over by him.

And he shares words of wisdom that inspire him.

So Mayor Booker--I am not sure if you jump shot is better than Obama's, and I promise you that I won't litter in Newark-or anywhere else for that matter. I thank you for your words of wisdom and I applaud you for your understanding of social media engagement.

I have had a couple of conversations about how politicians should embrace social media. I always say that I think it's key for them to be human. This was the message we had for blogs a couple years ago. This also goes for journalists, businesses or really anyone. No one want's press releases and headlines via twitter...they wan't a conversation.