Did the White House score with the State of the Union on social media?
The White House made a concerted effort Tuesday night to get people on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere talking about the president’s speech. It seems to have worked.
Tuesday night’s State of the Union included a few milestones, including the first-ever official mention of Instagram.
While discussing NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s year-long mission to space, which begins in March, President Barack Obama told him, “Good luck, captain—and make sure to Instagram it.”
That was the only mention of social media in the speech itself, but the White House staff made a massive effort to make the annual speech (and the days after) a multimedia event.
“The awareness that the State of the Union doesn’t count for what it used to produces innovation,” Jeff Shesol, a speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton, told Time. “The White House is putting less weight on the speech as the centerpiece of their strategy.”
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