Social Media Impacts the State of the Union

0 Comment(s) | Posted Jan 27, 2010 by Peter Wylie

Peter Wylie

The State of the Union is going social, as YouTube is offering a social media avenue called CitizenTube for citizens to ask questions of President Barack Obama during the address.  Users will be able to vote on their favorite questions, which Obama will answer next week in a live interview on the online video site. 

Other social networks are going to be facilitating interaction during the speech, as well.  Facebook will partner with CNN to allow users to add status updates about the address while watching the live video on the news site.   

The volume of Twitter traffic related to the speech is also starting to ramp up significantly.  More than 5,000 messages referencing the State of the Union have been sent in the past 24 hours, and the amount of Tweets is steadily increasing by the hour. 

In the address, Obama is expected to announce a spending freeze and provisions for job creation for small businesses, among other topics.  The specific issues that garner reaction from the social media audience will be indicative of the interest they are gaining on a larger scale.  The way the sentiment of the messages on Facebook and Twitter changes as the address is delivered could yield insights into how the public is viewing the proposed actions.

Filed under: Online Communities, Social Media in Politics, Twitter-related