The United States Department of Agriculture is stepping up its Twitter presence.
It’s a viral outbreak that food-safety experts can be pleased with, for a change.
On Thursday, the USDA launched state-specific Twitter accounts where people can receive alerts about recalls of meat, poultry, and processed egg products.
Elisabeth Hagen, the USDA undersecretary for food safety, said in a statement that the department was using Twitter primarily for its immediacy of reach.
So far the USDA has launched Twitter accounts for Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. These will join the official USDA Twitter account, which has been tweeting out recall and health information since Feb. 2009. It has more than 262,000 followers.
The news of accounts pleased food safety expert Douglas Powell, a professor at Kansas State University.
“I applaud USDA for exploring new technologies to get their message out. But it can’t just be a repeat of USDA press releases: the message has to fit the medium—with Twitter in 140 characters,” Powell told the Daily Dot. “And rather than just hoping on the latest social media bandwagon, I encourage USDA to rigorously evaluate whether tweets met consumer needs and increasing awareness of food safety issues. Recall fatigue, like crying wolf, is a potential concern.”
A fair point, but in 2011, about 70 food recall cases were filed with the USDA. Compared to some overtweeters we know, the USDA poses no immediate threats to our feeds.
Photo by USDAgov