It’s one thing when the local dry cleaner closes for a week due to a family vacation.
But shutting down the federal government because the politicians can’t play nice in the sandbox?
Thankfully, the boys in Washington discovered that elusive common ground; hence, the U.S. government is once again open for business.
Playing my humble role as a servant for the People, I conducted an audit – relax, no taxpayers’ money involved – on federal Twitter accounts. Specifically, I wanted to find out if the Feds pulled the plug on their Twitter accounts during the shutdown, how they handled it and if any federal accounts continued to turn the 140-bit storytelling crank during the shutdown.
Everyone should be happy to hear that virtually all federal Twitter accounts went dark during the shutdown. Figuring the average cost to operate a government Twitter account runs around $1K per day – approval process for a tweet can be brutal – it’s great to see this social media spoke did not make a difficult financial situation worse.
Turning to the specifics, our audit turned up many government entities that communicated “no tweets during the shutdown” in their actual profile. I hadn’t considered using the profile copy this way.
Are we seeing a federal government that’s more in tune with the sensitivities of the American people?
I ask the question because a number of federal Twitter accounts used the “S” word in expressing their genuine regret that their tweets were about to stop due to the shutdown.
Yes, it appears that someone distributed tweet copy to all the federal agencies suggesting that they use the “we’re sorry” narrative. Personally, I find this reassuring that our Federal government is finding more points of leverage across varied entities.
As for the federal entities that continued tweeting during shutdown, I discovered two, though it’s certainly not a comprehensive list (did not review the hundreds of accounts that exist).
Given the bad buys operate 24×7, I can understand how the DoD rationalized keeping all communication channels open for business.
And apparently the folks who print money deemed that newly designed $100 bill crucial information for the public.
As the federal Twitter accounts ramp up today, if you come across anything insightful or just plain weird by all means chime in.