U.S. President Barack Obama is handing his White House social media machine over to his reelection campaign and has started soliciting campaign donations on Facebook.
©Twitter; Obama on Twitter
Obama announced that his campaign workers are taking over from White House staffers the duties of updating his Twitter and Facebook accounts. Both accounts got recent makeovers to display Obama's 2012 campaign logo on his profile pages.
Media coverage of the announcement focused largely on a tweet Obama sent Friday announcing that he would personally start sending some tweets and sign them "-BO" to indicate they were written by him, not his staffers.
But three days later, no "BO" tweets have appeared yet @BarackObama.
It may well be that the "personal tweeting" announcement was designed to quell concerns that Obama's popular tweets would no longer be coming from the White House and its presidential office, but rather, from his political campaign staff.
Responding to critics, Obama's official twitterers sent this follow-up tweet one day after the announcement: "If you've enjoyed the President's tweets, don't worry--he'll still make frequent appearances here." His campaign staff elaborated on the reasons for the social media changes with a posting on the campaign website, basically saying that the change would help Obama reach out more directly to potential campaign supporters.
Obama is one of the most followed people in social media, with 8.7 million followers on Twitter and 21.7 million "likes" on Facebook.
It will be interesting to watch how Obama's use of social media to drum up volunteers and votes will go over in a medium that increasingly is about conversation.
©Facebook; Obama on Facebook
His Facebook page, for example, now carries an in-your-face solicitation for money at the very top. "Donate Today" it shouts, with radio buttons for the amounts you want to give and a form right on Facebook for entering your credit card number.