You spend all your time on tweets and Facebook status updates anyway. Why not do it for your President?
With unemployment weighing heavily on the economy, Barack Obama is stressing his ability to create jobs. He’s even got one available, posting Facebook updates and tweets on behalf of the President of the United States.
Organizing for America, an organization under the umbrella of the Democratic National Committee is looking for a “Social Networks Manager.” The ideal candidate is someone who can play Twitter, Facebook, and yes, even MySpace, like a violin, to “execute grassroots campaigns to advance the President’s agenda for change.” Let’s be very clear, while you will be Obama’s political mouthpiece on Twitter (@BarackObama) you aren’t the official White House voice, that’s a separate Twitter account (@whitehouse). Facebook, same story. Your job, should you get it, is to further the Administration’s political agenda, and in a few years get Obama re-elected.
The posting went up just in time for the Presidents’ Day weekend. And what better way to spend the executive branch-themed holiday, than outlining the benefits of overhauling the health care system with surgically crafted 140-character tweets, and Facebook updates that explain the strategy underpinning the war in Afghanistan?
The qualifications your President (well, really his people) is looking for include: writing skills that are strong, sharp and personable, an ability to work under deadline pressure, a willingness to pick up a snow shovel and move to Washington D.C. And, of course an ability to spend all day on Facebook and Twitter. Apparently working nights and weekends are a good possibility too. “This isn’t a 9-to-5 sort of job,” the job description states. Which brings us to the question of pay: how much? The DNC did not return calls on the matter. But come on … you spend all your time updating your Facebook status anyway. Anything you get is gravy.
Mia Cambronero, the woman who currently holds the job, which she described in an email posted to a online message board as, “Barack Obama’s twitterer,’ will be stepping down from her job at the end of the month. In the note, Cambronero stresses that, “We’re looking for someone who is available to start immediately.”
The Obama campaign was masterful at using a variety of social media tools to get its message out during the campaign as wells as raise millions of dollars. Clearly, the administration could use a bit of a groundswell at the moment to get things done.
If you do want the job, just be prepared for the scale of the task. The President has 7.4 million fans on Facebook and more than 3.2 million followers on Twitter (the official White House Twitter page has about half as many followers). A sample Facebook update from this week includes: “We need to show every member of Congress that if they fight for real health reform now, we’ll back them up this election season. So OFA (Organizing for America) supporters are pledging volunteer hours to support candidates who fight hard for real reform. Will you join in?” A recent tweet: “Proud of the work the First Lady has done on Let’s Move! — a nationwide effort to tackle childhood obesity. Get Involved: http://bit.ly/d-g”
Don’t forget that while President Obama is indeed proud of the First Lady, it wasn’t the First Husband who wrote that tweet. Obama doesn’t use Twitter; he’s got people for that. Or at least he does until the end of the month.