Freshman Rep. Amash ‘dominated’ House GOP in Twitter challenge

A freshman House Republican is running away from the pack in this year’s GOP New Media Challenge, and according to his office, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) is doing it all himself. 

There’s no one behind the scenes writing Amash’s Facebook posts or tweets, according to his office — Amash maintains his Facebook and Twitter accounts himself.

This year, Amash took the House Republicans’ third annual push to increase members’ engagement on social media as a challenge to ramp up his Twitter engagement and keep building on his already thriving Facebook outreach.

“Thanks to you, I dominated last week's Twitter round in the 2012 Republican New Media Challenge,” he tweeted and wrote on his Facebook page Monday morning. Amash came in first in the final tally for last week’s focus on new Twitter followers, leading by more than 200 new followers over the rest of the top five contenders.

In the past, Amash spent more time on Facebook than Twitter, according to his office, but during the past week demonstrated a clear effort to post more original content through tweets. On Facebook, he has made a practice of posting an explanation after every vote as a member of Congress, a habit he developed as a state representative in Michigan.

His office noted that Amash created his official Facebook page less than 16 months ago and already has nearly 24,000 followers. That might give Amash an edge heading into week two of the challenge, when members are competing for the highest number of new Facebook “likes.” But only new followers gained during the one-week period count for the challenge.

Amash pointed out in a note on his Facebook page that only clicking the thumbs-up “Like” button on the top of his official Facebook page counts toward his numbers.

Expect to see many other House Republicans to get creative bidding for new support on their pages this week, as well.  And coming next week, members will focus on new YouTube subscribers.

Much as in last year’s contest, House freshmen are leading in the GOP New Media Challenge so far. Freshman Reps. Tim Griffin (Ark.), Renee Ellmers (N.C.) and Amash are all in the top five after week one, which focused on gaining new Twitter followers. Reps. Vern Buchanan (Fla.) and Jack Kingston (Ga.) are also in the top five.

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