Online Marketing Blog from metrocafe311

Or is he….

You would’nt blame his 2,692,811 followers for believing that Barack was on Twitter. He has a profile and he has been an advocate of digital communication throughout his campaign and presidency.

On his recent tour of Asia, having been asked if he believes that Chinese people should be allowed to use Twitter freely, he responded, “Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter,” he said. “My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.”

Quite a clumsy comment from a leader that is usually very considerate and accurate with his statements; and also has been known to be quite the lover of his Blackberry.

His latest Tweet is quite ironic given his comment.

“In Singapore, continuing the visit to Asia. Watch trip updates by staff on the @WhiteHouse blog:http://bit.ly/3s4PCDhttp://bit.ly/16W8YM”

It is interesting to note that, although it is a verified Twitter account, anyone can legally write the tweets. This is the official declaration of ‘Twitter verification’.

What does Verified mean?

With this feature, you can easily see which accounts we know are ‘real’ and authentic. That means we’ve been in contact with the person or entity the account is representing and verified that it is approved. (This does not mean we have verified who, exactly, is writing the tweets.)

So verified in essence does not mean a whole lot.

The lesson to be learned here, something that we are consistently telling our clients, is to be aware of all you communication. Your brand loses instant credibility when something like this occurs. If companies are not aware of all their communication, it can potentially have a negative impact no the brand.

Imagine, if Coke came out and said ‘those “holidays are coming” Christmas television ads have nothing to do with us’ or if Nike said our employees “don’t just do it.” You would disassociate a lot of positive feelings towards that brand. These brands would never make such a mistake.

The shock lies in the fact Obama did this. He was arguably the biggest brand in the world in 2009. It is no surprise that their has been uproar online with news report after news report discussing how they now feel about Obama.

Either way, we must note that Twitter was a topic of conversation that Obama felt important enough to spend time talking about (despite his blunder)…and well, it makes it even more clear how important it is to consider as part of our social media strategies.

Follow metrocafe311 on Twitter, trust us, our thumbs are not too clumsy to type things on phones!