Ms. Adverthinker

These are my rambling thoughts on Twitter use lately.  Clearly not well-formed yet, these notes are simply a way to ask you if you are using Twitter similarly or differently.

LOCAL POSTS

While I may not post tweets as frequently as others, I am reading tweets up to 15 hours a day.  I keep Seesmic Desktop active on my computer throughout the day and I frequently reference the Tweetie app on my iPhone when away from my computer.  I have noticed something about my tendencies as I scan the posts: I focus on the local people, but national news.  I follow 187 “people” on Twitter; that is a lot of news and information streaming in throughout the day.  And, while I glance at all of them, when in a hurry I look for the people I “know” and those tend to be locals.  And by “locals,” I mean the average, everyday person that is on Twitter and sharing news and information, not the local news (with the exception of a few, they still haven’t figured out how to make Twitter useful except when it comes to weather updates).

Posting constant Twitter updates is personally revealing.  As a result, you can feel like you “know” people you have no chance of meeting.  However, on a local level, there is a chance of actually meeting the people that you feel like you “know” from their Twitter updates.  Does this possibility make their posts more interesting and engaging?

FREQUENCY OF POSTS

The people and organizations that posts strings of tweets one after the other definitely get overlooked by me.  When they do this, I feel like they are crowding the space and trying to take it over.  That is not what social media is all about; social media is about sharing information in two-way communications.  It is putting something out there and looking for a response.  It is not a newscast.

LINKS

I am clicking through on embedded Twitter links more frequently; I am not sure if this is because more people are using them or if people are getting smarter about how to write their tweets in a way that intrigue people enough to click through.  If I click through on an embedded link in a tweet, I would consider that tweet successful: the message was effectively “teased” in the 140-character limit of Twitter.  However, if I am disappointed by what I find, the chances of me clicking through on link from that user again are slim.  The content that doesn’t disappoint can be anything from photos and articles to long-form video; it doesn’t matter what is there, as long as it was relevant to that tweet and ultimately interesting, it works.

Starting today, my favorite morning program - MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” - will be sponsored by Starbucks.  According to the New York Times, this is

“…the closest integration between an advertiser and a national news program in recent memory. Harkening back to the ‘Camel News Caravan,’ an NBC news roundup sponsored by a cigarette manufacturer in the 1950s, graphics and voice-overs will tell viewers that ‘Morning Joe’ is ‘brewed by Starbucks.’”

The hosts, Joe and Mika already drink Starbucks every morning and have conversations about their coffee drinks during several shows a week.  It is a smart move for Starbucks to make the endorsement official.  I am not sure it is smart for “Morning Joe” to accept the sponsorship.  However, I wonder if it will change the honest conversations that Joe and Mika have about the coffee.  Mika regularly chides Joe regularly about his fatty drink topped with piles of whipped cream while she sets a good example with her “healty Starbucks drink.”  Will they have to only make positive comments about the drinks from this point forward?

The sponsorship is encompassing and includes graphics and several mentions during the show.  “The anchors and the coffee company may team up on charitable initiatives. And the program may be broadcast from Starbucks locations when it travels, as it did last year for the political conventions and this year for the inauguration.”

Of course, the show promises to cover Starbucks news fairly and will not be biased by the sponsorship.  Regardless, I think of “Morning Joe” as a serious news show–not the morning candy of “The Today Show” and “Good Morning America”–so when Joe leads into the commercial break with “you are watching ‘Morning Joe,’ brewed by Starbucks” (as he did this morning), I have a harder time taking him seriously.

I will admit that I have never been an avid radio listener.  For the most part, the reason for this lack of interest has been the radio “personalities.”  I have never found one that “clicks” with me.  Unfortunately, I think that local radio has to cater to the lowest common denominator of public taste in order to make the money they need to make to stay on the air.  But, let’s be honest: all media outlets are trying to figure out how to stay in business right now with the free online media onslaught.

Enter NPR.  NPR is growing.  The April issue of Fast Company has an article on NPR:

“In one of the great under-told media success stories of the past decade, NPR has emerged not as the bespectacled schoolmarm of our imagination but as a massive news machine poised for what Dick Meyer, editorial director for digital media, half-jokingly calls ‘world domination.’ NPR’s listenership has nearly doubled since 1999, even as newspaper circulation dropped off a cliff. Its programming now reaches 26.4 million listeners weekly — far more than USA Today’s 2.3 million daily circ or Fox News’ 2.8 million prime-time audience. When newspapers were closing bureaus, NPR was opening them, and now runs 38 around the world, better than CNN.  It has 860 member stations — ‘boots on the ground in every town’ that no newspaper or TV network can claim. It has moved boldly into new media as well: 14 million monthly podcast downloads, 8 million Web visitors, NPR Mobile, an open platform, a social network, even crowdsourcing. And although the nonprofit has been hit by the downturn like everyone else, its multiple revenue streams look far healthier long term than the ad-driven model of commercial media.”

NPR attributes this growth, and now sustainability, to its multiplatform distribution outlets: it has capitalized on the technology trends.  “It was the first mainstream-media organization to enter podcasting and often has several programs in the iTunes top 10….Traffic on NPR.org grew 78% from 2007 to 2008.”

This weekend, during a conversation with Blake’s Think Tank, the discussion veered to the importance of offering content to consumers in a format in which they want to receive it: no longer can the media expect consumers to come to them for the content.  We had this conversation in the context of literature, news and the Amazon Kindle.  However as it turns out, this is very relevant when it comes to radio too, evident by NPR’s success.  Radio is a convenience media outlet: “‘People don’t have 15 minutes to sit at home and read the newspaper, but you can get accurate, in-depth reporting as you sit in traffic,’ or make dinner, or clean out the garage.  It’s a screen-free complement to online browsing.”  And, people will get access to this information live by tuning in to the radio, or by downloading and listening on their iPods, or by streaming it from their computers.  NPR has given them the freedom to decide how to consume the information.  And that is making them a winner in this new distribution competition.

While it helps that NPR does not depend on advertising dollars for sustainability, it is dealing with the down economy too: “All sources of funding, from corporate underwriting to foundation grants, dipped last year, causing a projected $23 million budget shortfall for fiscal 2009.”  This news delivery battle will come down to the survival of the fittest.  Will it be radio?

Little Rock’s NPR station can be found on 89.1 and at kuar.org.  Tune in now: according to Fast Company, “…someday soon we may be looking at a world where public radio emerges as the main local-news source in many communities coast to coast.”

UPDATE: Blake’s Think Tank reports on NPR audience increases:

“Washington-based NPR will release new figures to its stations today showing that the cumulative audience for its daily news programs hit 20.9 million a week, a 9 percent increase over the previous year,” reports The Washington Post.”

Another brand takes advantage of current events.

This is how a brand should use social media. Zappos, known for their vast shoe catalog, taps into the news of President Bush ducking shoes thrown at him in Iraq and creates their own video. And, they post it immediately to make it relevant.

The talk about Twitter right now is abundant.  It seems that it has finally reached the masses and people (and companies) are starting to get more interested in it.  The Wall Street Journal has even written about it.  I signed up for Twitter about a year ago and write my own tweets pretty intermittently - some days I am very active, other days nothing (you can see my latest Twitter posts in the right-hand column on this blog).  However, I keep Twhirl open on my desktop every day and track many people and news organizations.  I am addicted to getting that feed directly to my desktop all day long.

It is an interesting social phenomenon: humans have always been curious about other people’s lives and thoughts, and now people actually want to openly share their lives and have found a way to deliver those straight to your desktop or cell phone instantly.  I am amazed at how open our lives have become, including mine.  I have always been a private person, but now I am sharing everything online and am having fun doing it.  Part of me feels like I have to do it out of fairness: I love reading everyone’s else’s information and I feel too voyeuristic if I am not sharing my own.

(If you love reading about people’s lives and don’t mind feeling voyeuristic, check out PostSecrets: “an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.”  I am also addicted to this site.  Some of the secrets are funny, some are scary and many are sad.  I think this site has a interesting way of making people feel not so alone in the world.  It is also a cool mash-up of traditional communication (mail) with online communication (blog).  It reminds me of a more anonymous Twitter.)

For now, Twitter seems to be best for communicating up-to-the-second news updates and keeping up with your friends.  I am interested to see how companies will use it to communicate with their customers and if customers will actually “follow” companies through Twitter.  How Twitter will be used as a direct marketing tool has not fully been determined yet.  Marketers can (and should) be using Twitter to better understand their customers and their perceptions of brands/companies; we should think of it as an online focus group.  Through the Twitter search feature, we can plug in company names and see what people are saying about us and our clients.

A new Twitter project that I love is My First Tweet.  This was created by Noah Brier of Brand Tags-fame (I am jealous of his ingenuity when it comes to things like this).  My First Tweet is a database of people’s first words on Twitter.  He calls it “an anthropological dig on Twitter.”  Love this.

For those in Arkansas: Thank you to Lance Turner of Arkansas Business for the shout out on his blog as a local Twitter-er.  Check out what Lance says about Twitter here.  Blake Rutherford also recently wrote about his use of Twitter: see his comments at Blake’s Think Tank and follow Blake’s political commentary on Twitter.

You can follow me on Twitter here.