Leave the tweeting to the birds, Obama!

Obama is hip. He can talk in full sentences AND hang with Jay-Z. But, did his Twitter Town Hall (TTH) push him into the "uncomfortable zone" and try to make him something he is not? Lots of tweople think so.

Obama’s been credited for harnessing the power of the Web early on in his presidency so the idea behind the TTH worked into Obama's presidential DNA. The tweople of the United States were eager to connect with Obama and excited for him to be the first president to utilize an emerging forum like Twitter. But like most marketed political events the TTH was more hype than anything. The format was fresh but the answers were stale. And oddly, Obama himself seemed out of his comfort zone with Twitter’s format (even though it's been said he tweets himself from the White House) and his hang time with Jack D.

How did something so promising take a nose dive? Well, let's take a look at what has worked...

Back on April 19 Obama joined Mark Zuckerberg for a Facebook Town Hall. During that time Obama seemed extremely comfortable with the host and very familiar with the new medium. Things started off with Obama introducing himself and poking fun at Zuckerberg, “I’m Barack Obama and I am the guy who got Mark to wear a jacket and tie.” He never lost his Obama cool and the town hall was “liked” by most.

So what happened at the Twitter Town Hall to make it #fail in comparison to the Facebook Town Hall?

First, the excitement was not there. The hype was certainly floating through Twitterspace before the event went live but it sizzled within the first few minutes. Twitter’s co-founder who served as the middleman to the President and his tweets nervously spoke like a robot, even needing an index card to say, “Good afternoon and welcome to the White House. I am Jack Dorsey from Twitter.” That set the tone for the event - all charisma was lost.

Dorsey, in his introduction, throws out some impressive stats and inspirational thoughts, “Through more than 200 million tweets per day people use Twitter to instantly connect to what is the most meaningful to them.” He went on to say that everyday people around the world use this medium to engage in spirited debate about the future of their countries. Powerful stuff for sure. But the curtain did not match the rug - this introduction did not equate to what preceded it. With a total of over 170,000 #AskObama tweets, only 17 tweets were answered within the hour. And three of those came from less-than-everyday people; Speaker John Boehner; New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof; and Modeled Behavior, a distinguished economics group blog that was assigned to moderate the tweets.

In addition to a robotic host and the absence of everyday people, Obama mentioned his answers needed to be short yet his first answer stretched for 365 words, totaling 2,313 character, equaling 17 tweets! Another #fail. Long winded answers don't belong in Twitterland.

I believe the TTH was a waste of time. Obama deserves props for taking chances and trying to reach out to us everyday tweople, but this just did not work out. I hope he has told Larry Page that his schedule is full and he is town hall'd out.