14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter is a great tool for public relations and many companies, celebrities, and public figures have realized this early on. And like any great PR opportunity, you're going to want to let the professionals handle it. US president Barack Obama can credit his win at least partially on making good use of online tools like YouTube and, yes, Twitter. The president's Twitter account is now one of the most popular at 2.6 million followers. Does it really surprise anyone that White House staff handles most of the tweeting? How about the fact that he has never actually used Twitter?
In fact, that's what the US president said during a meeting with Chinese youth during his visit in the country. President Obama reiterated his stance on Internet freedom and openness, and freedom of information on the whole, but he also made an interesting comment, which was picked up by the social media outlets, he has never actually used Twitter.
One of the students at the meeting asked "Do you know about the great firewall and should we be able to use Twitter?" to which Obama replied "I have never used Twitter but I'm an advocate of technology and not restricting internet access." While there weren't too many that believed he was really behind all of the tweets, he wouldn't have the time even if he wanted, most people might have assumed that at least some of them were coming from him directly. It's now clear that this isn't the case, but it doesn't change the fact he has been using social media tools very effectively up till now, albeit not him directly.
Twitter has been blocked in China since July and Internet access to a great number of sites and services is restricted by the so-called Great Firewall of China, the massive filtering technology the country employs to keep its citizens from reaching “sensitive” information online. In fact, the talks were only broadcasted locally in Shanghai by the Chinese TV stations. A live stream was also available online on the White House website and Facebook, but again, it's unlikely that this reached too many Chinese citizens.