I am the voice of Punxsutawney Phil on Twitter. I didn’t plan it this way, but I’m accepting it now.
As I neared the fourth year authoring the Punxsutawney Phil Twitter account (@GroundhogPhil), I cut my losses on attempts to hand the account over to the Groundhog Club and just went for it.
Read previous year’s posts and subsequent coverage here:
- 2011: A big day for @groundhogphil
- 2010: Huffington Post, Good Morning America, National Geographic, Urlesque and more pick up @groundhogphil
- 2009: Punxsutawney Phil on Twitter: a lost opportunity?
For 2012, it is clear the growing interest in animal based Twitter accounts (see @BronxZooCobra and @NYTChicken) amplified the general public’s interest in chatting with a forecasting rodent via 140 characters or less.
Building on three years of prognostication-related tweets, this year’s momentum was strong and resulted in even more big name coverage of Phil’s tweets. Like doing an interview with Mashable in character, for starters.
Again this year, The Huffington Post, The National Post, local media and weather sites again retweeted and/or referred to @GroundhogPhil’s tweets.
And the data was just tremendous. The RT’s were flying!!
In the spirit of good faith, I again offer up the account to the top-hatted groundhog bunch. However, given they’ve ignored this offer and opportunity for four years now, I’ve decided I’m happy to keep it until Phil predicts Twitter is a relevant audience for their event.
Long live @groundhogphil!
GREG SWAN 