Just as the geographic center of power appears to be landing toward Trump Tower and away from the White House, the soon-to-be-President Trump says he'll stick with the Twitter account he built instead of the one created by President Obama.
Trump, who joined Twitter in March 2009 -- when CNN talk host Larry King's Twitter account was the biggest at nearly a million followers. He's tweeted more than 34,000 times since then, raising his @RealDonaldTrump to 20 million.
By comparison, @POTUS has tweeted just 342 times (1,000 times less than Trump) since Obama established the official presidential account in June 2013.
Trump told London's Sunday Times newspaper that he'll stick to the social accounts he's been using for his 3 a.m. tweets. Between Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, his followers total 46 million, he said.
"I'd rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it's working -- and the tweeting, I thought I'd do less of it, but I'm covered so dishonestly by the press -- so dishonestly -- that I can put out Twitter -- and it's not 140, it's now 280 -- I can go bing bing bing ... and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out -- this morning on television, Fox -- 'Donald Trump, we have breaking news,'" Trump said.
Trump's strategy to not use the official presidential Twitter account is shrewd, since he would have to hand out over to a successor when he leaves office. Also, there could be an sharp drop in the @POTUS following, considering that most of the @POTUS followers are likely Obama supporters.
Will @POTUS lose or gain followers when @realDonaldTrump takes over on January 20?#UnFollowPOTUS45 With All Due Disrespect
-- UnFollow POTUS 45 (@UnfollowPOTUS) January 16, 2017
While Trump has trumpeted his social media superiority over his predecessor by pointing out that his Twitter is bigger than Obama's @POTUS, in fact the outgoing commander in chief has a personal Twitter account boasting more than 80 million followers. He created @BarackObama in March 2007, two years before Trump jumped on the medium.
