Members of Congress join the rush to social media

This story was updated Oct. 31 to more accurately characterize recent Twitter trends among lawmakers.

About 80 percent of congressional lawmakers' websites now link to the members' Facebook and Twitter pages compared with just about 20 percent in 2009, according to a study released this week.

Nearly 75 percent of members' sites that link to social media pages have updated those pages in the past week, according to the study from the Congressional Management Foundation. In the foundation's 2009 study, only 14 percent of members who linked to Facebook or Twitter profiles had updated them in the previous month.

About 50 percent of committee websites now link to Twitter compared with about 20 percent in 2009, the study found. About 40 percent of committee sites today link to Facebook compared with 10 percent in 2009.

Overall, the report found a slight improvement in the quality of House members' websites and a slight decline in the quality of senators' sites. With each passing year, though, the bar for a competent website grows higher, the report said.

The report, which was sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers, Bloomberg Government and CQ Roll Call, judged sites on their readability, navigation, timeliness and how much information they provide about members' positions. The study did not find a substantial difference in quality between Democratic and Republican members' sites.

Among the deficiencies the report noted:

-- 40 percent of congressional sites don't post links to legislation the member has sponsored;

-- 44 percent fail to provide information or links on the member's voting record; and

-- 67 percent don't offer detailed contact information, such as phone numbers or email addresses for constituent services, legislative questions or other specific queries.

Committee sites fared better, according to the report:

-- 90 percent include a hearing archive;

-- 87 percent link to committee reports and publications;

-- 85 percent include a committee schedule; and

-- 78 percent provide live or archived webcasts of hearings.

Only 16 percent of committee sites post legislators' votes on committee bills, however, the report said.

Members of Congress have long used social media to stump for votes, publicize events and broadcast news about their legislative activities.

Recently, some committees have started to use the Internet to engage with constituents on more substantive issues. The House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Financial Services, for instance, have both launched services for citizens to feed members questions to ask witnesses at upcoming hearings.

The number of regular congressional Tweeters dropped by about 30 percent in the wake of former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner's accidental Tweeting of lurid personal photos, according to a study by TweetCongress, a Congressional Tweet aggregation service.

The number of congressional Tweets appears to have bounced back to near normal in the months since Weiner's June resignation, TweetCongress cofounder Chris McCroskey told Nextgov Monday. That's based on an informal analysis, McCroskey said. TweetCongress hasn't replicated its full post-Weinergate analysis, he said.

A recent report on executive branch social media use found that all 15 agencies included in the report were actively linking to social media on their main Web pages.

The report, by Foresee, a customer service consultant, found several sites weren't following best practices identified by the firm, however, such as opening up social media links in a new browser page so the user doesn't automatically leave the agency's website.