NEW YORK, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, tapped into her rich experience as a social media sensation to teach her fellow House Democrats how to use the platform to better engage with constituents.
She hosted the session along with Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut on Thursday to "discuss how they use Twitter as an effective and authentic messaging tool to connect with their constituents" and "the importance of digital storytelling," CNN reported.
Ocasio-Cortez, 29, used social media extensively in her political campaign and in her first weeks as a member of Congress. Some even said her surprise political victory that won her the title as the youngest congresswoman was in part due to her aggressive use of social media.
In less than a year since she launched her campaign to represent the 14th Congressional district of New York, Ocasio-Cortez has amassed about 2.5 million followers on Twitter and 1.9 million followers on Instagram.
"The older generation of members and senators is pretty clueless on the social media platforms. It's pretty clear that a lot of members have 25-year-olds in their offices [running their social media]," Himes told USA Today.
Social media is playing an increasingly important role in politics as more and more politicians take to such platforms to state policy positions and launch campaigns.
From Dec. 11, 2018 to Jan. 11, 2019, the freshman congresswoman had 11.8 million Twitter interactions, namely retweets and likes, second only to U.S. President Donald Trump, who had 39.8 million interactions, according to a recent report by news website Axios.
Her numbers even beat renowned U.S. politicians and news media. Former president Barack Obama was fourth on the list with 4.4 million interactions, while CNN was fifth with 3.1 million and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was sixth with 2.6 million.
