He has a quarter of a million followers in just two weeks

May 10, 2010 15:39 GMT  ·  By

Just several months ago, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was labeling Twitter users as terrorists. Now, he is one himself and, by the looks of it, he’s taking the social network/information network by storm. He has over a quarter of a million followers already and is rising fast. In fact, his account is so popular that he had to hire 200 people to manage it.

According to the BBC and other sources, the president couldn’t handle the constant stream of messages he was receiving from Twitter users and had to turn to others for help. And, while most celebrities and politicians active on Twitter have a number of people tweeting on their behalf and managing their accounts, 200 people has to be one of the largest dedicated teams on record.

Why the need for so many people? Well, Chavez says that he’s received more than 50,000 messages in the two weeks since he’s created his account. Clearly, he can’t answer them all himself and still have time to be president.

The Venezuelan president set up his account just a couple of weeks ago realizing it could be another avenue to spread his message. He already has daily speeches broadcast by all TV stations in the country, but that clearly wasn’t enough.

While it’s easy to be critical of Chavez, who is slowly but surely fashioning himself into ‘president for life,‘ it didn’t take long for him to realize the power of Twitter. And he’s now using it to its full advantage, connecting with the people and airing his messages.

And, even though just 31 percent of Venezuelans have Internet access, it looks like plenty of them are enjoying the chance to have the president within reach and have their grievances heard by him. Chavez claims that just 18 percent of the messages he has received so far were critical, but he has been quick to brush them off.