Are conservatives using Twitter more effectively than liberals?
Beware the mainstream news story anecdotes. CNN’s Political Ticker has a piece riddled with quotes that loosely create a foggy argument that conservatives, somehow, are outperforming liberal political organizations on Twitter.
Are there any statistics to back it up? Any fundraising numbers or studies? No — as usual the journalist returns to the perennially-lame #TCOT hashtag, which simply stands for Top Conservatives On Twitter. Typically, it’s attached to any tweet that has any modicum of “conservatism” soaked into it, making the hashtag ubiquitous and, in essence, useless. It’s no different than if a conservative blogger were to place a “conservative” tag in every blog post he writes, and the hashtag simply acts as a lightbulb for a den of mosquitoes to congregate around, buzzing 140-character political catchphrases that are followed by an incestuous flow of retweets.
Meanwhile, liberals were able to use tools like Twitter and Facebook to drive over a million views to a Barney Frank video, and in a matter of days were able to use multiple Web 2.0 tools to raise over $300,000 for Democratic candidates who support the public healthcare option. Oh, but god forbid they didn’t take the time to attach a #TLOT (Top Liberals On Twitter) hashtag to it, so I guess they lose in the end.
Also I know a lot of people who attach the #TCOT tag to things mocking conservatives or insulting them, further diluting the tag.
The #tlot tag has also been appropriated by U.S. Libertarians, obfuscating that tag also. It makes it near impossible to distinguish between those seeking either strand of political thought or opinion.