Government agencies on Twitter: a few comprehensive sites
Posted by lindyjb on January 18, 2009
Updated 6/30/09
It has been widely noted how Barack Obama has utilized technology and social media to educate and inform U.S. citizens about his campaign (just check out his YouTube channel and his Facebook, Twitter, MySpace pages). In fact, some debate whether it made a difference in helping him win the election. Now he has a new site, change.gov which has the mission to inform the public of what’s going on as he prepares to take office this Tuesday, January 20th.
It looks like more government agencies are following Obama’s lead.
Government on Twitter – a few comprehensive sites with info:
- The Government’s A-Twitter: A Comprehensive List of Government Twitter Feeds – from Alexandra Rampy, aka socialbutterfly
- The US Government Catches the Twitter Bug, And Amazingly, Does it Well – from the Eric Krangel, Silicon Insider
- GovTwit Directory – BearingPoint Blog (updated 7/20/09 – GovTwit Directory is no longer affiliated with Bearing Point)
Update 1/22: Check out Tweet Congress. Includes statistics (e.g., see who’s the most followed, who tweets/who doesn’t, who tweets the most, etc.) and a nice search function to see which Congress-folk are using Twitter: search by name, state, party. If your favorite Congressperson isn’t on there, it has an option to sign a petition in attempt to get them tweeting!
It is interesting to see the government utilizing social media in order to inform the public. It makes total sense, but it is amazing nonetheless!
Update 6/30/09: I discovered a new site called GovFresh that incorporates ALL live U.S. Government feeds ALL in one place: Twitter, YouTube, RSS, Facebook, Flickr accounts and more. They have it all: feeds from each branch in government, different agencies, departments, state governments, the military, contractors, political parties, news and so on…
theunquietlibrary said
Oh, I didn’t see this before I posted my other comment! You rock! Thank you again for sharing!
Alex, aka Socialbutterfly said
Thanks for highlighting the post I put together on government Twitter feeds. It’s amazing to see how the use of Twitter is continues to increase, expand and develop for all of us, including Twitter.
lindyjb said
Haha, no problem! Twitter popularity seems to be increasing at an astronomical rate. I think it’s pretty neat that the government is adapting to the increased usage of social networking sites – it’s a way to connect with the people/country. It makes government cool again. :-)
lindyjb said
Noticed the Supreme Court is on Twitter too… as new accounts come in, I’ll try to update.
A note of interest… I saw the White House is “following” the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s National Debt Tweets which are consistently updated with the exact number the debt is at.
Steve Lunceford said
Note that the GovTwit Directory of government on Twitter is now at http://GovTwit.com, and is no longer affiliated with BearingPoint.