Posted by Jenn Lowther

This is going to be the first in a series of posts looking at various industries and how they are utilizing twitter. If you are unfamiliar with twitter, I recapped what it is in this previous post.

At Invoke, there are many of us who use twitter on a daily basis, and as its popularity has risen, I’ve found that we are utilizing twitter more and more for inhouse products (check out @invoke, @memelabs, @claytorial and @eatsolution) and for clients. This got us wondering what industries/verticals are using twitter? So in this series of posts, we are going to have a quick look at various industries/vertical and see who’s using twitter.

I thought that given that the US Federal Election is coming up in 4 days, that this would be the perfect topic for our Weekly Twitter Usage Review.

Candidates for President and VP (Followers, Updates, Twinfluence, Twitter Rank)

• Barack Obama 110,855Â 252Â 100%Â Â #78
• Joe Biden 2,693Â Â Â 67Â 99.7%Â #606
• John McCain 4,462Â Â 25Â 99.9%Â #169
• Sarah Palin (unofficial) Â Â 1,081 254Â 99.1%Â #1,993

Fake Candidates for President and VP Accounts

• Fake Barack Obama 497 Â Â 117Â 97.2%Â #6,027
• Fake Joe Biden 1,113Â Â Â Â 109Â 99.1%Â #1,992
• Fake John McCain 2,175Â 1,775Â 99.6%Â # Â 810
• Fake Sarah Palin 7,579Â Â Â Â 556 Â 100%Â #Â Â Â Â Â 71

Democratic Primary Season Candidates

• Hillary Clinton
• John Edwards
• Chris Dodd

Republican Primary Season Candidates

• Fred Thompson

Ancillary Election Accounts

• Joe the Plumber (fake)

I’ve been quite impressed overall with how twitter has been used in the US election. I have to give top credit to the way that Barack Obama has embraced twitter and has amassed an amazing following and keeps his followers regularly updated with the current action happening on the campaign trail. My favorites to follow though, come from the Fake Candidates category. Both Fake Sarah Palin and Fake John McCain make me laugh daily, the personalities behind these accounts are pure comic genius.

Whatever you political leanings, if you are an American, make sure you flex your democratic muscles on November 4th and rock the vote!

As a quick aside, Canada recently wrapped up our federal election and, along with the US politicians, Canadian politicians got into the twitter action. The following are the Canadian Politicians that had twitter accounts:

• NDP Leader Jack Layton (English & French)
• Prime Minister Stephen Harper (English & French)
• Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe (French)
• Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (English)
• National Director of the Liberal Party of Canada, Greg Fergus (English)

My twitter friend MasterMaq did a great write up of the Canadian Polititians on twitter (the above list is from his post).

Election 2008: Twitter Usage Review

Posted by Jenn Lowther

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As a follow up to the Blogathon Invoke participated in we received a very thoughtful thank-you from Plan Canada for the $2500 we raised which also acts as a promotional piece in their journal for their fund raising tools. We have no problem being made an example of:

Ideas on Tap is a business networking event for tech professionals in Vancouver as well as internet advertisers, social media marketers, bloggers, video game developers and other fans of the tech community. Ideas on Tap was a Vancouver tech event that was started in 1999. At some point, the events stopped, but the people over at 6S Marketing had the brilliant idea of bringing it back to life.

Last night started with me heading over to the Shebeen for the W2 Fundraising Campaign Kickoff. I love the Irish Heather, but had not yet had the opportunity to go to the Shebeen. The Shebeen is located behind the Irish Heather – you actually have to walk through it to get to the Shebeen. The venue was beautiful and I thought the perfect location given the eclectic mix of the Vancouver Art, Technology, and Non-Profit communities. Given that it was a fundraising kickoff, you were asked for a small donation at the door – every little bit helps with these fundraising initiatives!

At Invoke, we love our traditions. Each Thanksgiving, we trek down to our local Steamrollers and get enough of their Thanksgiving Turkey burrito’s to feed the office (we also do it every Christmas). They are amazingly tasty and we look forward to getting these treats each year.