Hugo Chavez should optimize Twitter

Venezuela’s charismatic president, Hugo Chavez, is the country’s most popular twitterer, with more than half a million followers. A Reuters story
details how his Twitter account has become the destination for online
supplicants. I just checked out his account, and dozens of requests are
pouring in every minute. This volume has led Chavez to hire a staff of 20 just to monitor and respond to the flow.

Chavez is making the classic mistake of responding to a network
phenomenon, which grows exponentially, by adding staff. He’ll never be
able to scale up his responses. His other problem, which makes him both
popular and spectacularly ineffective, is his tendency to respond to
individuals one by one, instead of tackling the big problems they all
share.

What Chavez might consider doing is to mine and analyze the tweet flow,
to understand the most common complaints, and to address the causes of the
problems, not the symptoms. Chavez could use some analytics.

But that’s hardly his style.
At 2 a.m. this morning, a Venezuelan called Cenith de Gonzalez sends this tweet to Chavez:

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@chavezcandanga
60 a…ntilde;os tngo. mas de 6 dias esperando su respuesta mas de 6 a…ntilde;os sin
ver a mi madre ayudame por favor 02617310278 (I’m 60 years old, more
than six days awaiting your answer, more than six years without seeing
my mother. Help me please.) In another tweet, Gonzalez mentions that in
an attempt to attract the president’s attention, he affixed a picture
of Che Guevara to his Twitter home page.

At 2:34 a.m. Chavez, or someone tweeting on his account, finally responds: @SRCENITH.
Pues la ver…aacute;s a tu mam…aacute; SRCENITH!! Vamos levanta ese animo q la vida es
bella! Tarek: urgente!! (Well you’ll see your mama SRCENITH!! Come on,
lift your spirits, life is beautiul!… Then he tells his assistent, Tareck, one five people the president follows on Twitter, to follow up.)

But at 8:45 this morning, Cenith is still waiting for a response. He tweets:

@TareckPSUV TARECK Q PASO EL PRESIDENTE TE DIO LA ORDEN Y NO ME HAS LLAMADO POR FAVOR 02617310278 (Tareck, what happened? The president gave you the order and you haven’t called me. Please…)

Meanwhile, the requsts flow in, and Chavez responds on his Blackberry the best he can, tweeting once or twice a minute. He steers a geology student who needs help with his thesis toward the national oil company (PDVSA). He directs the president of PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, to help another. In a country of 28 million people, this retail approach is fruitless.

But having a president reading tweets gives Venezuelans a good chance to tweak him. This morning, if he was reading his Blackberry, he would have seen: @chavezcandanga QUE RESACA!…LEVANTATE!!!…A TRABAJAR! (What a hangover! Get up!!! To work!)

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