Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota and aspiring GOP presidential candidate, says he’s embracing social media as a way to “break the stronghold” of the mainstream media.
“The old way was the semi-monopolistic providers of content would pipe the news into you and cover the angle or spin that they thought was appropriate,” he tells Mashable. “Then you’d be out of the loop until the next day or until 10 p.m. Now the consumer’s more in charge.”
Pawlenty recently surpassed 1 million views on his YouTube Channel. His Facebook Page has 103,000 fans and he has more than 44,000 followers on Twitter.
Those stats pale next to President Barack Obama’s, who Pawlenty acknowledges is “very influential in this space.” Yet Pawlenty says that the 2012 U.S. presidential election will be different than it was in 2008. “If you want to fight the next war, look at what he did.” Pawlenty says he isn’t sure what the next big digital component will be, though location-based services may be a factor. (Pawlenty says he’s still assessing Google+.)
His next push in social media is TweetMyJobs’ American Jobs Conference on Twitter July 19. Pawlenty will deliver the “tweetnote” for the event, which seeks to help unemployed people find jobs using social media tools. “This forum is dedicated to being very innovative and forward-thinking,” Pawlenty says.
More About: 2012 election, gop, politics, Tim Pawlenty
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