Twitter junkies
A Justin McConney image via Politico

– News covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

 

The day Trump learned to tweet.

 

Justin McConney, Donald Trump’s first social media adviser, reveals the inside story of how he guided his ex-boss from Luddite to Twitter addict.

 

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The Tweet that become a roar
A Twitter graphic

Now a freelance social media consultant, Mr. McConney tells all to Politico in an exclusive interview how citizen Donald Trump took control of his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account in 2013 and then rode it all the way the White House.

 

“The moment I found out Trump could tweet himself was comparable to the moment in ‘Jurassic Park’ when Dr. Grant realized that velociraptors could open doors,” recalled McConney, who was the Trump Organization’s director of social media from 2011 to 2017″

 

“I was like, ‘Oh no.”

 

 

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He be pro with those thumbs
A Ralph Freso/Gett Iimages file photo

At the time, no one — not even McConney himself — could grasp what was to come. 

 

Now, however, in rare on-the-record interviews with Politio, McConney, who left the Trump Organization last year, has laid out the story of Trump’s journey from an old-school Luddite to a social media maven.

 

At the same time, McConney has a warning for the president and his social team: up your game if you want to stay competitive.

 

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Connecting with his fans live
A Saturday Night Live/NBC image

“He needs to return to engaging directly with his fans again,” advised McConney, now a social media consultant.  McConney added that Trump should look beyond Twitter and pay more attention to other social media platforms.

 

For example, the president’s Instagram account has become particularly bland and impersonal, McConney warned.

 

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Stream this?
A Reuters file photo

He also wondered why Trump had not been using the platform’s popular “Stories” function, which other politicians — including Trump’s potential 2020 Democratic rival Beto O’Rourke — have used to great effect.

 

“He should be live streaming from the Oval Office,” McConney said.

 

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In the deep rough
An Ian MacNicol Getty Images image

Then again, such options were not possibilities anyone envisioned in January 2011, when a couple of Trump Organization executives asked McConney, then a 24-year-old film school graduate and the son of the company’s controller, whether he could pull together a video to be shown at a weekend meeting of Trump’s golf course managers at Mar-a-Lago.

 

Read more at: ‘Oh, no’: The day Trump learned to tweet  

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