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The job listing suggests that politics is a major area of focus
for Instagram, which still has less than 30 employees. Instagram
still has plenty of runway ahead of the 2014 midterm election, and
it's taking a page from its social-media predecessors by hiring a
Washington-based specialist to evangelize the network on the
Beltway and beyond.
For example, Twitter hired Adam
Sharp -- a former C-SPAN producer and deputy chief of staff to
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu -- to start its Washington office
in 2010 and begin outreach to government and political groups. (The
political team at Twitter subsequently grew in the lead-up to the
2012 election and included Peter Greenberger to lead ad sales.)
And Facebook divided duties between two political managers in
the 2012 election cycle, Katie Harbath and Adam Conner, who worked with Republicans and Democrats
respectively.
While many high-profile U.S. politicians have Instagram
accounts, user engagement there seems relatively low. And because
verified accounts don't exist on Instagram, it can be hard to
figure out which handle -- if any -- is official.
For example, New Jersey Governor and expected 2016 presidential
contender Chris Christie has just 1,088 followers on Instagram.
A
photo of him circa 1980 in his high school baseball uniform
that would seem ready-made to become viral gold has just 112 likes.
Meanwhile on Twitter, the governor has upwards of 386,000
followers.
And Newark Mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker --
another New Jersey politician with a national profile -- has only
27,000
Instagram followers. On Twitter, where he's known for
responding to constituent mentions, he has 1.4 million
followers.