Comments on: Why S.C. media isn’t ready for Twitter

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:59:44 +0000

There are a lot of papers out there doing plenty with Twitter. I’ll admit, that we stumble through some days trying to put out a worthy mix of personalized tweets, breaking news links, RSS feeds from our blogs and the occasional contest teaser.

But we now have more than 15 active twitter accounts in our small newsroom, and our editor essentially started our newsroom Twitter push by gathering 6 staffers to participate in “The Twitter Experiment” – no rules, just tweet about what interests you and promote your work in the process.

It’s grown to include our all multimedia staff, some photographers, all news reporters and various others. And most of them came asking when they heard about Twitter.

If newspapers do not see the potential to increase presence, goodwill and brand via Twitter, they are missing out. It may take a few years, but over time the cultivation of community via social media will be an essential role in all news organizations.

The sooner we all realize that, the better off we will all be.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:17:05 +0000

I love the idea of super local news. I grew up reading the newspaper EVERY morning but that has since faded. The majority of newspapers try to cover too large an area and non-local news something I can easily find online.

Thanks for the informative post.

By: Dan Conover

Dan Conover — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:29:41 +0000

that should read “on any topic.” d’oh.

By: Dan Conover

Dan Conover — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:28:34 +0000

some thoughts about Twitter accounts for big news stories. Yes, a general news account can become “noisy” during a big story, and since levels of interest vary, some users will experience that as spam. But the flipside is that you spend a long time building your follow list for a news Twitter account, and switching to a brand new account in the midst of a breaking story is a great way to deliver a lot of news to no one (although good hashtagging is helpful).

My favorite solution is what Ken Hawkins did at TheDigitel. He added a second Twitter account called TheDigitelExtra (same basic look, but a different color scheme). Whenever a breaking story — on on topic — heats up, Ken activates TheDigitelExtra and announces it on his standard Twitter account and his site. Standard coverage continues on @TheDigitel, but hyperactive coverage takes place on TheDigitelExtra.

Is this like starting up a special Twitter account? Yes. But it means that Ken (and his followers) only have to manage ONE special account, not a string of them. Call it a preference of mine.

By: Robert Quigley

Robert Quigley — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:14:25 +0000

Thank you so much for the mentions of our work at the American-Statesman. As you said, the key to all this is having management that is willing to let go and trust people to try new things. The Statesman’s managers trust me and my colleagues, and they understand the importance of collaborating with the community. That freedom we have to experiment and innovate makes all the difference.