Time for a Twitter Twattergy?
May 18th, 2009 by Jon Clements
It sounds like something the speech-impeded Elmer Fud might say, but - in fact - it belongs to The Guardian, as writer Emily Bell shares with us in today’s 25th anniversary edition of Media Guardian.
Apparently, it’s what the Guardian’s head of social media has come up with to describe the necessary approach to digital that the traditional media must take - rather than the tried and trusted journalistic tactic of focusing on exclusivity.
As Bell says, the Guardian’s “twattergy” is to “positively encourage people to use [these] social platforms [Twitter, Facebook, YouTube] in the most effective ways possible”.
And that’s not a bad approach for any organisation which believes that people with an interest in it might be searching it out on the internet. But relying on the corporate website of old - static, closed, communicating in one direction, i.e., at you - is no longer enough and will more likely do your business a disservice in the socially connected world of the today’s world wide web.
Take Twitter: a major retailer we’ve been working with recently had made a humble start with the social network by setting up Twitter accounts, but not going much further. But once its people began to test the medium and find that their tweets were not necessarily disappearing into the online equivalent of a black hole - and were starting to generate results - the activity suddenly made sense.
What it takes is a…well…twattergy. For existing Twitter users, this isn’t a bad place to start.
If you are just thinking about dipping a virtual toe in the social media pond, then either read as much as you can about it or get some good advice from someone who’s doing it before taking the plunge. The opportunities are great, but so are the risks.
Tags: Emily Bell, Media Guardian, Social Media, Twattergy, twitter
May 18th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Oh I think I get it now (I was focusing on the “twat” rather than the “strat”).
May 18th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Robert
I’m glad we’ve sorted that out.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
[…] the ways to describe the beguiling phenomenon of Twitter that have sprung up, the best has to be The Guardian Media desk’s heading for all memos about their own Twitter Strategy: Twatergy. It’s something not to be ignored but a pain in the arse at the same […]