Newspapers Lag Behind In Reaching Audiences Through Microblogging

Journalism and microblogging is all very well and hyped but what are the possibilities for audience building? Audience outreach projects involving news media and Twitter are only few and far between.

It’s mostly marketers that are keen on using Twitter (a real time microblogging tool) and they tend to keep secrets if they find them. So what is the Twitter potential for media wishing to build engaged audiences? The risk that this post will be all talk and no action is big. Why? Simply because I am sipping a blissful cup of tea, building up bad karma for ignoring the glorious sunshine in order to talk the talk instead of walking the walk. But guess what; I would not be the only one. So far, there’s hardly anyone in (editorial) medialand that’s building audiences by physically embedding reporter tweets into their content. There are scores and scores of personal ‘live blogging’ initiatives and some of these are brilliant, but the lack of corporate sponsorship is milking the really good ideas dry before they can take off. We are at a crossroads however. The editorial interest in Twitter IS there I hear all the time. But it appears that if you’re looking for hard evidence, your best bet is to approach the agencies. Good examples? Social signal.com strikes me as very enticing (The cartoon is from their stables) They appear on the ball in social networking. Another good site which has frequent Twitter (marketing) updates is 11marketing.com. Why look for the agencies? Well, newspapers themselves hardly have a clue how to empower their own staffers online, let alone that they’re sitting there figuring out by themselves how to entice (new) readers into coming back every day. So there. Let’s hunt for the intermediary agencies then and find out where things are at. That’s what I did and guess what: NO RECORDS to be found of any newspapers looking into using Twitter to connect with audiences. But some REALLY SEXY stuff from movie makers and other glamorous outfits. The TV networks have taken to Twitter. ABC Family, NBC, CBS, CW and MTV all have been experimenting. ABC Family network’s use of Twitter to announce “Greek” definitely evidenced the approach was catchy. The network offered Twitter Greekshow updates and behind-the-scenes glimpses from cast members and writers. The TV networks’ embrace of Twitter actually all started with one man. TV producer and director Greg Yaitanes pioneered Twitter for marketing his April 2007 Fox show “Drive”. After the premiere, he sent tweets from the launch party on his own initiative. “The idea that someone from the show is coming to sit down and talk with everyone viewers, it all of a sudden makes it feel more special,” he told Wall Street Journal reporters Stephanie Kang and Suzanne Vranica. The definition of a successful Twitter marketing campaign is still shaky. GreekShow has over 1,100 Twitter followers. But NBC’s Chuck, a show about a Geek (Chuck Bartowski) turned spy, which copied the same techniques has been criticised for having gone dead, despite its initial hyper interactive lore, not only involving Twitter, but also Ning, MySpace and social bookmarking sites. Whatever TV marketers' Twitter success rates really are, fact is that the effort is rather light; none of the stations have taken to re-branding the Twitter badge and it takes about five minutes to upload the widget. Content creation is what’s the most cumbersome and expensive likely.

“Marketing through Twitter — as with any new technology — isn’t a slam dunk. Sending marketing messages on the service could alienate users who see Twitter as a way to talk to their friends, marketing executives say. And Twitter is still a tiny Web community, drawing only 370,000 unique visitors in June in the U.S., according to comScore Media Metrix”

comments the Wall Street Journal. It’s a fine line between annoying your audience and exciting them. A CW spokesman outlined the issues involved, saying that using Twitter messages have to be of value. “It can’t be just ‘watch Gossip Girl at 9′. It’s got to be more fun,” he was quoted as saying in the WSJ article. So what’s next? Already Slate's inclusion of its political affairs correspondent John Dickerson’s Tweet into its editorial output could be a copy cat following the success of the networks’ Twitter campaigns. Next on the list no doubt is a successful Holywood campaign and the credibility of Twitter will be beyond doubt. So it looks like I won't be done hunting for a while before I find the editorial Twitter projects I am looking for. Disclosure: Angelique van Engelen writes for reporTwitters.com and this article has appeared on the company's blog; blog.reporTwitters.com