DISQUS

Old Media, New Tricks: Answering the New York Times’ Twittering question

  • Jacob Harris · 7 months ago
    Funnily enough, following and retweets are simple concepts that can be fraught with difficulty for the New York Times. The problem is the perception of endorsement that comes with following users (presumably you don't follow people you hate) For instance, imagine a situation where the Times autofollows users that follow it. And so the Times autofollows the White House or some liberal PAC or such. Next thing you know, it's evidence that the Times is clearly advocating the liberal agenda!

    Alternatively, suppose followers are manually selected. Then the Times is being an elitist kingmaker. Given some of the spleen directed towards the Suggested User List, it's not too farfetched to imagine a similar reaction.

    This is not to say that either reaction is particularly reasonable (and that policies might change), but the Times always tries to avoid even mistaken perceptions of partiality, so these are the kinds of things to be considered.
  • Robert Quigley · 7 months ago
    Jacob,

    I understand what you're saying, and I agree that if the Times were to follow *only* special-interest groups of a certain persuasion, that case would be made. If it followed most people who followed it, I think the Times could stand behind what it's doing without worry.

    On a much larger point, even if the Times chose to not follow anyone back, I think it still should interact with its Twitter followers. Take the Ashton Kutcher example: He doesn't follow that many people, but he responds to people, which makes his presence on Twitter much more rich. I think that's where the Times could benefit. Someone there could be monitoring what is being sent on Twitter (via @replies to the Times), and responding with @replies back. That type of interactivity makes the Times, and anyone else, much more accessible. You wouldn't answer every question or respond to every person (it would be nearly impossible), but you could pick-and-choose. Listening and interactivity are central to what Twitter, and social media in general, are all about.

    I think it's good that the Times is asking for opinions. Thanks for listening to ours, and thanks for the comment!

    Cheers,
    Robert
  • Andrew Nystrom / @AdNys · 7 months ago
    A factual FTR: The leaked memo from @jonathanlandman posted here (unauthenticated) http://bit.ly/wPGC9 [via @NiemanLab] says:

    "Did you know that The New York Times is No. 2 on the Twitterholic.com Top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers? (Behind Ashton Kutcher but ahead of Ellen DeGeneres.)"

    Actually, @nytimes is #14 Twitterholic.com (with an enviable 935,824 followers, as of this comment, or 939,128 on twitter.com itself) -- perhaps he meant #2 in "New York City" behind Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon)? http://twitterholic.com/top100/followers/byloca...

    In any case, I warmly welcomed @nyt_Jenpreston to the social realm via an as-yet unanswered @reply and wish her all the best. It's a social jungle out there.

    ~ @latimesnystrom / http://latimes.com/twitter
  • Aron Pilhofer · 7 months ago
    -- Robert: I have not had a chance to talk to Jennifer yet, so take this with a major grain of salt. But if I were a betting man, I would bet that some level of interaction is a virtual certainty. Whether it comes through the main NYT feed (which to this point has not served that purpose) or some other channel remains to be seen. I've know Jennifer for a long, long time, and can tell you she is the ideal person (and personality) for this job. Give her a bit of time to get settled and figure things out, and you'll see great things.

    -- AndrewNystromLAT: This was an internal memo, so I'm thinking it probably didn't go through a particularly rigorous editing process... But since you brought it up, I believe Jon was referring to our combined followership, not just the number of followers to our main twitter account.

    The Times, as you may or may not know, has several Twitter feeds. Notice The Moment there at roughly 550K followers, for example. There are a number of other feeds with relatively large numbers, which, combined, come to something between Ashton and Ellen.

    Would this methodology withstand peer review, or even our typical copy editing process? Probably not. But there you go anyway.
  • Daniel · 6 months ago
    Man, that's a Medill "F," Aron.

    Joking. But you're right. When you combine the reach of the main feeds, the reporter feeds -- hell -- and Soraya, you have a captive audience. No doubt about that, dude.
  • Ismael · 6 months ago
    Great post! I have mixed feelings about the Times appointing someone to that position with very little experience with social media. It doesn't matter if that person has a great background and a wealth of experience. I feel like the skateboarder with the rep noticing the a new kid that comes on and everyone knows he's the poser.
  • Daniel · 6 months ago
    Still, most folks would be envious of that audience. It just will take a lot to manage it properly, I think.
  • tessalenore · 6 months ago
    i enjoyed your presentation. question though how do i add the option of recording a video response/comment on my tumblr?
  • Daniel · 6 months ago
    I think I just have to update the Disqus plug-in for this blog. :Grumble: