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Apr232007

If you Twitter it they will (maybe not) come

Filed under Uncategorized by damon kiesow at 7:33 pm

So - another post about Twitter. Twitter and newspapers. Twitter and marketing. Twitter and people.

We launched our experiment with Twitter last week - on the basis of once we build it there will not be a ton of ongoing support needed. The Telegraph Web site sends a tweet each time we update the breaking news blog, automatically.

But, after only a day it became obvious (and this is something Clyde Bentley told us regarding citizen journalism sites): If you build it they will not come unless you make the effort to go out and invite, evangleize and engage. 

So - I spent a few minutes here and there over the past two days 'making friends' with everyone I could find in the area that was using Twitter.

As a result, we now have 35 friends and 23 'followers' of the NashuaTelegraph Twitter.

Is that enough of a critical mass to eventually snowball into a 'worthwhile' effort? Well, if I may say so, that is a loaded question. :-) I am confident that 23 fans of the Telegraph Twitter will eventually turn into more, but the lessons we have learned just in a week have been worth the effort already. 

1) Innovation does not need to be expensive or time consuming.

2) A newspaper can not prejudge an audience for any particular product / service.

3) If you do not sincerely understand your audience and the service you are offering them, it definitely will fail. Using the product yourself helps.

4) If you go out and ask, people probably will come. 

5)  A lot of this stuff is like moving to a foreign country for newspaper companies. The key is to at least make an attempt to learn the language of the digital Web. You get a lot of points for trying - and none for demanding everyone else speak 'analog' to you.

UPDATE: One of the Telegraph's Twitter followers Jeremey Shankle, blogs about it. 

Viewing 2 Comments

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    I thought twice before deciding to follow, because a cursory glance at the twitters made it pretty obvious that this was an automatic tweeter, and you had seeded your followers by doing exactly what you had described: hitting people who appeared to be in the area.


    This ordinarily would have been lame, but one thing I've found is that Twitter helps provide a sense of "what's going on" in my virtual community, without demanding too much attention. A local newspaper news feed fits in very well.


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    Dave - I agree with your note of caution. That is one of the reasons we went only with 'breaking' news in the feed - and also why I posted this blog entry - so people are aware of what/who is behind the effort.


    I hope we continue to stay on the correct side of helpful vs irritating - but as I said above, it is difficult for a company to find its way.


    I trust if there are things the community thinks we are doing right or wrong they will let us know - and we will do our best to improve on that advice.


    thanks for the note.

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