A nifty little blog about PR and journalism
While the Top 50 U.S. newspapers seem to be just starting to build up their fan base on Facebook, Twitter has been a priority for a while. If you were to rank the Top 25 U.S. newspapers by Twitter followers, the order would be much different than if you were to rank them by circulation.
When it comes to Twitter followers, The New York Times is the top bird with more than 2.6 million followers. To illustrate how impressive this follower number is, The Wall Street Journal only has 464,591 followers in the #2 spot. The New York Times is the ONLY newspaper from the Top 25 with more Twitter followers than print circulation.
Maybe The New York Times has such a huge Twitter following because it was the first of the Top 25 to join Twitter, way back in March 2, 2007. Probably not, since The Contra Costa Times, The Washington Post and The Oregonian all joined later that month.
How do the top 15 U.S. newspapers stack up when you rank them by Twitter followers? Here’s the list (click on the link to follow the newspaper on Twitter):
* UPDATE: it has been brought to my attention that The Chicago Tribune also has @ColonelTribune, a Twitter account that boasts a following of more than 845,000 Twitter followers. It appears this is their primary account, which would put them in the #2 spot on this list.
While we’re on the topic of newspapers and Twitter, I was surprised to see that only The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have Verified Twitter accounts – one two out of 25 of the top U.S. newspapers. As a credible source of information, you would think having a verified account would be a high priority for all the organizations on this list.
Note: these numbers are a little over a week old as of the posting date, but they were gathered within a one-hour timeframe to get the most accurate snapshot. I also realize newspapers have more than one Twitter account in some cases – I went with the primary Twitter account for the newspaper, versus any individual celebrity that might work for the paper.
I have at least four copies of The Elements of Style. Originally published in 1918 by William Strunk, Jr., this book has truly stood the test of time. It’s been a great writing resource for me over the years, even though there are still dozens of its rules that I break with each blog post. I recently read the book again and noticed how many of the rules are relevant for Twitter and other short-form, social media writing.
Here are some guidelines for tweeting adapted from or inspired by The Elements of Style. I hope you find these suggestions helpful and entertaining: [Read more...]
If you haven’t participated in a #journchat discussion yet, you’re missing out. The quality of the discussion is better than ever, as Sarah Evans has continued to build a strong, dedicated and passionate community around current topics in journalism, public relations and social media. If I had to give you one reason to swing by on Monday nights, I’d say you’re guaranteed to learn something new, make new connections and stay ahead of the curve on what’s going on in your industry today (is that one thing?).
One good example I’ll point out is from Question 5 of this week’s discussion, which asked participants to share the online applications, tools and resources that make their lives easier. I captured some of the most-common suggestions below, organized to the best of my ability, in hopes you find at least one resource useful in your daily work. [Read more...]
I’m sure most of you saw the coverage this week that Twitter’s PR was worth $48 million over the past month, according to media monitoring company VMS. First off, hats off to VMS for the (very) timely use of its data to hitch itself to all the Twitter buzz wagon. I wonder how much VMS’ publicity was worth this week? If there’s anything your organization can do to tap into that buzz machine, do it now.
While there is some debate among PR professionals over how the value of PR should be measured, particularly the value of publicity, there’s no question that the media’s love affair with Twitter has catapulted the company’s brand value in a very impressive fashion. What’s most impressive to me is they seem to have generated the publicity through no direct effort of their own. I was unable to find any reference to Twitter having a PR manager or agency, but my guess is somebody is prepping them for their interviews (then again, this isn’t their first go at this). There has to be ridiculous demand for Twitter’s spokespeople from the largest media organizations of the world. And frankly, that has to be a blast for them right now. [Read more...]
Is it more important to be first or to be right when reporting the news? When reporting the news today, to steal a quote from fictional race car driver Ricky Bobby, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” Take for example the sad news of Michael Jackson’s death yesterday. AOL-owned TMZ was the first to report that Jackson had died. And sadly, they did get it right.
You have to wonder whether TMZ really talked to a source, or rather just gambled and got it right. Does it matter? Had TMZ been wrong, we would have forgotten in a couple of hours. Instead, they were mentioned as the source by every news organization (not to mention in thousands of tweets). I’m sure there are thousands of people who had never heard of TMZ before yesterday. [Read more...]
Michael Arrington recently wrote about an interview he did with NPR about the idea of Process Journalism. In the post, Arrington says “Process Journalism is the posting of a story before it’s fully baked, something the New York Times officially despises, but they do it to.” The Times jab is a reference to a recent article that suggested blogs like TechCrunch posts rumors before a story is verified.
It’s hard to single out any media outlet for being more guilty of rumor mongering than the other these days. While TechCrunch may roll with a story faster than traditional media outlets might, that’s part of the reason blogs like TechCrunch have transformed the way we get our information (and why we love them so much). [Read more...]
