Dive Brief:
- Friday, the CIA broke onto Twitter with a snarky first tweet and a huge response.
- Within the first 50 minutes after the inaugural tweet, the account already had 50,000 followers — a number that shot to 590,000 over the weekend.
- Twitter users took little time responding to the agency's attempt at social media humor with their own snarky responses.
We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.
— CIA (@CIA) June 6, 2014
It's good to see the@cia swapping its waterboard for a Tweetdeck.
— Prof. Jeff H Jarvis (@ProfJeffJarvis) June 6, 2014
Everyone hide RT @NSCPress: Welcome to Twitter, @CIA!
— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) June 6, 2014
Dive Insight:
The CIA took a risk and made a joke for its first tweet — a move that clearly paid off. Government agencies on Twitter can be a tricky thing, especially since they aren't necessarily universally liked or deal with things that can't necessarily be shared readily with the public. Obviously, the CIA isn't taking its account too seriously, and it shouldn't.
