Media Twitter Suggestions


Setup Suggestions for Media & Newspapers

This article is specifically developed for newspapers and media. In general I will cover the profile basics on Twitter and how your audience can search you using the Twitter App.  This is not the end all Twitter information document but can be used it to assist you in organizing the Twitter application to increase the chances all or your content can be located by a Twitter search.

First, take some time go over the basic information provided in the Twitter support page and dig through the Twitter apps as you will need tools to assist in managing this application once you have create accounts to grow your following. If you don’t believe you can drive traffic to you blogs, articles and news or if you don’t think this is possible to get out of control just take a look at CNN’s followers.

Metrics


Metrics are an important part of determining the value of any application that is used to enhance the experience and value of a product. You will need to determine what metrics are important to get any value out of this application. Followers are only one of the many metrics available to you through Twitters API. You can develop your own API (free from Twitter) however most newspapers don’t have the time and resources to devote internal personnel to this so just look through the apps available to you on the link above and it should get you started in the right direction.

 

I have also discovered that Twitter limits how long a tweet is saved so if you want your metrics across a specific date you will need to save the metrics on a regular basis. Twitter Analyzer seems to be a good start to analyze the tweets your producing this application has a wide range of useful information.  Twitter Analyzer information includes Tweets, Chats, Popularity, Reach (an excellent metric), Subjects HashsTags, Links and Apps.

Normalize

In the database world normalizing an application means to remove duplication from tables, forms and the reuse of code within the design. With the twitter application I am referring to the account settings on your twitter accounts. This is very simple to do and it also provides a good foundation for future accounts

In twitter the account settings are the definition of twitter search results. Twitters search perform a cross table search meaning it looks at all the account fields and then provides the results to the searcher based on the information you have provided.

How would find someone in the phone book? First look for them by the name you know them by, If you’re local you look by Commercial Appeal or Star News, if you’re happen to be from California and your favorite team is the UNCW Seahawks then you might use that as the search term.

Twitter Account Fields

The following fields are all searchable so use them wisely. You might want to establish some guide lines for the creation of twitter accounts and add that to the list of things that must be done when a new hire in the newsroom arrives.

Name

The name, this should always be the Local Name of the media i.e. Star News or Commercial Appeal or NY Times etc whatever the locals call you. 

User Name

The user name should be like casports or snblog, caeditorial  something fairly generic but easy enough for someone to remember once they find your twitter once they should always be able to see all the results from Star News on one page. When you define the user name of a twitter account this can be searched too.

More Info URL

This is the place you put the link directly to a detailed bio or the media’s web site or blog. This is the traffic driver if they like what you tweet they will visit your page!

Bio

Example;

Name - Wall Street Journal
Location-
New York, NY

Web- http://online.wsj...
Bio- Business and Financial News

 

 

The bio is important for the twitter poster, when someone wants to find you this is when twitter returns those results. You can use your tag line in the bio or whatever but it should define the posters tweet subject. You have 160 characters to describe yourself or job or both preferably remember it is all searchable.  I found the Wall Street Journal just by searching WSJ in my search.

Location

Location! Pretty obvious right, not to some, the location is also searchable so make sure you add your location - city and state too unless you think some is looking for your GPS coordinates.

Grouping Topics

This topic will cover some of how twitter groups items for easy reference to the readers of the tweets. The groupings are called hash tags which one might refer to hash tags as a channel. Check out the reference links to fully understand the use of these.

Take a read from Green Acts and how they use HashsTags in their webpage to track reference to green.

Hashtags can be defined on the fly by using the # symbol following a word or phrase the more they are searched the more people will associate this with specific information.  A crime article would be “2 wounded in shootout” #memphistncrime for every article that comes from the crime page which you want grouped together. The #wilmingtonnccrime could be searched on and it would bring all the crime articles to the searcher based on that tag. You will want to define the tag so there is no mistake that it came from your news site. This also brings a standard and popularity to the tag plus they are followed and used by many of the twitter metrics apps to rate popularity of a subject. For some of the more popular writers, anchormen or blogs you would use these tags to organize information.


To follow or not to follow

This section covers follow and following, when deciding on who to follow within the news it is a good idea to determine if the follower is newsworthy. When you choose to follow someone their tweets will show up in your twitter. The decision to follow a twitter should normally be based on popularity of the twitter site; you will not want to follow everyone! Use the Twitter Analyzer to decide if necessary as long as you keep the goal in mind you should be OK.