How Michelle Obama Writes Tweets: Former First Lady's Best Posts So Far

Former first lady Michelle Obama was at an event presented by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade on Thursday where she spoke out about social media and how she tries to teach her daughters — Malia and Sasha — to be cautious and not to tweet everything that's on their minds.

"It's a lot of talking and a lot of them not listening. Then something bad happens, and you say, 'I told you so,'" she said at the sold-out event in Vancouver. "That's how we parent teenagers."

While social media has kids more connected, making them more knowledgeable than ever before, it also exposes them to other people's opinions of them, she said, adding just because something shared by them got 1,000 likes doesn't mean they have 1,000 friends.

"You just have a bunch of strangers following you. That should terrify you," she said, to laughs from the crowd.

Detailing how she uses Twitter, Michelle said that before sending something out, she first drafts a post, calls eight people, gets their input, and spell-checks and proofreads it. She tweets "by committee."

After the draft is prepared, she waits a day, calls two more people, and if they think it's a good idea, she posts it.

While sharing her experience as the first lady, Michelle said it was "eight years of reading horrible tweets" as she faced several criticisms.

"I felt that sting. I felt that judgment," she said. "They talked about what I looked like. ... They called me angry."

She said she was criticized "in the same way that Hillary Clinton continues to take hits, because she's a woman trying to do things that a lot of people think women shouldn't do," adding: "We still live in a racist world... (But) we've come a long way. There's no way my husband would have been elected two terms if we hadn't."

Below are some of the best tweets sent out by Michelle.

This is not the first time Michelle cautioned people about the use of social media. Last year, Michelle spoke with poet Elizabeth Alexander at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago where she said people shouldn't tweet everything that pops into their heads because “most of your first initial thoughts are not worthy of the light of day.”

“This whole ‘tell it like it is’ business — that’s nonsense,” the former first lady said at the time. “And I’m not talking about anybody in particular. I’m talking about us all, because everybody does that.”

“Tweeting and social media, that is a powerful weapon that we just hand over to little kids,” Obama, 53, told the audience. “You know, a 10-year-old, ‘Here you go, tell it like it is.’ It’s like, no you don’t,” she continued. “You need to think, and spell it right, and have good grammar, too."

She said that as a first lady, “Every word you utter has consequences. Words matter at this level.”

“You’re careful with your words. You’re careful with how you debate," she said. "And I think when you’re the first lady or the president, the commander in chief, and you have that voice, and that power, and that platform, I think what comes with that is the responsibility to know that every word you utter has consequences.”

“You can’t just slash and burn up folks just because you think you’re right,” Michelle added. “You have to treat people as if they are precious, all of them, even the people you don’t agree with.”