Topping the Twitter Charts

Do individual federal employees really have an impact on Twitter?

Steve Lunceford over at GovTwit, a database of government Twitter users at the federal, state and local levels, wrote on Monday about the popularity of individual Twitter accounts across government. Sure, the agency-level handles are popular and have plenty of followers, and it's easy to get lost as an individual employee. But in filtering out the names of individual feds, Lunceford found that a couple of major players rose to the top.

@BarackObama and @JohnMcCain fill the first two slots in the Top 10, and @clairemc and @jimdemint represent the Senate's social media contingent. Interesting, the only two agencies on the list are the State Department, represented by Jared Cohen (@JaredCohen) of the Office of Policy Planning and Alec Ross (@AlecJRoss), senior advisor for innovation; and NASA, with three astronauts (@astro_mike, @astro_jose and @astro_127). Both agencies have a strong presence in the social media sphere, so perhaps these feds have a leg up on other feds when it comes to attracting an audience?