Their profile and first tweet say “Updates from the Twitter Government & Politics team, tracking creative & effective uses of Twitter for civic engagement…Welcome to @gov! Stay tuned for best practices, case studies and other updates from the Twitter Government & Politics team…”

With a big presidential election year ahead of us, I wonder if they intend to keep track of the use of Twitter in political campaigns. We should keep an eye on the official Twitter blog for more information.

Governing broke this news in “Twitter Launches @Gov Account for Tracking Civic Engagement” by Dylan Scott.

Our Highlighted Site of the Week is Gov 2.0 Radio, hosted on blogtalkradio. Produced by Adriel Hampton, Government 2.0 covers topics such as government transparency, open data, citizen engagement, social media, and much more. You can enjoy streaming the dozens of radio programs at any time.

Stay on top of the latest Gov 2.0  announcements by following them at Gov 2.0 Radio Twitter and at their Citizen 2.0 Facebook.

According to his blog, Adriel Hampton: Wired to Share, Adriel has worked as an investigator for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office and is a journalist and gov 2.0 strategist.

Social media has been seen as a catalyst for change  in world events in the past few years. It remains to be seen what role it will play in our presidential elections in the upcoming year. As groups and individuals use social media strategies for promoting candidates and causes, they will want to be able to measure their efforts. This week’s Highlighted Site of the Week is VoterTide, which sets out to do just that.

PACs and lobbyists take note:

“Whether you’re a candidate, consultant, fundraiser, lobbyist, or media professional, you have no choice but to follow the conversation online. VoterTide Pro makes it easy with comprehensive, easy-to-read metrics that put the data at your fingertips.”

If you are using any of the forms of social media in support of a candidate, VoterTide can measure the comments, retweets, and the buzz that result and put the data  into their political context. You can also keep track of your opponents!

VoterTide claims to revolutionize the way political polling is conducted. All of the information you need to track the conversations surrounding your candidates and issues would be available on a social media monitoring dashboard.

According to the site: “You go to the boards for your candidate – tweeting, sharing links on Facebook, posting YouTube videos, and doing all you can to persuade your friends to vote for the one who you know is best. But do your efforts matter? At VoterTide, we show you that they do. You may not have the resources to contribute big bucks, but you do have the power to Rise the Tide in your candidate’s favor.”

I have not been able to determine whether there is a free version of VoterTide, but there is VoterTide Pro for a fee, and the site offers a free demo. Take a look. I think we’ll be seeing many more services targeting this need in the near future.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Here is a brief survey of articles:

USA Today offers “Social media companies ‘friend’ politics” by Fredreka Schouten.

In the Washington Post’s Capitol Business we find “LightSquared adds lobbyists from four firms to roster” by Catherine Ho.

ReadWriteWeb.com posted “Who Are The Top Tech Lobbying Firms?” by David Strom. Last year, the top three were: Microsoft, HP, and Google. Strom claims Google employs 25 different lobbying firms.

AllFacebook.com posted “Facebook Spends Record Amounts On Lobbying, But Not As Much As Google Does”

Bloomberg’s Businessweek published “Google’s 3Q lobbying bill rises to $2.4 million” by the Associated Press.

Yesterday, techPresident published “New Obama for America Page is a Jungle Gym for Donation Data” by Nick Judd.

Everyone has been talking about the new role social media is playing in the 2012 presidential campaigns. But I think Judd brings up an often missed point: The importance of social media’s role is not so much to be found in the social networks themselves, but in the vast amount of information the campaigns have about each of us, and how they are using that information on social media. Judd writes about campaigns “micro-targeting” potential political campaign donors with personalized messages geared toward attracting the most money.

The article showcases the Obama 2012 campaign website, which boasts its one million donors. The site allows you to drill down into a great deal of information about the contributions. The aim of the site is that the visitor will come to the conclusion that the donors are broad-based and grassroots.

Have any of our readers seen any similar examples on other campaign websites? Please share it on Lobby Comply!

Lobbyists are prominently mentioned in this Wall Street Journal piece, “Washington Area Is Tops in Income” by Elizabeth Williamson.

NCSL published “Social media tools can pose ethical problems for lawmakers,” by Judy Nadler. The article explores the ethical considerations lawmakers face when using social media tools. The article raises the question about the types of relationships that are established on a network like Facebook by citing the example of someone running for office: “A ‘push’ was organized to add key lobbyists, government contractors and others as ‘friends.'” Nadler discusses government-using-social-media issues such as transparency, playing favorites, and the obligation officeholders have to choose the words they use online carefully.

The Fierce Government IT article, “‘Snapshots cannot accurately archive gov 2.0 content, says Navy official” by Molly Bernhart Walker, discusses the challenges posed by the need to keep a record of government presence in social media platforms.

From Federal Computer Week: A recent survey takes a look at mobile device trends in “Government workers using mobile to access social media, survey shows” by Alice Lipowicz.

Dave Levinthal just published the article “K Street suffers from Twitter jitters” in Politico, where he talks about how lobbyists face a world increasingly using social media.

Members of Congress and their staff are communicating more and more via Facebook and Twitter. So too, many of the companies and organizations that hire lobbyists are employing social media platforms in their communications strategies.

Levinthal’s article explains how lobbyists prefer face-to-face meetings over video conferences or Facebook updates as a way of getting their message across to lawmakers. He also stresses that lobbyists are eager to keep their clients’ information from being broadcast in all directions over social networks.

The article quotes Patton Boggs Chairperson Nick Allard in order to highlight the dilemma: “I’m sure when lawyers or lobbyists used the telegraph for the first time, they faced this kind of issue …  But you cannot be a Luddite and a lobbyist. Luddite lobbyists go out of business.”

What communications will lobbyists embrace in the face of social media? Don’t miss Politico’s analysis.

Photo of the K Street street sign by Ben Shumin on Wikipedia.

TechPresident’s article “How Campaigns’ Use of Facebook Data Might Change the 2012 Election” by Nick Judd explores the role Facebook may play in the 2012 presidential election.

The social media platform not only provides a good civic space for broadcasting political messages, but Judd discusses how services like NGP Van can use Facebook friend lists to find precisely targeted audiences for campaign messages.

I saw this item on Eric Brown’s Political Activity Law blog.

YouTube is now the place to watch the latest political videos with its new YouTube Politics Channel. According to YouTube’s blog, “The new YouTube Politics site will feature the latest campaign ads, parodies, gotchas, and speeches, offering you a 360-view of the election.”

YouTube Politics follows in the footsteps of other Google projects that touch upon politics and elections, such as YouTube News and YouTube Town Hall. Of course since it is YouTube, you will be able to follow each candidate to see how they are doing by seeing their stats – how many video views they have had, how many subscribers, and the quality of the comments they receive.

YouTube’s blog offers this announcement in honor of the event: “YouTube.com/Politics: Tracking the 2012 election campaign through online video” and here is Politico’s coverage of the launch: “Google to Launch YouTube Politics” by Jennifer Martinez.

Neighborland is a New Orleans project of Civic Center that was founded by Candy Chang, Tee Parham, and Dan Parham. It harnesses the power of crowdsourcing in order to improve and reinvent their neighborhoods.

The site says: “We love New Orleans. We want Neighborland to be a fun and effective way to make our city a better place.”

Here is how it works:

• Citizens of New Orleans can go to the Neighborland website and fill in the statement –  “I want ____ in my neighborhood.” The idea is to offer something that would make your neighborhood a better place.
• Then they can start a discussion online and campaign for support and votes.
• Hopefully they get enough support to keep the discussion going and figure out how to make their dream a  reality.

Ideas include requesting more bicycle parking in the French Quarter, more transit options to get to the airport, and the opportunity to recycle glass.

Luke Fretwell from Govfresh interviews Co-founder Dan Parham in the article “Here Comes the Neighborland” from July 26.

You can keep up with the lastest news from Neighborland on Twitter and Facebook.

Cities everywhere, take note!

Today, we get two views of the U.S. Congress and its use of Twitter.

Politico published “Survey: Congress uses Twitter more than millennials” by Tim Mak, which says members of Congress have taken to using Twitter more than American people between the ages of 18 and 29. They say 81% of Congress uses Twitter, while 75% of millennials have adopted its use.

An Associated Press survey, which provided those figures, made the comment that in their estimation, members of Congress could better use the social media platform as an opportunity for genuine interaction with that demographic and less as a social media megaphone for their messages.

GovTech.com has published an interesting read about the relationship between technology and the elections industry.

The article, “Perspective: 5 Tech Trends in the Elections Industry“by Nicole Ciotti, lists trends to expect in the upcoming elections. Mobile phone optimized websites, mobile apps, and social media platforms will be prominent in voter outreach and in educating the public prior to the elections. Those tools will be an advantage in offering news and updates during and after the elections as well.

Photo of the vote sign by Tom Arthur on Wikipedia.

Elliot Volkman has written a piece, “Contractors Use Webinars, Social Media To Extend Their Voices,” on GovWin.com’s blog. He discusses the benefits and limitations government contractors may face when using social media for their communications strategies.

Aside from discussing how to make the most out of using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, Volkman also gives advice on hosting webinars and how they can fit in with the use of social media.

Twitter “Office Hours” is the newest addition to the White House’s recent utilization of social media in order to connect to the public.

Similar to President Obama’s Twitter town hall, participants can ask a question by including the hashtag #WHChat with their tweets. Replies to questions will come from the @whitehouse Twitter account.

The first of 6 planned sessions was Tuesday, July 26 at 5 PM EDT. After each session, the White House will post a “transcript” of the chat on its blog.

As could be expected, most questions asked were relating to the budget and raising the debt ceiling.

Read the full article titled “White House staff holds Twitter ‘Office Hours’” on NextGov.com.