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The new @POTUS account blows up Twitter feeds across the country.
President Barack Obama speaks at a news conference at Camp David in Maryland, May 14, 2015.AP
By
Yasmin Aslam
Washington has a new Twitter account in town. At approximately 8:38 a.m. ET Monday, President Obama introduced his new, verified @POTUS Twitter account, sending a message from an iPhone in the Oval Office:
Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account.
In less than three hours after the first tweet went out, the @POTUS account acquired more than 261,000 followers — and it had more than 100,000 total engagements on Twitter. By the afternoon he reached 1 million followers.
The short bio reads, “Dad, husband, and 44th President of the United States.” The header image is a picture of Obama with his family, crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the anniversary of the iconic civil rights march in Selma, Ala., in March. Another important note is the link to the White House’s privacy policy, which confirms that tweets may be archived.
Alex Wall, the deputy director of online engagement for the Office of Digital Strategy at the White House, shared details of the new POTUS account on the White House’s blog:
The @POTUS Twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him. President Obama is committed to making his Administration the most open and participatory in history, and @POTUS will give Americans a new venue to engage on the issues that matter most to them.
This marks the third Twitter account for Obama, who also has been known to tweet messages on the @WhiteHouse handle signing them “-BO” to signify the message has been written by the president himself.
Vice President Joe Biden and first lady Michelle Obama used their official accounts to welcome Obama to Twitter.
Currently, the @BarackObama handle is the third most-followed user in the world, after @katyperry and @justinbieber, and it continues to be one of the fastest growing Twitter accounts to this day. At this rate, the @POTUS account is sure to rival @BarackObama and @WhiteHouse for the top spot on Klout, a firm that tracks social media activity and influence.
— Vice President Biden (@VP) May 18, 2015
