Using Twitter for Political Speechwriting

A few year ago, I was fortunate to attend an event at Google’s public policy office in DC. Google, along with evangelists from Facebook and Twitter, highlighted novel ways for organizations to use their social media services to increase online awareness of various campaigns. Of the speakers, Sean Evins from Twitter’s government and policy team dropped a true multidisciplinary gem:

During the State of the Union address, the White House public affairs team tweeted key passages from the speech. At the end of the address, the team was able to gauge the public’s interest in discrete parts of the address in real-time by monitoring favorites, retweets, and replies. The team used this feedback to tailor the President’s talking points in his next public appearance.