113th Congress Gold Mouse Awards for Citizen Engagement on Social Media

The Gold Mouse Awards for Social Media go to the nominees who use specific social media practices in ways that:

  • Demonstrate an effort to be transparent and accountable;
  • Focus on constituents and constituent service; and
  • Attempt to keep constituents informed of, and engaged in, the work of the Members and of Congress.

These specific practices serve as examples for Senators and Representatives who wish to achieve similar goals with their online communications. Most of the award-winning practices are platform-agnostic, meaning they could be performed on social media platforms other than the ones these Senators and Representatives use. Regardless of the platforms used, these practices are models for other offices to follow as they consider how best to incorporate social media into their communications and constituent service strategies.


Descriptions of each of these practices and why they are worthy of recognition is included in the 113th Congress Gold Mouse Awards report: pdf "Best Practices in Online Communications on Capitol Hill" (6MB).

Senate Members

Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Compilations of social media
discussions into “stories.”

Twitter and Storify

Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)

Issue-based listicle.

BuzzFeed

Bob Casey (D-PA)

Location-based legislative information.

Foursquare

Mark Kirk (R-IL)

Sharing personal journey that led to legislative action.

Several, including YouTube, Scribd, and Flickr

Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Hashtag for updates during markup
of a key bill.

Twitter

Jerry Moran (R-KS)

Outreach on an issue before Congress.

Reddit

Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Integration across platforms without redundancy.

Several, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google+

House Members

Stephen Fincher (R-TN)

Making Congress approachable.

Several, including Tumblr, Vine, and Instagram

Tim Griffin (R-AR)

Responsiveness and engagement via social media.

Several, including Facebook, Crowdhall, and Pinterest

Mike Honda (D-CA)

Constituent-focused social media
efforts.

Several, including Change.org, Eventbrite, and Scribd

Darrell Issa (R-CA)

Connecting past and present using
social media.

Facebook and Twitter

Barbara Lee (D-CA)

Using social media to “caucus” with
other Members.

Facebook and Twitter

Thomas Massie (R-KY)

Accountability and transparency
through social media.

Facebook and Twitter

Jim McGovern (D-MA)

Sustained, issue-based, cross-platform integration.

Several, including Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit

Patrick Murphy (D-FL)

Photo contest with a legislative
purpose.

Facebook

Erik Paulsen (R-MN)

Weekly videos with updates and
answers to constituent questions.

YouTube

Mark Takano (D-CA)

Using popular culture as tie-ins to congressional activity.

Several, including Tumblr, YouTube, and Vine