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What does your organization do with Twitter?

Rather than bump the other Twitter-related thread, since it's a few months old, I figured I'd start a new one to collect people's thoughts.

How does your organization use Twitter? We've been shying away from just using it to retweet headlines, and instead doing things like:

Passing on updates from other (usually larger) news organizations about things our readers care about, but that we can't cover quite as actively as larger organizations can.

Example: Granholm urges House to avoid deep cuts to education and other programs. (From @DetNews via @SenCameronBrown.) http://bit.ly/G9O2I

Passing on news directly from the newsmakers themselves.

Example: Update from @SenCameronBrown: "Senate recess until 5pm. Expecting late session tonight and AM session tomorrow."

Promoting our print edition.

Example: In today's paper: Dogfighting suspect in court, Fall Festival, Adrian has new deputy police chief, Morenci schools prepare for layoffs

Linking to stories on our site, BUT doing it with a twist, and maybe even a little bit of snark.

Example: State to county: "You have to inspect tattoo parlors, but WE get to keep the $500 license fee." County not amused. http://bit.ly/F5NJn

Linking to things deep within our site that people might not otherwise see, but again, with some kind of twist.

Example: A reader wrote a letter to the editor about a statue of local abolitionist Laura Haviland and it ran in the letters column (on our site, each day's print letters are on a single page). The tweet: Should "Aunt Laura" be moved or left alone? http://bit.ly/iljCs

Breaking "don't travel this route" type updates.

Example: Avoid the area of Maumee and McKenzie streets as there is a house fire in the area. Firefighters and police are on the scene.

Taking part in Follow Friday.

Example: #followfriday Want a front-row view of efforts to help Lenawee's economic future? The LEDC is on Twitter at @OneLenawee.

Telling people about things we're working on, but that will take us a while to put together a story about.

Example: School AYP and Education Yes report cards are out. We're working on a story; in the meantime, see the raw data here: http://bit.ly/170k9f

Ultimately, I think if we start displaying our Twitter feed on our Web site, this approach will (a) give us an easy way to provide more information on our site than we currently do, and (b) give us a way to get people hooked into content that's a little bit deeper on our site and that they might not normally see, by presenting it in a different way.

Tags: twitter

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mandy Jenkins on October 9, 2009 at 9:16am: I agree with Nathan. Here's how we boosted our follower numbers:

First of all, go to twellow.com and search for your area. Start following the top twitter users and see if they follow you back. If these people get on board and start RTing your tweets, others will follow their lead.

Another suggestion - and it might sound a little weird - is to register for a free account for an auto-follow service like twollow.com. You can set it to follow anyone who uses certain keywords. I set ours to follow anyone who tweets the name of our twitter account (usually because the RT or send us a public reply) or uses the full name of our paper or tweets a link from our site. It treats a follow as a sort of reward for interacting with us.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ryan Mercer on October 5, 2009 at 9:40pm: Do any of your staffers use Twitter? Or is all this coming from the official company Twitter account? Reason I ask, Twitter is very much a community and companies that strictly use Twitter in an official capacity can run the risk of looking too much like a billboard in this community, something that tweeple don't dig too much. Where I work, we have the official Twitter account, but then several of us have our own, personal accounts which we use a lot for work related tweeting, but also for playing around. I think that's important. For starters, it shows tweeple that you are a human being and that your company is full of people who are also human beings who are interested in more than just plugging the company's work. Tweeple don't generally like being sold too, and in many ways, news organizations using Twitter are doing just that. If you aren't engaged in the Twitter community and instead just listing your urls there, tweeple will quickly catch on and drop you.

Good tweeple share links from one another, even if sometimes the link comes from a would-be competitor. They also respond, retweet, DM, congratulate, laugh at funny jokes, say thanks to tweeple who pass on their stuff, and otherwise serve to enrich the Twittersphere they use, etc. But what good tweeple don't do is just churn out links to their work. Even if they link to generally good content, that's not enough.

To have a truly dynamic, growing and thriving Twitter account with lots of active followers, you have to give back. Then, not only will you get better result with your sharing efforts, but you will have have a much richer resource for gathering information, tips, clues, things that will help you do your job better because you will be more immersed in the community you are trying to serve.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Erik Gable on October 12, 2009 at 11:25am: I think it's a little needlessly dogmatic to say "good tweeple don't ... just churn out links to their work." There are plenty of organizations that do use Twitter primarily as a broadcasting tool to let people know what's new on their Web sites, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who enjoy that service, just like there are plenty of people who sign up for daily e-mail "today's headlines" newsletters.

I don't think using Twitter only to broadcast -- or having a broadcast-only account -- is inherently bad. I would say, instead, that someone who hasn't at least explored the possibility of using it in other ways is missing a lot of opportunities and not using the medium to its full potential.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mandy Jenkins on October 5, 2009 at 10:41pm: At my paper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, we use a multi-prong approach to Twitter that seems to work well for us. We have an automated feed that is up front about it's purpose - it exists only for those who wants only the latest headlines (to use as a news service on their phones most of the time).

We also have a primary official account that is staffed about 18 hours a day most days. Sometimes we tweet new headlines, re-tweet, pose questions or help reporters with sourcing. I monitor this account myself most of the time and frequently also use it to handle customer service needs that pop up in a Twitter search of my publication's name and website.

Most of our reporters are also on Twitter for their own beat development and reporting. As you might expect, some are better than others and all of them use it in a different way. Most of our government and school reporters live tweet contentious meetings and press conferences, which the wonks out there seem to love. Other use it almost as a live tweet/note-taking device. Our early morning cops reporter uses it to update readers and her editors where she is on the beat at any given time.

When manning the main account, we keep an eye on all the staff accounts not only in case someone warrants a RT, but also as a way to keep tabs on stories and reporters for our own news management. We also keep an eye on all of our local competition on Twitter to make sure a story hasn't slipped through the cracks. If it wasn't for Tweetdeck, I swear, my computer would explode most days.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Andrew Zahler on October 14, 2009 at 2:15pm: These are useful suggestions, Erik.

I'm the main person behind @spokesmanreview in Spokane, and we too have had limited success soliciting feedback from our Twitter followers.

I'm curious about what reaction (if any) you get from the "In today's paper" tweets. I like the cross promotion, but I'm wary of tweaking followers who would rather just have the link. (And all of the items in the paper go online, in our case.) Ever run into that?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Erik Gable on October 15, 2009 at 11:55am: Well, we haven't had anyone complain. But we also have no way of knowing if it helps, either. (We're registered with bit.ly, so we can track how many people click on our shortened links, but with no link, it's hard to know if the "in today's paper" tweets do anything for us.)

So ... they don't seem to annoy anyone enough to complain, but I doubt they're accomplishing much at the moment either. If they reached more people, it might be a different story, although I doubt an "in today's paper" tweet will ever do all that much for sales.; ▶ Reply to This