Understanding and addressing automated Twitter feed flaws
Tuesday, 3 February, 2009 — twitter journalism
It was about halftime during the Super Bowl when I saw a score, via Twitter from The Sacramento Bee:
Steelers lead 3-0 in first quarter of Super Bowl http://tinyurl.com/dxp4j7
A day or so ago, I got a flood tweets from the News & Observer, like this one:
Live Nation ticketing a rough start: If you tried to buy Jimmy Buffett tickets online when they went on sale Sat.. http://tinyurl.com/a9vwuk
What frustrates me – as a reader, not an employee – about these specific tweets, is it shows some newsrooms aren’t completely grasping Twitter’s promise. I’m frustrated as a result.
First, “breaking news” needs to be breaking. Timely and relevant. If we’re not seeing the first quarter score until halftime, I’d rather do without. Twitter can simply be informative. Links are nice, but not required. If there’s not a specific story to link to, how about just tweeting the score? If a link is a must, link to a scoreboard. Either way, don’t hold information back from Twitter because the story isn’t ready yet.
Second, please drop Twitterfeed. When a large batch of stories publishes, anyone following that Twitter account gets link-bombed. Just dumping content to Twitter misses the opportunity to build interest for stories since interesting stories get buried under an avalanche of content. But it’s worse than just that. In the N&O example, the tweets are incomplete. The tweets seem like songs ending on bad notes because they’re headline and lede pulls, not something tailored for Twitter’s format.
This isn’t to say automated feeds are all bad. They aren’t. Consider, though, limiting what gets pushed to the feed, then tailor the headlines into something tweet-worthy. There’s a balance to strike that benefits both Twitter and the regular website, since some story index pages aren’t going to have the lead paragraph, just a headline.
So, “Live Nation ticketing for Jimmy Buffet concert off to rough start,” is not only a better, web-friendly headline, it’s a complete tweet. Add a URL, and it’s golden.
Still, just rewriting headlines misses the point. Get the staff involved with the twitter account. Set up section or topic accounts. Ask questions. Answer questions. Reward readers for following the Twitter account instead of passively consuming the RSS feed. See @ColonelTribune for a hint of what a paper’s social engagement via Twitter could look like.