Enjoy this interesting study from Pew and the George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs on how the mainstream media is using Twitter.

 

While we’ll spare you a long analysis (but we’d be happy to talk with you about it), what you’ll see is most mainstream media brands are using Twitter as a push-out, impersonal process, and not for engagement or discovery.  This is not surprising, as many see Facebook as the conversation and Twitter as just a delivery and self-promotion tool (that’s one of the reasons so many people become disenfranchised with Twitter – too many people and brands aren’t using it right or cultivating meaningful relationships with followers).

 

Disseminating information is fine, but Twitter is also for engagement and discovery, too.  It’s called social media, not self-promotion media.  But there are clear differences as to how to use Twitter from Facebook, which we’ll outline in future posts.

 

As we’ve been saying to clients for years, to truly succeed in social media, understanding how to use each platform is important and a clear strategy is required.  Otherwise, it’ll be a lot of wasted time.  We’re eager to talk about your social strategies whenever you’re ready.  No, we’re not using Twitter or Facebook very much at all, for many reasons, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be.