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One Week Later: White House Office Hours

August 1, 2011 at 1:50 PM ET by Erin Lindsay
Summary: 
Last week, White House staff began holding regular “Office Hours” on Twitter. One week in, it's clear that White House Office Hours have been a success.

Last week, White House staff began holding regular “Office Hours” on Twitter.  Once or twice a day, officials from the National Economic Council came by to answer questions, submitted using the hashtag #WHChat, regarding the ongoing debt and deficit debate.

One week in, it's clear that White House Office Hours have been a success.  Since Office Hours were announced on Tuesday, July 26th we have answered nearly 100 questions, and @WhiteHouse has gained nearly 22,000 followers, an average of 3,100 per day.  This is an increase of over 37% over our previous daily increase in followers of 2,257* followers.

Additionally, @WhiteHouse is now averaging over 5,000 Twitter mentions a day, up from 900*, an increase of over 450%.

*The pre-Office Hours daily averages were derived from the time frame 5/17/2011-7/14/2011

According to the website Hashtracking.com, thousands of Tweets using the hashtag #WHChat generated over 33 million impressions reaching an audience of nearly 10 million followers as of Friday, July 29th.

Don’t miss the next White House Office Hours.  This week’s schedule so far is below, and don’t forget to follow @WhiteHouse for the latest updates and other chances to engage with the White House.

  • Monday, August 1
    • 5:00 p.m. EDT: Office Hours with Brian Deese, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council
  • Tuesday, August 2
    • 4:00 p.m. EDT: Office Hours with Jason Furman, Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council
  • Wednesday, August 3
    • 4:00 p.m. EDT: Office Hours with Brian Deese, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council

Please note that we will do our best to stick to this Office Hours schedule, but times are subject to change. 

Things like office hours aren't perfect– we're always looking for ways to improve.  To help out we're establishing a hashtag for you to submit feedback and ideas about how the White House's online program can improve:  #WHWeb.

Also, you can always send us ideas through this form: http://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/tech/feedback. Look forward to hearing what you have to say!

Finally, here's what you missed during last week’s Office Hours:

Erin Lindsay

Deputy Director of Online Engagement for the Office of Digital Strategy