To Tweet or not to Tweet
If you told most newspaper publishers you knew of a way that they could eavesdrop on a conversation someone had about their product, do you think they woud be interested? If you also told them they could respond immediately to disgruntled customers, do you think they would jump at the chance?
Twitter offers that opportunity. Unfortunately, many people in the newspaper business are still scratching their heads saying they don’t see the value of the service. One journalist recently asked me, “Why would we encourage our audience to use Twitter rather than going directly to our site?”
I offer this example: Two days ago I tweeted that I was wrestling with building a report using the statistical web-tracking software Omniture. Within minutes I received this message: OmnitureCare@Mike_Noe Anything I can help with (regarding #Omniture)?
Though I didn’t notice the response for another couple of hours I was impressed that the company reached out to me. “Excellent customer service,” I thought.
Currently, many media organizations are using Twitter to broadcast their headlines but they’re missing the point of the program because they’re not listening to their users’ response. That’s a big miss. Just think about the ability to respond to questions from your audience in real time.
I did just that when Scripps was closing the Rocky Mountain News on Feb. 28. Though the lesson came too late for the Rocky, it’s a valuable lesson for others. I used the program TweetDeck to relay Scripps CEO Rich Boehne’s announcement about the paper’s closure. While I commented in one window, I watched peoples’ responses in another. One person tweeted that the it wasn’t a big loss as the Rocky’s web site would continue operating. I responded immediately that the web site would close as well. No one will be left in the newsroom to feed it. Another user noted how sad it was that the Rocky was covering its own funeral. I tweeted “It’s strange covering your own funeral.” — a phrase that was re-tweeted several times.
If you still don’t see the value in Twitter and you’re in the media, let me offer one last piece of advice. Apply for unemployment early. It takes weeks before you get that first check.
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on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 5:27 am and is filed under Noe Nothing.
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#1 by Paul Pedersen on April 29th, 2009 - 11:51 am
Today I tweeted:
“Anyone with Pidgin problems? Latest install keeps crashing. I’m back to using my Trillian/gTalk combo. I hate it!”
10 minutes later I got the following message from Trillian:
“@paulpedersen the new Trillian Astra does gtalk (for free) - get it here: http://www.trillian.im“