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Twitter me this: Can newspapers attract MORE followers with LESS content?

March 25, 2009 By 7 Comments

dinosaur-cartoonLike many other Americans, I’ve been getting most of my news these days via Twitter. And, I’m loving it.

With 20-50 local headlines delivered to my mobile phone each day, I’m aware of what’s going on in Madison, Wisconsin, without tuning in, logging on, or reading more. There’s no greater test to the inverted pyramid than the 140 character limit enforced by Twitter!

As a follower of the Capital Times (@captimes) and NBC 15 (@nbc15_madison), I get my daily news fix.  I’m not alone. @captimes has 735 followers. @nbc15_madison has 532 followers. The New York Times has more than 399,500 followers.

Why are Twitter streams becoming popular for news? They are more timely, manageable and digestible than other alternatives.  While it’s estimated that the New York Times produces about 500 articles per day, the @nytimes daily Twitter stream typically delivers less than 50 headlines. Twitter feeds have the potential of driving traffic better to newspapers than RSS feeds because they spoon feed information to followers by cell phone throughout the day.  And, Twitter has proven to be an effective way to report breaking news (see the video below).

The ability to monetize Twitter remains a challenge for newspapers at a difficult time. Advertising is down. Subscriptions are down. They are hemorrhaging. According to The Nielsen Company, newspaper ad spending fell 10.2 percent in 2008 — which is greater than the 2.6 percent decline in overall ad spending.

After declines in 2008,  the Madison-based Capitol Times newspaper (my local favorite) ceased its 19,355 daily (Monday-Saturday) circulation and became an Internet-based news operation with free offline supplements. In their new environment, tools like Twitter will become increasingly important.

“Newspapers in their current form are dangerously close to extinction,” said Daniel Wilkenson, cofounder of the Cournalist.  ”The age of the traditional newspaper is coming to an end, and the dawn of a more diversified media is at hand. The papers who accept this fact will survive and the ones who don’t will be lamenting the good ole’ years over unemployment.”

Credits: Cartoon is borrowed from the editorial in the Cournalist entitled Media Dinosaurs Continue Death Cry by Daniel Wilkenson.

Twitter & Breaking News

New-media expert Gaurav Mishra explains the role of new media, such as Twitter, in reporting breaking news in India.

Further Reading:

Filed Under: Misc T, Mobile, Twitter, Web Tagged With: , , , , , ,
About Troy Janisch

Troy Janisch, Publisher of Social Meteor, is a digital marketing professional and social media beatnik. He is a contributor to SmartBrief on Social Media. Troy leads the marketing team at Sentry Insurance, but don’t let that scare you. He rarely talks about insurance in mixed company [grin]. Like a good social media program, SocialMeteor.com is all about content. It’s not a consulting company or marketing agency.

  • http://www.socialmeteor.com TJ

    The Capitol Times triggered a 5-question survey after this post asking followers what they’re looking for. The questions?

    - How would you like to receive stories via Twitter? (automated or human editor)

    - How many tweets do you want per day? (only breaking news thru no limit)

    - What other news organizations do you follow on Twitter?

    - How do you use Twitter?

    - Do you want news from various categories all from one or several accounts?

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/troyjanisch Troy Janisch

    I read earlier this week that the New York Times is laying off some 100 business-side employees and cutting non-union salaries by 5 percent across the board.

    According to the NYT: “The layoffs represent almost 5 percent of more than 2,000 employees in the business operations of the flagship Times newspaper. It comes on top of other recent downsizing steps by the company, including the layoff of 27 people in the Times’ advertising department last month and 500 people in January, with the closure of the City and Suburban.”

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/troyjanisch Troy Janisch

    According to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) ad revenues in 2008 were the worst year in history. They reported that ad revenue fell a whopping 16.6 percent!

    According to their ’08 report:

    - classified ad spending plummeted 29.7 percent;
    - job ads dropped 42.5 percent; and
    - auto ads dropped 29.1 percent.

  • http://www.socialmeteor.com tj

    My favorite April Fool’s prank? The Guardian said it was going to become the first newspaper in the world to publish only via Twitter, a move that will “consolidate its position at the cutting edge of new media technology.”

    It suggested that its entire archives would be rewritten in Tweet form.

  • http://www.twitter.com/captimes Julie Warner

    Hey Troy,

    Thanks for the shoutout. I think The Capital Times has been getting a great response to our recent decision to give the community the choice of a lot or a little content. We created an RSS feed @captimesRSS for those who want everything, but decided to make our main account, @captimes, tweet only the important stories with an human personality attached to it.

    Here’s a link to the results of the survey you mentioned above. These definitely helped shape our decision. http://www.madison.com/tct/blogs/social/446633

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/troyjanisch Troy Janisch

    I’ve noticed Twitter improvements from the CapTimes. Few Tweets. More thought. Fun lead ins. They’re beginning to have some personality — which is what the Tweet streams from most newspapers lack.

    Too many newspapers are afraid to insert personality into their Tweet stream because they’re afraid it implies bias.

    I think it’s great!

  • http://151years.com Norman Flecha “STRAIGHTALK”

    Well my lil 2 cents I strongly agree WE should just simply STOP things like printing Books, NewPapers, or mags! Making people use the web should a prime priority for America..

    Oh and making the SNOW Channels available to the public would be Obama’s best move yet!!!