• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 5, 2011

About 37.8% of political conversations on Twitter are driven by national protection and 33.6% by financial security. That's according to a Radiun6 study released Tuesday, the day prior to President Barack Obama's first Twitter town hall question and answer tweetathon.

Radian6, acquired by Salesforce.com earlier this year for approximately $276 million in cash and $50 million in stock, will work with Twitter to analyze Tweets and conversations from the White House's first Twitter Town Hall to uncover insights into discussions and provide an analysis of the findings. But with Fox.com's political Twitter feed (@foxnewspolitics) hacked during the weekend tweeting fake news of U.S. President Barack Obama's assassination, some might wonder how anyone can take the content or the analysis found on the social site seriously.

The false tweets remained up for 10 hours before someone took them down. Some call Twitter "casual" and "intimate," an attraction for many marketers attempting to get closer to that one-on-one relationship with consumers.

For the irst Twitter Town Hall meeting with the White house, the live-streaming event will allow anyone to submit a question for President Obama by sending a Tweet with the hashtag #AskObama. People can track the event by following @townhall.

For the past eight weeks, Radian6 analyzed 1.2 million Tweets to understand what people think about national protection, financial security, wellness and development.

The findings: President Obama's speeches drive Twitter conversations.About 56.6% of the 1.2 million political conversations included the keyword "Obama."

The majority of political conversations on Twitter were driven by men, whose Tweets comprised more than 60% of the Radiun6 sample. Political conversations around the topics of education and volunteer service were split evenly between male and female contributors.

People between the ages of 35 and 44 focused on tweeting about issues more close to home, such s poverty, taxes and family. Those between the ages of 25 and 34 were more likely to participate in political conversations around fiscal responsibility, ethics and civil rights. And, the majority of tweets for people between the ages of 45 and 54 focused on health care, rural development, seniors and Social Security.

Vice President Joe Biden joined Twitter Monday as @VP, amidst the U.S. Secret Service looking into the Fox News Twitter hack. With one tweet, the verified account already had nearly 15,500 followers by noon pacific on Tuesday.

In a research note published in June, Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research, called Salesforce.com the "new IT leader for this decade," as the company continues to redefine and expand the CRM category, competing against Oracle and Microsoft. Aside from acquiring Radiun6, Salesforce scooped up Heroku and Jigsaw, expanding "its addressable market by probably another $16 billion."