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Multiple people, one account?
How can reporters send messages out to readers using one Twitter account (registered to the newspaper)?
I’m hopeful
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Inappropriate?Not hard at all. You just set up an account and go.
You'll have to make your reporters submit using the online interface, though. I don't think you can do it any other way.
But, here's the hard part: You have to encourage your readers to follow you on Twitter. Just like newspaper publishing, you've got to build those subscribers.
Also, I would be careful about sending out too many updates. I have followed my favorite bloggers, but then stopped following them because they were sending out too many messages that were simply promos for their blog posts.
Macworld magazine (full disclosure: I used to work there) is an example of a publisher trying to do this: http://twitter.com/macworld
I would say your best bet is to think of Twitter as a way to reach your most dedicated readers -- your super fans -- who may want additional, *exclusive* content.
I’m a former newspaper man
1 person says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Eric,
Unrelated to this thread, but didn't know you use to work for Macworld :-)
I’m learning new things about his twitter peeps
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Inappropriate?Yup. And I'm still following some of those Macworld twitter peeps.
I’m publishing right now
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Inappropriate?Two possibilities come to mind:
1. Use Twittermail.com.
When you register with Twittermail, they give you an email address (with a twittermail.com domain) which is associated with one Twitter account. Anything you send to that email address gets posted on that Twitter account.
If you provide that email address to all your reporters, they should be able to post to a single Twitter account via email. The drawbacks are: (1) they'd have to identify who they are with each tweet; and (2) they can't all post via sms since only one mobile number can be associated with the account.
2. Use Twitterfeed.
Twitterfeed grabs the content of RSS feeds and posts it into a Twitter account. So if each of your reporters had a Twitter account, you can take the RSS feeds of those Twitter accounts and use Twitterfeed to post their content into the newspaper's Twitter account.
Added benefits: (1) Twitterfeed lets you "tag" each feed with a unique tag, so you know exactly which reporter said what in the group account. (2) If your readers only wish to follow one reporter and not all reporters, your readers will have that option since they each have individual accounts.
If your reporters use their Twitter accounts for personal purposes also, Twitterfeed also has a 'keyword filter' feature that will ignore tweets that do not contain a specific keyword. So if a reporter wants the tweet to show up in the newspaper's account, they just have to include a pre-agreed keyword in the text of their tweet. Otherwise, Twitterfeed will ignore their tweet.
I’m in a good mood
1 person says
this answers the question
2 Comments Add a comment
This answers the question
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Looks like Twitterfeed has introduced some restrictions in the 8 months since I wrote that reply. Perhaps GroupTweet (linked below) or Twittermail (described above) will still be able to meet your needs...?
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Inappropriate?See also: GroupTweet.
