The Tweet Elite

New Report Reveals Twitter Use by Mayors From the 250 Largest U.S. Cities

“If Paul Revere had been a modern day citizen, he wouldn’t have ridden down Main Street. He would have tweeted.”

Twitter was launched in July 2006. Today, the microblogging service that features short messages or “tweets” of 140 characters or less has more than 300 million active users.

Twitter has emerged as a highly effective, low-cost communications tool in national and local elections. It has also been embraced by elected officials as a powerful means of connecting with their constituents on a daily basis.

America’s mayors and their communications teams are at the forefront of Twitter adoption in government. Twitter allows mayors the opportunity to:

• Bring constituents behind the scenes and into their daily lives.
• Break news and share emerging developments with both residents and the news media.
• Gauge public opinion by “listening” to views outside of their inner circle of advisors.
• Shift the communications model from “broadcasting to residents” to “interacting with citizens.”

Development Counsellors International (DCI), a firm specialized in marketing places, set out to identify the “Jedi Masters” among the mayors of America’s 250 largest cities. We closely tracked the Twitter activity of each mayor over a 60-day period from January 1 to February 29, 2016. Based on our analysis, “The Tweet Elite” were selected – a list of 25 current mayors who have mastered Twitter.