The 4 Kinds of people who watch the State of the Union

These days, State of the Union addresses are just as much an opportunity for the White House to study us, the voters, as it is for Presidents to present a report card to Congress.

White House communications adviser Dan Pfeiffer offers a glimpse into that strategy, saying that the White House reaches out to its viewers differently depending on how they're interacting with the State of the Union: "As we plan out the State of the Union, we think of four audience types  --  the TV Watcher who watches it live, the “Two Screen” Viewer watching on TV with a tablet or smartphone in hand, the Livestreamer who will watch on WhiteHouse.gov with special enhanced content, and the Social Consumer, who won’t watch the speech at all, but will discover our content and policy through their social media feeds." Anyone who tweets about the speech, fills out a White House poll while watching the livestream or otherwise engages the Administration during the event will be generating data that can be used to gauge the nation's response to President Obama's speech and proposed initiatives.