Despite the headlines you may see today, President Obama already has a verified Facebook page. It’s this one: facebook.com/barackobama/. Obama launched another Facebook page for himself today, this time the official POTUS Facebook page.
“Hello, Facebook! I finally got my very own page,” the President wrote on the page.
Confused? So are we, but this is in line with the President’s other moves in social media this year. Obama has his own Twitter profile as @BarackObama and a separate Twitter profile page as @POTUS.
“This Facebook page will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with videos and posts coming exclusively from him,” a White House spokesperson said of the new POTUS Facebook page. “President Obama is committed to making his Administration the most open and participatory in history, and the President’s Facebook page will give Americans a new venue to engage on the issues that matter most to them.”
The POTUS page launched with a video post of the President taking a walk in the White House backyard – something he says he tries “to do at the end of the day before I head in for dinner.” The end of the post admonishes the viewer to speak out on climate change.
“If we’re all in this together, I’m confident we can solve this and do right by future generations,” the President said.
But it’s really hard to tell what this new page accomplishes that the other does not. The same exact post is also on the official Barack Obama Facebook page as a re-post from the POTUS page.
The Barack Obama page originally started in 2007 during the Obama campaign and is currently run by Organizing for Action, a nonprofit 501c4 organization.
According to the White House, that page will continue to act as a place to engage grassroots organizations and supporters. The new page is designed as a direct channel to speak to citizens and will be passed on to future presidents.
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