Thai Politicians And Twitter

[Lite Beer]

Twitter basics for politicians

@Ajbomb, aka Thawatchai Kerdpradub, blogger, university instructor and writer of 'Marketing on Twitter' offers a lesson

As the first sign of a general election, every road in Thailand is full of billboards showing the faces of different politicians. They believe that the more people see them on television or the roadside, the better their chances of winning the election.

Stuck in their old ways of thinking, Thai politicians are failing to make use of Twitter and other social-networking tools.

US politicians use Twitter to build their personal brand. They enjoy its fast and direct communication with their supporters. It's a low-cost but efficient way of reaching a large number of people in minutes. The politician can respond to complaints or have an informal conversation with supporters.

I have been impressed by the Twitter account of actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, especially with his bio, "I love hearing from my fans". It is clear that he knows how powerful Twitter can be in helping him keep in touch with his supporters.

In Thailand, the boom of Twitter started after ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra used Twitter to communicate with his supporters.

However, I am sure that less than 1 per cent of Thai MPs have Twitter accounts and less than 0.5 per cent are active.

And what's sad is that tiny percentage of active users tweet messages that do not build up any popularity. Most of them use Twitter for one-way communication. They just tweet what they want to say and don't interact with their followers, so they learn nothing. They do not know how to tweet effectively.

One obvious example is Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva (@PM_Abhisit). He has a team to tweet for him and ends every tweet with the word "team". That looks funny to his followers. It's obvious Abhisit is not the one who tweets.

This is a serious "don't" in Twitter. The followers expect to see a real Abhisit whom they can have a conversation with. This is the reason why the @PM_Abhisit Twitter account is not interesting. It's a boring one-way communication account. Abhisit gains nothing from joining Twitter.

This comes as a surprise, since a lot of Thai politicians received a good education abroad and carry hi-tech phones, but they do not try to learn how to tweet effectively to reach their voters. They simply hire someone else to look after their Twitter accounts.

The most successful user group of Twitter users in Thailand are the movie stars. They enjoy the benefit of direct communication with their fans. For example @Domepakornlam sends his own tweets and replies to all his followers. It's not an easy job, but he can do it and he's proven to be successful.

-- The Nation 2011-04-03

[Soutpeel]

Maybe the title of this article should be " Thai Politicians Are Twits"

Just feel its more appropriate...

[niveknedwob]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twits

???

[Soutpeel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twits

???

.....the scarey part is the description of "Mr Twit" in the article would fit a vast number of our esteemed TV members IMHO....

[niveknedwob]

The 'scary part' is there is so much pressure from the "social networking" side of life now ... if you don't spend the majority of your time 'tweeting', 'blogging' or whatever (... keeping your "folowers" updated with all of your bodily functions and thoughts - at the dinner table with the family, when out with friends, etc) then you are a 'social leper' ..... you need to become "antisocial" in order to be accepted into 'society' OMG, <deleted>.

However ..... Dominic Twatt should be 'up there', if in name only. Trying so hard to make a 'name' for themselves.

As politicians tend to be 'all thumbs' does that mean that they will be communicating exclusively via mobile devices ?

Edited April 3, 2011 by niveknedwob