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“AOC,” as the freshmen Democratic phenom from New York is known, has 2.44 million followers on Twitter. Rep. Dingell has nearly 37,000; her husband, John, has more than 251,000.

\"PHOTO:
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
PHOTO: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez at the Capitol in Washington, DC, Jan. 16, 2019.
>

Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman in Congress, has electrified progressives with her social media engagement, unabashed about picking a fight, pushing back at critics and giving followers an inside look at her personal life.

\"PHOTO:
Yuri Gripas/Reuters
PHOTO: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, left, and Rashida Tlaib talk as they accompany other freshmen House Democrats to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Jan. 16, 2019.
>

“The top tip, I think, is really to be yourself and to really write your own tweets so that people know it’s you talking,” Ocasio-Cortez told ABC News after emerging from class.

ABC News was the only news organization to visit the Ocasio-Cortez Twitter boot camp in the bowels of the U.S. Capitol.

Here is a selection of the advice AOC gave to her peers:

  • “Social media is not just for young people.”
  • “If you don’t know what a meme is don’t post a meme.”
  • “If you’re an older woman, talk like an older woman talks.”
  • “Don’t try to be anybody who you’re not.”
  • “Jonathan Dingell is amazing on Twitter, absolutely amazing.”
  • “Social media is not a press release. It’s not a press conference.”
  • “It’s not the kitchen that’s popular, or the cooking that’s popular, it’s that I’m engaging people doing something I’m already doing.”
  • The most effective behavior is “behavior that is not like your normal member of Congress.”
  • “Sometimes the culture here is to fit in and keep your heads low,” she said. But “we don’t want to separate ourselves” from constituents on social media.
  • “Mute people but try not to block them.”
  • “The way we grow our presence is being there.”

    • ABC News' Beatrice Peterson contributed reporting.

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