The Denver Convention these days is very visible outside the US as well – a lot of our local european politicians are over there and watching with amazement, because Obama is more than popular here.
One of the leaders of the German social democrats, Hubertus Heil, who runs the administration of the party, is there, too – and twittering (in German language) from his Blackberry.
And over the last two days I became a real fan of his tweets. And so are a lot of fellow twitterers in Germany, who like me love the very casual way of posting about his feelings
Ted Kennedy was great. The big bang was the speech of Michelle Obama. Tough lady. Barack is said to call her 'my rock'
his shopping (hey, the US is one big outlet mall right now for us Europeans!)
member of parliament Muetze bought a skateboard and member of parliament Annen a pair of shoes. Now we can get back to work
about content
topics are fighting hunger and climate change. Joschka is moderator, clinton held a speech. topline: good will is not enough
and context
tomorrow morning an interesting panel with bill clinton and joschka fischer. Will be there.
But – not very surprisingly – some mainstream media is just laughing about his twitter. Mainly, I think, because they don’t get what Twitter is all about. But also because online and politicians online especially is still very unpopular in Germany and among German journalists.
Some leading newspapers (like the Süddeutsche Zeitung, German article about it here) and online magazin like Spiegel Online (German piece about Mr Heil’s twittering here) blame Mr Heil to be infantil and foolish, they even claim to know that members of his party are laughing at him as well.
I think they are more than wrong. OK, some of his tweets are not that – well – full of brillant content. But what he is doing is imho really good: He not only tweets but LISTENS to his followers and even answers if they ask something.
@ChristianSoeder that’s boring: he wears black socks. Me too, so there’s no ideology behind it (the conservative party is called “the blacks” in Germany and the social democrats “the reds”)
He really is human and authentic, he has – to use the cluetrain word – a voice.
Next year is election year over here in Germany and Heil’s party is not really on the winning track right now. So I think he is doing some serious experiments with social media, because no one here does know how to act as a politician or a party within this uncontrolled and sometimes nasty space out here in the social web.
Whether you like his party or not, whether you like him as a politician or not – you have to admit he is far ahead anyone else that highly profiled in a political party in Germany now. I hope he not only enjoys what he is doing – but stays on twitter, even if bad days are coming. We will watch him and others who might follow.
For those able to read German, here is the link to my post and analysis on our local pr blog.
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Comments (1)
Wolfgang, thank you! This is a very interesting article. Certainly the internet activity is not so popular among politicians in German as well as in Russia. And of couse media used to take such online behaviour as you tell here - smth like provocations or very "original" PR. I agree with you that mr. Heil is far ahead working with social media today. This is really awesome - he is not afraid criticism and to look may be funnyfor others. We'll see how his popularity will grow before his elections and among what audience.
Posted by Olga Rasulova | August 28, 2008 7:39 AM
Posted on August 28, 2008 07:39