My use for Twitter, and my not use
I was very reluctant to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. I read Paul Bradshaw’s posts about how media orgs could use it as a distribution tool, and much more. It really depends on who you are as to what will make it useful.
When all of the new media douchebags (Ha, I just saw that video today) started trying to find a use for Twitter, none of them fit me.
It didn’t help that my friends were even less open to Twitter than I was. I mean really, it’s called “Twitter” and the updates are called “tweets.” How lame is that?
But then, I started a blog. A geek new media journalist niche blog. That’s when I found a use.
People will follow you far more easily on Twitter than they will on your blog. If you use Twubble to find like-minded people and follow them, they will likely follow you back (provided they like your “tweets.” Ugh. that word). Then you can use twitterfeed to syndicate your blog and whatever else to readers. And voila, you have a targeted audience.
That all sounds a little too utilitarian, so I’ll add that my targeted audience, the people I follow on Twitter, are actually quite cool. They have lots of insight into journalism and new media, and they aren’t douchebags - always a plus.
How can news orgs use this? By allowing readers to target news. That’s not the way orgs are using Twitter now, I think. TechCrunch today warns us about Twitter’s heavy noise factor.
Erick Shonfeld writes:
I need less data, not more data. I need to know what is important, and I don’t have time to sift through thousands of Tweets and Friendfeed messages and blog posts and emails and IMs a day to find the five things that I really need to know.
That’s really the problem I think the next big Web startup will solve: How to take the myriad search returns from Google and narrow them to five, to ONE. Eliminate the noise. To post every Web update to Twitter, as Julie Star reminds us, is not eliminating the noise.
News orgs should only post breaking news, like they do for e-mail now (Hm, seems like that need is already met doesn’t it?) Alternatively, Twitter could give users the option of having different Twitter timelines, an issue that has been brought up but not resolved.
News orgs are going to have to show readers that Twitter can be useful on the first attempt. They’re not going to do that by dumping info on them. They need to hit the sweet spot.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Hi new Twitter buddy! Here’s another use for your Twitter account…it just led me to your blog! And yes, I have shared many jokes with friends about how lame Twitter lingo is. Overheard in the office: “Why won’t this fit in my Twitter?!!” Hilarious. (Actually, the jokes are only with my friends/coworkers who are social media nerds–my actual friends outside the media industry haven’t bought into Twitter yet, noting that they can just use FB status updates).
Seriously though, good post. Twitter noise is something I wrestle with every time I open up my TwitBin (notice the use of Twitter lingo). My thoughts? Unlike other services meant to help you find the most relevant and most pertinent bits of info, I have found the best tidbits via Twitter to be random. As long as you build a community on Twitter of people engaged in activities that interest you, the discussion should be relevant. I never worry about back tracking (okay, occasionally I’ll go crazy and back track to see if some well-known Twitter/blogger extrordinaire (Paul Bradshaw, Anastasia of YPulse, etc.) or if a friend or coworker has replied to me, but MOST of the time, I count my losses. I don’t RELY on Twitter for info. I count on it to sporadically enhance the information I get with links I might not have found and info I might not have gotten otherwise. And I have to note, there is an element of community–a feel-good feeling (redundant, I know)–that comes with Twitter. It’s there if I need to vent. It’s there if I get stuck with a problem and I need to ask for help, and it’s there to provide me with the random treasures of info when I’m sick of all my highly-focused and targeted vehicles.
Of course, all of that is not to say one couldn’t set up a Twitter for a specific community of people with the goal of keeping it relevant–a group of coworkers for example, who use it as a project management tool; or a business/organizational entity who might, as you said, see fit to hitting the sweet spots for their audiences.
Glad to have you join my subconscious stream of randomness that is my Twitter feed. :)
May 1st, 2008 at 2:05 am
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