How Members of Congress Can Create Good Social Media Content

Sean Hackbarth at CRAFT Media has written a blog post about how members of Congress can create meaningful social media content - it’s called Twitter: Creating Good Content. Hackbarth’s advice is much needed at a time when many members of Congress are flying by the seat of their pants as they try to navigate the social media world.

Here are the takeaways from Hackbarth’s post:

Tweets Should Engage Constituents - Members of Congress should Tweet about how they’re engaging constituents. What are constituents telling them when they’re at town hall meetings? What’s the zeitgeist of their district or state?

These Tweets give members of Congress the ability to advocate on behalf of issues that are supported by a majority of their constituents. These Tweets will come in handy when a key vote is being considered that impacts constituents in their district or state. These Tweets show that members of Congress understand the issues back home and are acting on behalf of their constituents.

Tweets Should Inform Constituents – Congressional Tweets should be noteworthy to constituents. When will the members be back in the district? When will members be appearing at a media event? When will they need support from Twitter followers when a key vote is coming up? How are they enacting their platform? How did they help a constituent?

Tweets Should Entertain Constituents – As Hackbarth says, Congressional Tweets should “break outside the Washington bubble”. Tweets should let constituents know who members of Congress are when they’re not working on their behalf. Tweets should talk about hobbies and good times with family - constituents don’t want to always hear about official business in your Tweets. Tweets should show off their personality.

This is the first session of Congress where a majority of members are actively using social media tools. I look forward to seeing more members of Congress engage, inform and entertain their constituents in Tweets.