Blog P.I.

Is Sen. Richard Shelby following you on Twitter? He is — or should I say, his staff — started following me about a week ago. They’re following 700+ other accounts, and 500+ are following back.

But here’s why I even bring it up:

Any plans to tweet, Senator?

I don’t know about you, but I try keeping my follow list limited to those who are saying something interesting, and I prefer not to follow accounts that are saying nothing at all.

Shelby’s name recognition is good enough so far to induce most Twitter users to follow him back, but if he doesn’t pick it up soon, I bet you’ll see people start drifting away.

Just another reminder for the e-campaign folks — if you can’t make proper use of a platform, don’t hop the bandwagon until you can do something with it.

Update 1: As of early evening on April 15, @RichardShelby has come alive, at least a bit.

Update 2: For what it’s worth, as of Friday morning before her much-anticipated Twitter show, Oprah Winfrey has 62,484 followers and growing briskly but has not updated yet either. I find this annoying too, but it sounds like she’ll be getting right on it — and you know, she’s a little more famous than Sen. Shelby.

Update 3: A week later, the three tweets from April 15-16 are still the only ones posted. Fail, cont.