Politifact - Ros-Lehtinen Leads In Twitter Influence, Clout

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Ros-Lehtinen Leads In Twitter Influence, Clout

n the Tweet wars, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen comes out a winner, according to one study reported by Politifact.com.

Measured by the sheer number of followers, House Republican Leader John Boehner leads the Republicans in the House with 18,800 Twitter followers, followed by Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., with 16,500.
But it was Ros-Lehtinen of Pinecrest who led House Republicans in ``clout'' and ``influence'' thanks to frequent re-tweeting.

Ros-Lehtinen, whose Twitter name is IRL, currently has 2,868 followers. She follows one Twitter account, fb_tweeter.

Politifact.com quoted a report, Twongress: The Power of Twitter in Congress by Mark Senak, senior vice president and partner at Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm in Washington.
Senak found that 132 representatives, about one-fourth of all legislators, use Twitter actively. Of those, 89 are Republicans and 43 are Democrats.

Ros-Lehtinen recommends all her colleagues get involved in the cyberspace social networks.

``I love to keep my constituents informed of what I do in Congress and these social media sites are a fantastic way to communicate with them,'' she said. ``Twitter, FB [Facebook] and YouTube are on the cutting edge in getting our message out.''

She concluded that she is ``thoroughly hooked.''

So are other Republicans, the report found.

The GOP leads in Tweet production, the website reports: `` `Republicans send out more Tweets and have the attention of many more people than do the Democrats,' '' the report says according to Politifact.com.
``When I first saw the results, I was surprised,'' Politifact quotes Senak.

``That was a counterintuitive finding after the Obama campaign [effectively used the Internet]. But when I thought about it, the party that is not in power always has had to be more aggressive in using communication tools to get their message.''

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