Georgia lawmakers embrace social networking media

Hours after his state Senate colleagues initially failed to back a proposal to investigate lawmakers who did not pay their income taxes, “Johnson4Georgia” vented digitally to his followers.

“Hey, Georgia legislators can marry folks, but we don’t have to pay our taxes,” “Johnson4Georgia” — the Twitter ID of state Sen. Eric Johnson — fumed in one early-morning post March 6. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

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The Savannah Republican is one of a number of politicians and public officials embracing social networking technology to interact with citizens.

They post content on MySpace, update Facebook pages and “tweet” short Twitter text bursts from their cellphones.

“The use of social media gives a politician or government official the ability to speak directly to the public and to control the message,” said Sid Bedingfield, a former CNN executive who lectures at the University of South Carolina. “It gives them an opportunity to communicate in a more clear and effective way with the public.”

Johnson has sent Twitter texts almost daily from the legislative session. On March 12, he tweeted from the Senate floor that his proposal to name tax-dodging lawmakers had come up again, and passed.

“It allows for quick communication with a target audience,” Johnson said in a telephone interview.

A number of legislators have taken to Twitter to send brief updates of pending legislation. Lawmakers using it include Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta).

Reed, a candidate for mayor of Atlanta, has a solid presence in social networking media. He has video content on YouTube and MySpace and a page on Faithbase.com, which attracts a predominantly Christian audience.

“It’s like having a town hall meeting every day,” Reed said.

Johnson’s plans to run for lieutenant governor also include social media. The Web site for his 2010 campaign links to his Facebook page and Twitter sites.

“It generates a call to action as the campaign moves along,” Johnson said. “I can see the use of Twitter as a very good political tool.”

Atlanta consultant Allen Nance, founder of the Mansell Group, tracks social networking sites as a vocation and also to feed his own political interests.

“I’m intrigued by the conversations generated by social networking,” said Nance, who identifies himself as a political moderate. He is advising GOP state Sen. David Shafer, a candidate for lieutenant governor, on Web strategies.

“If you’re a politician, [the Web is] a place you can’t hide,” Nance said.

Bedingfield said the successful use of social networking technology by Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was the turning point. One Facebook page created for Obama has more than 5 million “friends.”

Simon Axten, a spokesman for Facebook on privacy and public policy issues, said more public officials are creating pages daily, and the trend is likely to continue.

Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens, whose Facebook page lists 176 supporters, said the response from his constituents has been positive. Most of the time.

“I did lose some friends when we did not close the county” after a rare winter snowstorm recently, Olens said. “Some of my friends’ children were not happy that school was in session.”

Sometimes, social networking pages are created for elected officials.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s Facebook page is filled with encouraging words from nearly 300 supporters. But Franklin didn’t create it.

“The fact is, she’s a public figure and anyone can create a page,” said Beverly Isom, the mayor’s spokeswoman. Isom said her office can only monitor the page for accurate content.

One downside of social networking, Olens said, is that “if you let it, it can be very time-consuming.”

Reed, for example, sets aside an hour to 90 minutes daily to update content on a Facebook page that has some 2,000 supporters.

“You start with a time commitment, and you have to learn the technology,” he said. But he added, “once you get started, it becomes second nature, and you start to embrace it.”