Maine Governor at Bottom of Social Media List
Stateline, a nonprofit news service of the Pew Center on the States, has done a comprehensive survey of how governors across the country are using social media in an official way to connect with and inform their constituents.
Specifically, they looked at how each of the nation's fifty governors are using four popular socal media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube.
The vast majority of governors use at least three of these services to share personal and official information and provide videos, photos, and links to residents of the states they represent.
Only three governors, Wyoming's Matthew Mead, New Hampshire's John Lynch, and Maine's Paul LePage use only a single social media service in an official capacity. Lynch uses Facebook, Mead has a YouTube account and LePage is on Twitter.
Even LePage's single official foray into social media is underwhelming. The governor's account has only 411 followers, a relatively small number that seems more appropriate for a state legislator (Democratic State Representative Seth Berry, for instance, has 409) than for the state's chief executive.
In addition, most of LePage's Twitter updates are simply automated repostings of press releases from his Web site. To find something written by a human, one has to go back more than three months to when LePage or, more likely, one of his communications staff made a small smattering of updates on the budget process and praising then-Maine Heritage Policy Center head Tarren Bragdon.
LePage being tied for last place on the gubernatorial social media front is surprising given his campaign's use of online tools, especially Facebook, to rally his base in 2010.
Things may be changing, however. Despite a longstanding prohibition on changing Facebook page titles and URLs once they've been created, LePage has apparently been allowed to change his campaign page's name from "Paul LePage Maine's Next Governor" to "Paul Lepage, Maine's Governor," while maintaining his almost 10,000 Facebook fans.
It's not clear if the new page is being run by the governor's office, by outside volunteers, or by the interest group founded by LePage partisans that remains closely linked to the governor's agenda.
The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.
- Mike Tipping
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lepage bashing
At least try to get the facts straight for once.He used facebook to get elected.The Bdn puts you on top of the list to spread this crap around try to do a little investigating before you spread your venom.ps where was all this when the baldacci admin was in (Crickets please)
My point...
My point, Mike, was that when you look at Pew's chart, they don't include the Governor's Facebook account on their list. They very clearly *overlooked* it.
And you know they overlooked it, since you reference his Facebook account in your article here. But you still characterized it on the terms of Pew's mistake.
In other words, you knew Pew was wrong and that him being placed with only one social account on their list was incorrect, but you still covered this as though they WERE correct. If that makes sense.
Do you report on other studies that have incorrect data, and then, knowing that data is incorrect, still accept the premise made under false pretenses? No, of course not. So why are you doing it here?
Look, I'm not arguing that the Governor is setting the world on fire with social media. For God's sake this is what I do for a living, so I'm extremely disappointed that they haven't embraced it fully as of yet, and were I advising them I'd get them on everything. Everywhere. And I'd advise them to use it a lot better.
But still, be fair to the man. Pew simply made a mistake when they rounded up all the accounts, and you and I both know that. Not really hard to do - it can often be very hard to locate accounts on social media. So lets cover the reality of the situation, shall we?
LePage has an official presence on both Twitter and Facebook, which puts him in a different group which is *not* "at the bottom" as you suggest.
As for "contact Pew" - I did... when I saw this study last week. There was a reason I didn't write on it.
Missing the point
I'm still not sure you get it. They're listing official presences, in their roles as governors. The Facebook page is his campaign account and (I just checked) it hasn't been transferred to his gubernatorial staff. They didn't overlook it, they just didn't count it.
You can argue that Pew used an incorrect metric, but I don't think you can accuse me of being unfair, especially as I mention and link to the page and note that it wasn't counted.
Not really
"Official presences" is not the standard they used in compiling this list, Mike. They expressly declined to include what they deemed to be "sites that exist solely for campaign purposes". In other words, campaign accounts like "LePage 2010" or what have you.
It should also be noted that Pew listed the personal friend account for Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama, just as an example. Governor LePage has one of those too, which is most certainly not an account which exists solely for campaign purposes.
The Governor, his staff, his PAC or whoever is in control of BOTH of those accounts has been posting things like "Capital for a Day" events, pictures of ribbon cuttings, articles relating to his work as Governor, etc. Not campaign material on EITHER of his accounts.
Pew simply missed the accounts, that's all. And as such they accidentally mischaracterized his position among the other Governors.
They never had the threshold for "official office accounts", they simply cut out the campaign accounts, neither of which these are.
Again, while the Governor's staff could do better by about 10,000%, they are most certainly not as the description you put here suggests "at the bottom".
Engagement
None of LePage's social media matters if he (or his staff) doesn't actually engage with citizens via those outlets.
That list is wrong and I think you know that
He has more than the Twitter account, which you note in the article above... he has the Facebook Page which is maintained by staff as far as I understand it... but even if that was outside his control, he has his PERSONAL Facebook friend account, which this study links to for several other Governor's around the country.
The reality is that Governor LePage is tied with the Governors of Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia, etc. Pew simply missed his Facebook presence. And indeed, his MPBP PAC has a FB and Youtube account as well, so it isn't exactly like his footprint online is non-existent.
The Governor's office could absolutely make a lot better use of digital platforms (by a lot), but I think your characterization here is extremely misleading and unfair. He's not "at the bottom"... he's on the low side of average.
What?
I note his Facbook group prominently in the post and discuss his use of social media during the campaign. I think I make it very clear that this list doesn't cover all uses of social media.
If you have a problem with the way Stateline determines what counts as an official social media presence, I suggest you take it up with them.
Baxter
I'll remind readers that Gov. LePage's dog Baxter has a blog http://baxterblogs.wordpress.com/