She has shared a morning drink with the world and looks to her followers for support when she diets. With a devoted fanbase of over a hundred thousand followers and a blue tick to her name, Senator Claire McCaskill’s straight up tweeting has now been bestowed an even higher honour: a ringing endorsement from Twitter HQ itself.
On 12 May 2011, McCascill tweeted: “I’m tired of looking and feeling fat. Maybe talking about it publicly will keep me on track as I try to be more disciplined.Off to the gym.”
Adam Sharp, head of news and politics at Twitter, says the tweet was a prime example of a politician endearing herself to her followers: “It was not the kind of thing you would expect as the official statement out of a US senator.”
I'm tired of looking and feeling fat. Maybe talking about it publicly will keep me on track as I try to be more disciplined.Off to the gym.
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) May 12, 2011
Sharp says that McCaskill’s willingness to divulge personal details about her life on Twitter normalises her in the eyes of her constituents and followers, leading to a higher level of engagement in her political tweets:
“The moment someone feels: oh, she woke up this morning and feels like I do, she’s watching the same game I am right now – all of a sudden it’s a human being that says that next statement about some piece of legislation and it’s not the talking head in a studio with a scripted statement – and they leave their ears open that extra moment to consider it.”
Sharp says there has been a direct impact on the number of favourites and retweets on McCaskill’s political tweets.
The level of investment by UK political parties in social media advertising ahead of the upcoming general election is unprecedented. While Labour is understood to be spending £10,000 a month with Facebook, the Conservative party has committed ten times as much. The parties will be hoping to avoid any more embarrassing social media gaffes and might be looking for a few words of advice.
Asked how British politicians can capitalise on social media in the run up to the general election, Sharp says McCaskill’s honest tweeting conveys a sense of authenticity to which all politicians should aspire.
A tweet published by McCaskill in 2009 is another prime example of that authenticity, according to Sharp.
Yes @tigeranniemac that was me at Target in the soap aisle. You shoulda said hi. Was with my daughter Lily. We're very friendly.
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) September 3, 2009
“If we put our observers of politics hats on and think about what that tweet represents, it says: I do my own shopping. I shop where you shop. I’m back in the state. I’m not sitting in Washington. I’m approachable. I tweet myself. You can talk to me.
“How many millions of dollars have been spent over the years on TV spots of candidates walking through a field of wildflowers with their kids and the dog, trying to capture the humanity that she did using just half the characters available to her?”
A survey of more than 3,000 political accounts conducted by Twitter last summer found that more than in any other genre, including music, sport and TV, a follower’s trust in a tweet was tied to whether they believed it had been tweeted by the account owner, according to Sharp.
Last October Twitter released a handbook for politicians about how to best use Twitter (pdf), which encourages politicians to tell their stories through video and photos.
Aside from McCaskill, Sharp also gives a nod to Chuck Grassley, the 81-year-old, Republican Senator for Iowa who publishes his own tweets and has developed a following of over 81,000.
Social media’s capacity to transform politics by empowering citizens to hold elected officials accountable has been widely debated. Sharp suggested that the insight social media provides into the lives of politicians helps to demystify the political system.
“I think it also starts to create an exponential effect that as soon as you do have some elected officials and some agencies or ministries who really embrace Twitter to be transparent about their work, it encourages others to do the same because it starts to create an expectation among the electorate.”
Adam Sharp will be speaking at the Changing Media Summit next week.
To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media Network membership.
All Guardian Media Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Brought to you by” – find out more here.
