It's something I've long suspected. After all, you only have to look at the profiles of some big names on Twitter, be they individuals or organisations. Most of them have gazillions of followers, but few follow more than a handful of people themselves. It kinda suggests that they're doing a whole lot of talking but not a whole lotta listening.
Some new research by the Pew Institute supports this. They analysed 600 tweets from 13 news organizations for a week in February this year. The findings are pretty stark.
- 93% of tweets contained a link to their own site
- Just 6% contained no link at all
- Only 1% linked to another news site
- 1% linked to non-news related content
Is it fair to suggest that journalists and their employers aren't doing any listening via Twitter? That seems to be the accusation levelled by Mashable.
I'm inclined to think it a little unfair however. For me I wouldn't expect to get a response if I tweeted @TelegraphNews, however if I tweeted @JulianSambles I'd feel much more optimistic.
Obviously news organisations could still follow the example set by other industries and be a bit more responsive to their readers, but if we're looking to influence the people that write the stories rather than the organisations that publish them I still think Twitter is a good means of doing so.
I think that's right. I've found that Twitter has been great for talking to journalists that previously I'd have never had any access to at all. A big improvement on what things used to be like.
That's because most big brands, be they corporations or celebrities, use Twitter as another broadcast channel. Most of them are not really interested in engaging.
Mashable have a nice article on this very issue. They reveal that for big stories people go direct to the journalist rather than the news organisation.
http://mashable.com/2011/12/21/twitter-prefers-jo…