I’m trying. I really am.
I refuse to be a representative voice of an old (can we substitute “traditional” instead?) media behemoth, infatuated with its girth and bellowing calls, blissfully ignorant of the tar pits ahead; dismissive of the fleet-footed rodents scurrying underfoot.
No suh!, not me.
So please help set me on the right evolutionary path. Got the YouTube down—albeit it is currently used more for video hosting than expanding social networks (though that may change in the near future). Flickr has proven effective at building relationships with a growing number of listeners/users (and obviously is a great source of stunning photography). WBUR’s Facebooks friends are at 672 (hat tip to Paul Levy) and My Space— well, that’s a bit of a sad story best reserved for another time.
Now our media giant lumbers head-first into the world of Twitter.
After dusting off the mostly dormant WBUR Twitter account, and fortified with copious amounts of coffee, I managed to accrue a modest following (hey its quality, not quantity, right?). But in all honesty, I remain uncertain—to the point of apprehension—about what I should “tweet” about. Do you want WBUR news updates? Irreverent musings? Programming information? Personal trivia? Shout-outs to my peeps? A running chronology of my day?
An excellent example of Twitter’s utility is public radio station KPBS using it to receive updates on wildfires then consuming swaths of southern California, information they then could relay over the airwaves. My own personal “aha!” moment came yesterday afternoon when someone tweeted me about a misspelling on the site. It just then dawned on me that WBUR now has a potential army of researchers and fact-checkers at its disposal. The cranial cavity expanded six inches yesterday … cue “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”
So maybe the right question is: In what ways can we help each other?
Your thoughts appreciated.
Note: The hours are fast-dwindling in the historic “This American Life” shirt-giveaway. Posit a name for this blog so you too can be in the running.
Thanks to those who have done so thus far.
Twitter is just another tool to engage your users. If you can get them engaged, and allow them to be part of the discussion you will be creating a much stronger relationship. What you find that engages your followers is the trial and error.
I’m now following you. 🙂
Actually, I’ve found twitter to be quite beneficial already. I’ve noticed an increase in traffic, and I’ve made some good connections already.
I will echo above comments: keep doin’ what you’re doin’. Twitter is a quirky social tool that lets other people do some real-time prying into others’ lives. It’s not an advertising/branding panacea, but it does do a great job of convincing people that there’s “somebody there.” There are right ways to do this, and there are wrong ways (see: presidential candidates’ twitter *yawn*).
I think you guys are doing an excellent job. Don’t lose hope.
I think it’ll be really useful during times of change in MA (e.g. Insurance Law, Big Dig Panel Collapse, etc).
I think when you hit the nail on the head you’ll definitely know it. I’m sort of struggling with the same issues in how to utilize twitter as a tool myself.
Hope all is well Ken, keep up the great work.
Nick
“Do you want WBUR news updates? Irreverent musings? Programming information? Personal trivia? Shout-outs to my peeps? A running chronology of my day?”
All of the above. 🙂
I’d love to see musings on your day, the news, your peeps…. whatever strikes your fancy that day. If there’s big breaking news, you could twitter about the coverage that didn’t make it on air. That’s always more interesting stuff. 🙂
Keep it up! (Just linked to you…)
[…] George at WBUR has turned the lights back on at WBUR’s twitter account and wrote yesterday (thanks, acarvin, for pointing me to it) about what the station twitter account should be. I remain […]
I started to write a reply via Twitter but concluded 140 characters wouldn’t suffice, so here’s my blog post replying to you. It’s called Public Broadcasting and Twitter? Engagement and Authenticity!
Thanks for the input, both here in the blog, as well as at the Social Media breakfast. You have all pretty much validated what I have been thinking and have tried to put into practice.
Your perspectives and suggestions are extraordinarily valuable, as you are familiar both with WBUR and the technology. An ideal sounding board! Expect more question in the future. And please “Tweet” me from time to time.
Andy’s post at his blog is full of gems about public broadcasters and Twitter. I will try to respond to his insights soon (both here and over at his blog).
I’ve finally posted a response to Andy’s insightful post.
You can read what I wrote
here.
[…] 7, 2008 by Ken George Months ago, I blogged about the resurrection of WBUR’s long-dormant Twitter account. 1,162 updates and a Tweet-Up later […]
[…] in hand we spend much of our time at WBUR fishing where the fish our (Past posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr ) despite the formidable challenges of quantifying the significance our […]