Handing Over The Nuclear Codes… And The Twitter Password?

With all of the post-election focus on who President-elect Trump will nominate for his Cabinet and what executive orders he’ll issue on his first day in office, there is a key communications question that needs to be examined: How will the new President use Twitter once he takes office? Which handle will he use – @realDonaldTrump, @POTUS, both? Let’s discuss.

Prior to the presidential election on November 8, The White House published a document that explains what will happen to the President’s digital and social media assets once the 45th President is sworn in on January 20, 2017. The official Twitter handle of the President, @POTUS, will be transitioned from President Obama for President Trump’s use since that is the official Twitter handle of the President of the United States. The @POTUS account will start fresh with a clean slate of tweets for the new President while all of former President Obama’s tweets from that handle will be moved over to a new account, @POTUS44, which will be overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration since the tweets are considered presidential records. Former President Obama will still have access to his political Twitter handle @BarackObama and will be free to keep using it.

But what will the new President do with this asset of social media power? His current Twitter  account has 15.8 million followers while the @POTUS account has 12.1 million followers. Since President Obama was the first president to use Twitter, it is probably safe to say that a majority of the followers of that account support Barack Obama and not Donald Trump. And the followers of that account will likely be surprised to find out at that at noon ET on January 20 that they are now following Donald Trump on Twitter and not Barack Obama. Yikes!

And let’s not forget that Donald Trump has been a prolific tweeter having registered more than 34,000 tweets since he joined Twitter in 2009. He has been using it to attack his critics, make transition announcements and post photos of himself eating a taco bowl on Cinco de Mayo.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed that 59% of Americans want President Trump to forgo using his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account. Will he listen? Will he instead use @POTUS and refrain from attacks on The New York Times (which he has referred to as “failing”) as well as halt his criticism of Rosie O’Donnell? Come January 20, we will all find out.

Sources

Addady, M. (2016, Nov. 10). Here’s what happens to President Obama’s Twitter account when Donald Trump Takes Office. TIME. Retrieved from: http://time.com/4567113/barack-obama-donald-trump-twitter/

Miller, S.A., (2016, Nov. 22). Americans urge Donald Trump to give up Twitter: poll. The Washington Times. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/22/americans-urge-donald-trump-give-twitter-poll/

Schulman, K. (2016, Oct. 31). The digital transition: how the presidential transition works in the social media age. Retrieved from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/10/31/digital-transition-how-presidential-transition-works-social-media-age