Kathleen Lavey

Lansing State Journal

Gerrit Lansing has never visited Michigan's capital city, but the Washington D.C. digital consultant knows a surprising amount about what's going on here.

He cheers for the Lugnuts, offered a shout-out for a recent brewpub performance by local singer Taylor Taylor and even pledged along with the Lansing Junior Derby Vixens that he would "play it safe" while playing sports.

How is he so involved without ever having been involved?

His Twitter handle is @lansing, and lots of tweets aimed at people in and around Michigan's capital city wind up in his feed. He can't resist replying or retweeting.

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"Oh, that's funny, I'll have to thank him," said Valerie Marchand, digital media manager for the City of Lansing, reached Friday afternoon by the ancient communication technology known as the telephone.

Lansing, 33, joined Twitter in 2008, when lots of Republicans like him were signing up around election time.

"I had a couple of cool early experiences on it," he said. Back then he was @lansingg, his last name and first initial.

He started getting misdirected messages when he dropped the second G a couple of years ago.

"I remember feeling guilty about taking a state capital's name," Lansing said. "Therefore, I've always sort of felt this responsibility to help people tweeting in Lansing spread their message."

Lansing, 33, has worked as a digital leader for the Republican National Committee. He was briefly named to a White House digital post but left. He also founded Revv, a firm that processes payments.

He grew up in the Chicago area, making summer visits to Michigan. He also used to play in a youth tennis tournament in Kalamazoo.

He uses Twitter to keep up with breaking news; he also tweets about Chicago sports teams and national politics.

The impression of Lansing he has gleaned from Twitter isn't too far off base.

"It seems like a nice, medium-sized town with a lot of family people who are going to soccer games and supporting their high school sports, and it's full of a lot of small businesses just trying to make their way," he said.

Lansing's Twitter handle, for the record, is @lansingmichigan. Marchand wasn't here when that happened, but she said it likely was chosen to differentiate it from the other Lansings, including cities in New York, Illinois and Kansas.

Lansing said he doesn't mind when Michigan folks make mistakes and tweet to him.

"Not everyone is an expert. They're just trying to say something, and I'm trying to help," he said.

Contact Kathleen Lavey at (517) 377-1251 or klavey@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @kathleenlavey.