Twitter has been struggling of late, with the stock down, no permanent CEO, and the inability of the management to make the product more useful. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings may have an answer to one of those issues, i.e. finding more uses for the product.
Mayor to answer questions on budget
Rawlings will make use of virtual technology including Twitter and Periscope to host a discussion about the city’s budget at 6:00 p.m. Thursday. With the use of Twitter and Periscope, the mayor hopes to reach as many citizens as possible. Using the social media platforms, the mayor will be answering people’s question, as well as explaining the upcoming budget.
“I’m excited to engage Dallas residents on social media about their top priorities in the ongoing budget process,” Mayor Rawlings said.
Interested users can tweet their questions at @Mike_Rawlings. Twitter users could also use a Periscope link @Mike_Rawlings and @1500Marilla. Users can shoot their questions starting at 5:30 p.m. while the mayor will start answering them from 6 p.m. It should be noted that the mayor will not be directly answering questions via Twitter, but in a live video broadcast.
Twitter becoming popular among mayors
It appears that Twitter is becoming popular among city mayors. On Monday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio joined Twitter, and discussed his administration’s policies and answered few personal questions as well.
de Blasio joined the network around 1 pm with a tweet “Hey New Yorkers, Bill here.” Mayor answered some light and fun questions like about his height, his favorite boardwalk food, and his favorite writers and poets. Alhough de Blasio answered many questions, he ignored quite a few including some from the reporters and others about the topless painted ladies at Times Square and whether or not he still eats pizza with a fork and knife.
de Blasio stayed on the platform for about half an hour, but after that he left with a message, “Alright folks, have to run.”
The move was aimed at putting the mayor in more regular contact with his constituents in public forums. Previously, de Blasio has been scorned for the small number of traditional town-hall-style meetings he has held, something which was common in past administrations. de Blasio has also recently been taking call-in questions from a radio audience on WNYC.
