If you, like me, follow mainstream media outlets on Twitter then you LOVE how they clog up your stream by broadcasting their own content.
While a number of organizations have figured out great uses for Twitter, big media remains seemingly clueless. The content outlets broadcast via tweets does not seem to fit into a particular category and the metrics used to decide what gets blasted out there are unclear to me, if they exist at all. (note – if you tweet for a big outlet and can share the “Caramilk Secret” re what gets tweeted I’d die to know)
Some ideas for how mainstream media might employ Twitter:
– Bundle tweets with favoured content. Chris Penn does something similar to these ideas with his #the5 idea on Twitter. Penn sends five tweets each morning using the hastag and invites others to share the content they find most interesting.Other ideas? Why not send out a “top story(ies) of the morning tweet” another might be “stories that were most shared tweet” of the day. There are lots of ways to bundle the content and these would be helpful.
– Get more interactive. The major media seem to only broadcast and never interact. Could some sort of back and forth about content not be incorporated into Twitter activity. This is easy as asking for feedback on content that is broadcast by saying “What do you think?”
– Share info about staff that may be on Twitter. I get very frustrated trying to find journalists on Twitter. Could media outlets not include the Twitter handles of authors who wrote pieces that they tweet about, characters permitting? This would certainly help promote the back and forth and two-way dialogue that is now lacking.
Big media’s tendency to broadcast and not talk is readily evidenced on Twitter. While I understand this is what they know how to do, surely the medium could be better used by these players? Can you think of other suggestions?