Sportswriters funnier on Twitter?

http://sportsjournalism.org/sports-media-news/the-tale-of-two-twitterers/

Interesting piece from the Sports Journalism Center at IU.

Should those of us who don't tweet feel left out?

 

I've been lucky enough to avoid the Twitter fad so far ... and I think that's what it is.

I too get more from this place then I'd ever get from anyone on Twitter. To me, it's "Short Attention Span Theater" for the Internet age.

 

It may be a fad, but done right, it can get you a larger audience. I remember reading somewhere (I'm too lazy to look it up and link to it right now) that 10 percent of the New York Times' traffic is now coming straight from Twitter. At my day job pub, we get stories that pop on there enough to make it 40 or 50 percent of the traffic it gets that week. The key is to be entertaining, and to make it a conversation with other Tweeters, rather than just posting stuff. (I'm guilty of just posting stuff -- since I switched blog sites, I haven't been so good about retweeting and such.)

I bet a lot of those 6,000 people following Dan Jenkins didn't know who the heck he was before he started tweeting. In the Internet age, you can't wait for an audience to come to you, and Twitter, for now, is a good way to go get one.

 

Did I miss anything in that link about sportswriters being funnier on Twitter?

 

Loved Kindred's take on the same page:

http://sportsjournalism.org/sports-media-news/a-columnist-starts-to-adapt-to-the-twitter-generation/

Terrific exercise, trying to get a whole column into 140 words.

 

From Jason Fry's piece:

But sportswriters are funnier and looser on Twitter. Their personalities shine through better. And perhaps because Twitter is still so new, they’ve made the service whatever they wish, rather than fitting themselves into it.

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I'm not sure I buy that logic. I'd much rather do a column. More than 140 words of me is a good thing ..

 

140 characters, BTW.

Also, I disagree with his point. SOME are funnier and looser. Some prove why they have editors.

 

I thought 140 words sounded like too many. Proves how Twitter-illiterate I am I guess ...

 

Ten percent of site traffic for the New York Times comes from Twitter. Beat your boss to the punch and start doing it.

As writers we can no longer complain about the shitty situations our industry is in if refuse to take the easy steps to help our products survive.

You owe it to yourself to start an account for your paper, your section or whatever. It's as easy as posting on this site. I will personally help anyone on here who needs help setting up an RSS Feed, linking to a Facebook account or getting more followers.

Twitter is a valuable tool if you know how to use it.

 

I just read the same column last week. I presented it at a staff meeting on Wednesday noting Facebook (3 percent) and Twitter (1 percent) are our third, and sixth best referring domains and account for four total percent of our web traffic. We've only been on those sites for nine months and Twitter has been on the back burner for much of that time. Starting January 1st, when we have more followers and fans, we are going to begin selling ads to local advertisers who want another outlet, or cheaper ad pricing that Gannett currently cannot offer.


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"Getting" Twitter No Longer An Option

Posted by Jay Friedman on September 27, 2009 at 09:56 PM PDT

1 comment, Latest by Jacob Harris

What percent of Nytimes.com's traffic comes from Twitter? 1%? 2%? No, 10%. Yup, one of every 10 visitors to the web's 58th largest site comes from Twitter. This is likely a contributing factor to Nytimes.com traffic growing ~1MM monthly uniques over the last year to boot. Yet people in our industry still don’t choose to understand Twitter’s importance.

Facebook was once relegated to this same "I don't get it" status but is now the darling of our industry. A quick look at the numbers show why Twitter, and any other up and coming social communication tool is worth watching.

New York Times
Facebook fans: 473,692
Twitter followers: 1,898,952

Not fair because it's a communications outlet and not a brand?

Try Zappos:
Facebook fans: 2,624
Twitter followers: 1,364,991

Or Jet Blue:
Facebook fans: 30,864
Twitter followers: 1,285,797

This report by Nielsen online also shows that Twitter is the fastest growing member community destination, increasing 1,382 percent year over year.

Yes, there are plenty of brands with many more Facebook fans than Twitter followers but this post isn't saying Twitter is better than Facebook, just something industry participants can no longer ignore. Yet, it still baffles me how many people within our industry haven’t bothered to just get on Twitter to “get it”.

If you suggest that Twitter (or facebook for that matter) is only a place where people post 140-character statements about what they ate for dinner, think again. Most all major brands now have some form of monitoring in place to listen to what customers are saying about them . Other companies use it as a way to humanize their brand and speak to their customers. Tweet about Dunkin Donuts and, chances are, they will respond to your tweet with a personal message. That kind of real-time engagement excites customers, keeps them engaged, and most importantly, drives them to become hardcore fans of your brand.

So, if you're reading this and indeed are one of these people, sign up for Twitter today. Pick ten 'handles' to follow (you can start here or here.) Then give it a month. You'll frequently learn something new and most importantly, even if you never tweet, you'll “get” a very important trend in our industry.

 

Not totally dinosauric, here's what I said about that experimental columnette...

"Not tweet-small, not 140 characters. How about 140 words?"