What happened to the political Tweeps?

A few months ago I wrote about the use of Twitter by politicians. It was election time. Politicians all wanted to influence the public opinion by posting tweets, and they did. Tweets and retweets followed each other rapidly. During some debates on national television, the debate itself was the subject with the largest number of followers on Twitter worldwide. Meanwhile, the battle for the votes was fought and a government has been formed. Our new prime minister Rutte was one of few politicians who didn’t use Twitter during election time. Will he be using Twitter? And how active are the other politicians at the moment?

Tagged with: policy, twitter, politicians, social media,

Politicians and Twitter: are they aware of the possibilities?

It already seems an eternity ago that former Prime Minister Kok took an e-mailcourse on public television. At this moment, you can’t think of a politician that isn’t active on the internet. Only a few days before the national elections, it’s rush hour among politicians in social media. It seems like a politician without a profile on Hyves, Facebook or Twitter, in advance has no chance of winning votes. What is the value of social media for politicians and citizens? What audience is reached? Is the gap between politicians and citizens getting smaller? Are there differences in activity between the politicians? How will the activities continue after the elections?

Tagged with: policy, elections, politicians, twitter, social media,