The White House Is Now on Snapchat—And Every Other Platform

[Thakur]

If you weren’t already getting your White House fix from the @WhiteHouse Twitter account, the @POTUS Twitter account, the White House Instagram account, President Obama’s Facebook account, or the White House Tumblr account, well, then you might be a little crazy.

But you’re also in luck, because today, the Obama administration launched an official White House Snapchat account. Its first official Snapchat Story will be up tomorrow, with a behind-the-scenes look at the preparations for President Obama’s final State of the Union address.

“In light of the number of Americans who use the service to consume news and share with their friends, the White House is joining Snapchat to engage this broad cross-section of the population in new and creative ways,” wrote Joshua Miller, the White House director of product management in a blog post.

The White House is making an aggressive tech push ahead of President Obama’s last State of the Union address on Tuesday, happening at 9 p.m. ET. Over the weekend, it partnered with Genius to annotate past addresses and announced that the entire program will be streaming on Amazon Video, as well as the White House website and YouTube. 

“So, for those who’ve cut the cord from cable and network TV: Whether you use a smart TV, web browser, mobile device, or tablet there’s a way for you to watch the President’s speech as it happens and on-demand,” wrote White House chief digital officer Jason Goldman in a statement.

The goal of all this, Goldman told WIRED, is to accommodate Americans’ “broad media diet” and “meet people where they are.” Of course, the unspoken benefit of the White House being on every platform at once is the impression of being utterly transparent, despite the fact that the Obama administration has often been criticized for shutting out the press.

Still, joining Snapchat is a smart move. According to the White House blog, 60 percent of Americans between 13 and 34 are now on Snapchat. The President’s State of the Union address aims to set the stage not just for this year, but for the next administration and beyond. Since young people are the ones who will inherit that new leadership—and its legacy—they’re also the ones President Obama needs to reach most.