Two Julias Tweet-Up at the White House

Just six months ago I was not a huge social media user, and never dreamed that Twitter would turn out to be my ticket to the White House.   My coworker Julia Bunting and I were invited to watch the State of the Union address at the White House in a room full of advocacy tweeters, and then participated in a live discussion with senior Administration officials afterwards.  The live “Tweet-Up” was an amazing experience and I wanted to give you a glimpse of the action.

We had to arrive at White House at 7:45 to allow for enough time to go through security checkpoints.  It was an exciting feeling, to be inside a place that is so instrumental in history and current events.  We received a mini-tour on the way to the South Court Auditorium, where the Tweet-Up was held.  We got to see (from afar) the Vice President’s office, the Situation Room, and the garage that usually holds the motorcade.  There was some construction going on inside, which made the whole place feel a bit more normal - even the President has to deal with the hassle of renovations apparently!

We were ushered into the Tweet-Up room, where all the social media reporting was taking place.  Check out the pictures of us tweeting and the room set-up. During President Obama’s address, the “enhanced version” of the speech was playing on a large screen, which had statistics and funny graphics to supplement his speech.  My favorite visual aid was the Pac-Man styled “maze of job training programs,” that President Obama pledged to get rid of.   If you didn’t get a chance to see the enhanced version you can watch it here.

The energy in the room was very high during the address and tweeters were furiously typing away their comments and questions.  Immediately after President Obama finished speaking, the lights came on and our room was live on the webcast! If you didn’t get a chance to tune in last night you can watch that webcast here – and look for Julia and me!  You can also look back at our tweets from the evening using #SOTU and #WHchat, and let us know what you thought about the speech and Tweet-Up event.

Even though the State of the Union is over, the White House still is engaging with the public on the president’s priorities for this year. The White House will be taking questions via Twitter, Facebook and Goggle+ all week and has a number of live Q&As set up with their staff – check out the full schedule here.  Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting will be answering your questions on Foreign Policy this Friday at 11 am, so make sure you send in some good ones (@CGS_DC @Whitehouse @WHLive #WHchat).  Thank you Twitter for scoring me an invite to an amazing night at the White House! 

Look for some more analysis of the State of the Union and the Tweet-Up on Julia B.'s blog.