Debt Crisis #Compromise: Spam or Social Media Genius?

“Tweet at your Republican legislators and urge them to support a bipartisan compromise to the debt crisis.”

This was the message sent out by President Obama’s campaign staff on Twitter, just before his tweeting barrage began last Friday afternoon. In efforts to urge Republican legislators to compromise with Democrats on the debt crisis, the president’s staff used the @BarackObama account to list Twitter handles of GOP leaders state by state, and also encouraged use of the #compromise hashtag.

As a PR student interested in political communication and social media, I should really love this idea- it’s engaging, informative, and totally unique. But instead of getting involved and tweeting members of Congress, I quickly (and temporarily) un-followed the @BarackObama account, and so did about 37,000 other people who felt they were being spammed by the president’s tweets.

As the day went on, Obama lost more and more followers while Republican legislators gained in excess of 6,500 new followers. However, looking at the sole purpose of this campaign- it was a huge success. Obama’s follower numbers may have took a hit, but this tweet overhaul flooded the feeds of Republicans and possibly may have helped with the compromise. Opinions remain mixed on the president’s Twitter stunt, but he is still the third most followed person on the planet.

A few Republican leaders took to Twitter to poke fun at the president’s campaign, even thanking him for the new followers:

North Carolina congressman, Patrick McHenry tweeted, ‘Looking forward to all the new followers @BarackObama sends my way today in his Twitter spam campaign.’

What did you think of Obama’s Twitter move? Was it spam or genius?