Controversial and bombastic radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh officially joined the Twitterverse in person on Thursday, making new use of his longstanding account, @rushlimbaugh.
Contrary to reports that the account is new, he’s long held the Twitter account and a related one, @limbaugh—the difference is that @rushlimbaugh used to just publicize new articles on his website. Now he’s tweeting directly.
“There’s an army out there that wants to be mobilized,” Limbaugh explained on his talk show Thursday. “I figure, use Twitter for it.”
The account already has more than 72,000 followers.
Limbaugh asked listeners to follow the account and retweet his messages, while demonstrating a less-than-perfect understanding of the social networking site.
“The great thing about it is that you can ‘retweet’ [the message], meaning just hit the retweet button and it goes to every other person that you follow,” Limbaugh said. “And it will, in geometric proportions, end up saturating the ‘Twitterverse.’”
Limbaugh likely meant to say “every other person who follows you.” Retweets are displayed to your followers, not to accounts you follow.
Limbaugh appealed to the uninitiated to Twitter.
“If you don’t have a Twitter account, it’s simple and it’s free,” Limbaugh said. “You can just go sign up, just go to Twitter, sign up, get an account, and then say you want to follow @RushLimbaugh.”
Prior to Thursday, the Twitter account had only been provided links to transcripts of the talk show on Limbaugh’s website.
Limbaugh stated that he would not he would not tweet frequently. “I’m not gonna be a daily tweeter,” Limbaugh said.
Yet Limbaugh’s more personal tweets have appeared four times since his Thursday debut as a tweeter.
Confusingly, @limbaugh, an account which bills itself as “The Only Genuine Rush Limbaugh Twitter Feed,” is frequently mentioned by Twitter users and has more followers than @rushlimbaugh. Not clearing anything up, Limbaugh has said that @limbaugh is also an official account. But only @rushlimbaugh has Twitter’s Verified Account badge.
The radio host appears to be using both @limbaugh and @rushlimbaugh. Some but not all of Limbaugh’s recent personal tweets have run simultaneously on both accounts. They are being posted via Twitter’s website, not a Twitter app which might facilitate simultaneous posting, suggesting Limbaugh or a staffer is going to some trouble to post to both accounts.
Even Limbaugh’s brother David has been flummoxed by the existence of the two accounts, but he’s confirmed that Rush will be posting from both.
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