There’s
Nothing Like
a Good Tweet
What I’ve Learned
About Social Media
and Making It Work
for Advocacy
By Natalie Haskins English
didn’t delve into the world of social
media until late 2008. Being on
the older side of Generation X, I
couldn’t figure out what the hype
was all about. It made no sense to me
that I would need any tool other than
my cell phone and my email to communicate with people.
Then I created a Facebook page and
started reaching out to personal friends. I was suddenly back
in touch with people I had lost track of long ago. My cell
phone and email hadn’t provided a vehicle to communicate
I
with them. OK, I decided, Facebook made sense for personal
communications. Now friends and family can keep up with
my five-year old son, Rick, through commentary and photographs. Of course, most of those photographs are uploaded
via my cell phone.
Soon after, the communications team at the Charlotte (NC)
Chamber began trying to make the case to me that the governmental affairs staff should be on Twitter. I told them we didn’t
have enough to say. Who would care about what we were up
to? After nagging and cajoling, I gave in and allowed them to
create an account that we planned would be for our team to
use: @Voice4BizCLT. I dabbled in it a couple of times and was
intrigued, but not quite sold.
Then, in early 2009, I posted something that elicited some
debate amongst the dozen or so followers we had at the time.
That coaxed me to use it a little more. I also realized that our
governmental affairs team probably needed two accounts.
I asked our full-time state lobbyist to take on the first
handle, while I created a second one for myself: @cltlobbyist. While my colleague, Allison Waller, covers state government for us with what we call “gavel to gavel coverage” of
the legislature, I spend most of my time at the local level.
One of us is at most meetings of the Charlotte City Council,
Mecklenburg County Commission and Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools Board.
We started “tweeting” what we heard and saw at these public meetings. (We are always very careful not to tweet anything that is confidential or that isn’t shared publicly.) As our
followers grew, we created more online debate about issues.
Also in 2009, local elected officials and candidates started
creating Twitter accounts. Many of them were impressed
with Obama’s success in using social media during his 2008
presidential campaign. At some point soon after, media
outlets in Charlotte were creating accounts, and policy dialogues began happening via Twitter.
Once last spring, I was attending a meeting of our city
council’s environment committee. The committee heard a
presentation from the utilities department about the need
to raise water rates to fund infrastructure needs. It was
for information only, with a vote to come at some future
meeting. That afternoon, I received a call from two media
outlets wanting to interview me. The Chamber hadn’t even
considered what position we might take on that issue. But
that didn’t matter to the reporters who called — I had the
first-person account of what happened, so they wanted to
interview me.
The incident prompted me to think about how I could get
media coverage for other Chamber issues. I wanted attention
not just from the media, but from business people and
In early 2009, I posted something that elicited some
debate amongst the dozen or so followers we had at
the time. That coaxed me to use [Twitter] a little more.
32Chamber Executive Spring 2010
If there are people communicating about issues and
activities via any medium, then a good governmental
affairs professional cannot afford to be absent from
the conversation.
Chamber members, who might be able to assist in our advocacy. The social media columnist at our local paper named
me a “top 10 tweeter to follow” because “she even breaks
news with her tweets.” As a very competitive person, I really
like it when I beat out the local media with my tweets. Of
course, they have the next day’s edition or newscast with a
lot more than 140 words to cover the story… but it’s fun to
say it first!
We now have an official chamber tweeter: @cltchamber.
Our president tweets: @CLTChamberBob. And our economic
development group tweets: @cltecondev. The main account
tweets about events and other things and retweets what the
rest of us say. Our president tweets occasionally about things
about the Chamber. And the economic development group is
careful not to tweet anything to give away the projects we are
working on, but they do tweet when we announce new jobs.
They also tweet interesting facts about Charlotte that might
entice a company to consider relocating to our community.
We also have a Charlotte Chamber Facebook page with lots of
fans and pictures of our events, etc.
We haven’t yet changed the course of direction for any policy
issues. But I believe as we grow our number of followers (I’m
over 700 now), we will be able to influence people who will then
call on their elected officials. I also think we can directly impact
those elected officials who follow us.
I’m certain that new questions will arise. With the debate
in North Carolina and Alaska about former governors using
personal email accounts for state business, I suspect social
media will cause problems for someone somewhere along the
line. The difference is once you communicate via social media,
it’s out there. So, be careful what you tweet. All your followers
are watching, and their followers can, too.
I don’t believe Twitter or Facebook have taken the place of
face-to-face advocacy. After all, effective lobbying has always
been about great relationships, which pretty much require faceto-face conversations.
However, I am sold that these new media are an additional
tool for advocacy. If there are people communicating about
issues and activities via any medium, then a good governmental affairs professional cannot afford to be absent from
the conversation.
Natalie Haskins English is senior vice president, public policy,
at the Charlotte (NC) Chamber of Commerce. She can be
reached at (704) 378-1300 or [email protected].
34Chamber Executive Spring 2010