Ha! Some poor schmuck is going to have to spend a couple of days hitting ‘follow’ on Boris’ behalf now. Won’t mean that they will ever look at the feed though.

Dave,

I disagree. Whilst twitter is more functional as a conversation it can work quite effectively in broadcast mode as well. The @hmgov feed I set up does this, as do a few of the news services etc. that I follow. It allows me to manage my conversations in one place, and also subscribe to the news services that I like.

I think there is also a problem of scale - I don’t think an account that has 18,000 subscribers can actually have a a proper 1:1 conversation - to suggest that @downingstreet is doing this is just wrong - it’s a broadcast channel that has occasional interruptions (and interactions) from/with the audience, it’s not a genuine ‘conversation.’

It really comes down to governance - if it’s not going to be a two way channel you need to be up front with your audience. Perhaps the Mayors first tweet ’setting up social marketing accounts’ provides us with some insight?

Ok, you got him. Now make it useful:How should Boris tap into the firehose of his followers? Is it enough to just follow (and ignore) some/all of his followers? Should he hold policy votes? Do you really want him (or a staffer) reading 1000’s of tweets daily?