Twitter. For months we weren’t sure whether it was useful or not, but it seems journalists have come to accept that it is very handy indeed. If nothing else, it helps recreate a little of the newsroom banter that, some argue, we have lost over the years.
But from a journalistic point of view, what should we be doing with Twitter? How should it be used? How often should we update?
So many questions. I’ll outline my thoughts here. I encourage everyone reading this to do the same, either in their blogs, or in comments.
Let’s compare some approaches. For this, I’ll divide Twitter feeds into two types: journalist or organisation.
Organisation feeds are those that aren’t tied to an individual. Example: BBC News
Journalist feeds are those that are maintained by a specific journalist. Example: the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss
Organisations
So, you’re a mainstream media news organisation. You want to use Twitter. Good! But first you need to a) convince your journalists it’s a good idea, which can be very tough, and b) find a good strategy for when to update, and, crucially, what to update with.
Let’s deal with b. The main BBC News feed appears to update as and when a new story goes online. Given the frequency of updates on the BBC, this means your Twitter update feed is quickly dominated by the Beeb. This leaves little room for what Twitter is best at: conversation! The BBC feed has 4,241 followers. And how many is it following? Just one.
The confusing thing is that this seems to be a BBC News feed too. But that one seems to be an experiment by a tech-savvy employee. But the user doesn’t need that. If the Beeb is using Twitter, it needs to make it clear where the official feeds lie. Right now it’s a mess.
I used to subscribe to the BBC News feed. But now I don’t. If I want to see the latest news on the BBC website… I’ll look at the BBC website. The Twitter feed, I’d argue, adds nothing to the BBC user experience.
But I do subscribe to BreakingNewsOn. Rather than giving me every update imaginable, BreakingNewsOn just pops up with breaking news. And when I say breaking, I mean breaking. It’s lightning quick. It can be a fun game seeing a BreakingNewsOn update, and then seeing how long it is until MSM sites pick it up. It can be as long as half an hour.
Even more impressively, I’ve not known BreakingNewsOn to make any serious errors. This has gained it a good reputation — it has 7,488 followers. And, interestingly, it follows 846. In other words, BreakingNewsOn is getting involved in conversation.
I’d argue that this is how it should be done. A breaking news BBC feed, please. Not just another RSS powered aggregator.
Journalists
This is where it gets much more interesting.
Twitter was designed with the personal user in mind. ‘What are YOU doing?’ it asks.
For journalists, the dilemma is about how personal you make your feed. I think it’s important for journalist Twitter feeds to be as human as possible. They don’t stop when the working day stops. Quite the opposite — they should be an all-day sort of exercise. I’ve already mentioned Jemima Kiss in this, but I think of all the journalists I follow, she’s got it sussed. A while ago she asked whether she should have two feeds. One for Jemima the Guardian writer, and one for Jemima the person. Everyone rallied in with a resounding ‘no!’.
We like our reporters to be real people, don’t we?
Twitter feeds add a new dimension to how we can report. I often read of people saying how it can be used as a collective tool, but I’m sure it’s not that. It’s about personalities. It’s about journalists that live and breath their profession. Not in an obsessive work-is-life kind of way, but in a dedicated I’m-an-expert-and-a-fan kind of way.
And that’s that sort of reporter I want to listen to.
