Many publishers launch onto Twitter without giving the platform or its users much thought or studying what other media companies are doing to maximise benefit from the platform. This approach dilutes the user experience on your Twitter feed and lead to users unsubscribing from your brands Twitter service.
At the moment media sites are making four major mistakes.
1. They post as much of their content as they can onto Twitter. Users, feeling flooded by content, are forced to unsubscribe
2. They don’t have a human manning the account – they link to an auto feed. Auto feeds can be appropriate as mini-aggregators for networks such as CAB or can be used in tandem with a human operator. The best examples of Twitter use by a media organisation have them tap a staff member to post friendly intros (rather than simply headlines) that pulls in readers.
3. They don’t promote their Twitter account to their readers.
4. They don’t make use of the viral power of Twitter by following all or most of their followers in turn. Many people discover Twitter accounts via other users – a major marketing opportunity missed. The flip side is that if you have a stable of columnists using Twitter you might choose to only follow them. Users will notice and pick their favourite columnists to follow via your account but this depends on how well known and established your brand is online.
Take a look at http://twitter.com/pcmag and http://twitter.com/Newsweek. Newsweek chose to put out
one story every three hours or so, while PCmag doesn’t use headlines to push stories – their style is more informal and invitational which makes it seem less like a feed and much more human.
Marks‘ 5 steps to establishing a successful Twitter feed for your media company are:
1. Tap somebody within your organisation to man your Twitter feed
2. Post only your most interesting features and breaking news items to the feed
3. Use an informal style and limit posts to one or two every couple of hours
4. Follow your followers in turn to ensure viral marketing for your Twitter account
5. Promote your Twitter URL on your website
Remember – if it seems human it’s more like to have impact! Follow Mark on Twitter!