Twitter Collection
Background
Collecting Tweets initially started with the collection of President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account and the official Presidential twitter handle (@POTUS), the expansion to collecting Social Media releases from current officials expanded to include the Vice President and Congressional Leadership in November 2017. This schedule aims to keep up to date with the increase of Officials use of Social Media platforms, and provide an additional resource on our website.
Twitter can be a valuable resource for our website and viewers, as it can give a much shorter snippet of an Official's policy position compared to a more in-depth Press Release, and provides quick and easy reading for our users. Tweets can also be used as an additional source for Issue Position Research and Dev-Comm releases on current events through a shorter, more direct source.
Research
Collection of Twitter accounts first involves researching to find the correct Twitter account for an Official - this can be found in numerous ways: but mainly through a direct link on the Official's website, or through searching Official's name in Twitter search-bar. Some ways to ensure you have an Official Twitter account of the official:
1) Has a similar/official photo of the Official.
2) Twitter name and personal handle (@...) reflect Official's real name and title.
3) Contains a small blue tick next to Twitter name (This signifies a verified 'real' account.)
4) Bio may contain similar introduction to website, as well as link to Official's website.
2) Twitter name and personal handle (@...) reflect Official's real name and title.
3) Contains a small blue tick next to Twitter name (This signifies a verified 'real' account.)
4) Bio may contain similar introduction to website, as well as link to Official's website.
While this list is not a 'set in stone' criteria, these give a good indication of the real Twitter account for an Official. However, for the purpose of accurate and truthful information, it is important to make sure that this criteria is accurate for the account before beginning collection.
Criteria for Collection
Because of the more restricted short nature of Tweets, it may be more difficult to determine the policy relevance of tweets. Thus, the collection criteria for Tweets still runs similar to collection of website releases (policy relevance, quotes from official, etc.), however, there is more room for personal judgement. While Tweets from an Official's real Twitter page cannot be proved to be direct quotes, they can be assumed to be from the Official. Tweets can also be collected that may not have direct policy relevance, but relate to a current issue, or are focused some other current event (campaign endorsements are a good example). Collection is mostly up to the discretion of the researcher, but the criteria for Twitter is a lot more flexible than other schedules that are collected. It is most important the collection protocol for an official remains consistent, to make the best use of the collection resource.
Formatting
Formatting of Twitter statements has changed in different ways since they were first collected! The purpose of the formatting is the ensure Tweets are easily readable on the website. The formatting for tweets is as follows;
Date: Date Tweet released.
Location: Always 'Unknown' location, unless Tweet has included location.
Speechtype: Always Social Media.
URL: Use the unique Tweet URL, can be found by clicking on the Tweet.
Title: Format of the title will look like this - Tweet - "full Tweet text"
Speechtext: Include the full tweet in quotations, as well as the Twitter handle of the Official following the Tweet.
NOTE: In both the Title and Speechtext, ensure the Tweet is included in quotations!
SPECIAL CHARACTERS:Location: Always 'Unknown' location, unless Tweet has included location.
Speechtype: Always Social Media.
URL: Use the unique Tweet URL, can be found by clicking on the Tweet.
Title: Format of the title will look like this - Tweet - "full Tweet text"
Speechtext: Include the full tweet in quotations, as well as the Twitter handle of the Official following the Tweet.
NOTE: In both the Title and Speechtext, ensure the Tweet is included in quotations!
As many officials commonly use special characters within their tweets, our website has issue with displaying these characters correctly on various screens. For this reason Any special character can be removed from the Title text to avoid this error occuring. In place of the special character can just be replaced by "...(Special Character)..."
Due to the shorter length of Tweets, most of these only need 3-5 tags, however ensure they include important tags for On-Point featured issues.
