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Ragan Insider   |  {/%BYLINE%} {%AUTHOR%}Michael Sebastian{/%AUTHOR%} {%TITLE%}U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent ‘significant’ amount to steer Obama town hall {/%TITLE%} {%ALTERNATIVEURL%}{/%ALTERNATIVEURL%} {%IMAGE%}/Uploads/Public/obama-twitter-townhall.jpg{/%IMAGE%} {%ROLE%}87d65c27-6e78-4e5c-b423-78d47d4f2768{/%ROLE%} {%KICKER%}Media Relations{/%KICKER%} {%CATEGORIESID%}9b04de1d-f7bc-4de7-842e-c9c833ff24e9, 055d8a23-ee23-4f9c-a2f4-df030843f312{/%CATEGORIESID%} {%CAPTION%}For Wednesday’s Twitter town hall, the trade organization paid to have its profile featured on Twitter, emailed supporters urging them to ask questions.{/%CAPTION%} {%BODYCOPY%}President Obama earned mixed reviews for his Twitter town hall on Wednesday, as some experts, reporters dismiss it as a gimmick, a failed attempt at brevity,, an “impeccably crafted” if shallow event. Despite the criticism, it was a historic event. Obama became the first president to live-tweet,, the town hall drew 169,395 #AskObama tweets. The most popular topics were jobs, the budget, taxes,, education. Many of those tweets came from Republican lawmakers, supporters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who have been accused of “crashing” the event. Members of the GOP tweeted questions that challenged the president’s policies; Obama fielded one question from House Speaker John Boehner. An analysis of the town hall from the organization OhMyGov found that 77 percent of the tweets from members of Congress came from GOP lawmakers. However, it was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which drew criticism from the president during the 2010 midterm elections, that put forth “the most ambitious effort to alter the event’s message,” reports Yahoo’s The Ticket blog. The Ticket writes: Coordinating with Twitter's new advertising capabilities, the Chamber paid to have its profile featured on the site during the town hall, spending what it called a “significant” amount on the event. The group also urged supporters to post questions about jobs, the economy to the president through their Twitter accounts. The Chamber blasted out an email asking supporters to post the question: “Will you help businesses, free enterprise create #jobs by getting government out of the way?” The Chamber not only tapped email, Twitter to spread its message, but also reached out to members via Facebook, blog, website postings,, the telephone, according to Roll Call. On its blog, ChamberPost, the organization said on Wednesday (before the town hall began): Social media is changing the world around us,, today you’ll see that the world’s largest business federation hasn’t missed a byte. We’ll be calling on millions of grassroots activists, a coalition of business organizations, legislators,, Twitter users to force the White House to address the unprecedented increase in regulations that continues to inhibit job creation in an already fragile economy. Did the effort pay off? The Chamber estimated that its outreach resulted in nearly half a million tweets, many of which were from first-time users, reports Roll Call. Nearly 19,000 tweets asked questions about jobs,, nearly 15,000 dealt with taxes. Roll Call noted that the U.S. Chamber wasn’t the only organization pumping out #AskObama tweets. Advocacy groups—including the National Association of Community Health Centers, the nonpartisan economic policy group Public Notice,, the AFL-CIO—also tweeted or encouraged their members to tweet questions to the president. The most popular question for the president, based on retweets, didn’t deal with jobs or community health centers, but instead marijuana: “Would you consider legalizing marijuana to increase tax revenue, save tax dollars by freeing up crowded prisons, court rooms?” This infographic from TwitSprout breaks down the most popular questions, the people who asked them. (Click here for a larger version.) (Image via){/%BODYCOPY%} {%ID%}8814{/%ID%} {%DATAID%}b60de05a-ce34-4b7e-91f6-175c79aa6891{/%DATAID%} {%CanonicalUrl%}{/%CanonicalUrl%} {%PUBLISHDATE%}7/7/2011 1:55:59 PM{/%PUBLISHDATE%} {%LINK%}https://dev.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/8814.aspx{/%LINK%} {%BYLINE%}Kelsey Schnell

U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent ‘significant’ amount to steer Obama town hall

For Wednesday’s Twitter town hall, the trade organization paid to have its profile featured on Twitter and emailed supporters urging them to ask questions.