A little over a week ago, I started making changes to the main twitter account of the Ventura County Star (@vcstar).
The big change was that I took out all automation (the account was being populated by a "breaking" news feed that can now be found here: @vcsbreaking)... and made sure that each tweet was handcrafted.
The "big" lesson I learned:
And the traffic results were quite impressive. A screenshot I took yesterday from supr (which tracks clicks from links I'm posting to twitter) shows that the clicks on links that I've been posting have gone from a few hundred a day to over a thousand a day (and still growing pretty impressively).
However, more interesting, there has been a noticeable increase among VC Star staff in using Twitter. While I've made almost all the updates to all the accounts over the past two weeks or so (How I managed this without spending all day every day in front of a computer is worthy of a follow up post!), word is spreading about the power of twitter to not only publish ideas, but to crowdsource them. And I'm most excited that I've had more than a few journalists reach out to me to ask how they can get involved with using Twitter more effectively.
I'm confident that as the journalists get more involved, you're gonna see higher quality tweets, richer engagement, and better outreach to the VC community.
Probably the only lesson I've learned that has a negative slant is that I now think I've created one too many accounts. When I created the @vcsedu account, I hadn't realized just how much overlap there was between "education" and "community" articles. For almost every article with an educational slant, I'm conflicted because I also want to publish it in the community section. At least in the near term, I'm going to abandon the @vcsedu account.
So far, it's been a wild ride over the past two weeks or so where I feel like I've learned a ton about what works (and what doesn't) when tweeting as a newspaper, and I can't wait to see what great things happens as we get more journalists involved!
With regard to many of the things I'm doing with Twitter at the VC Star, I'm not sure where my original ideas start and where I was inspired by a great conversation I had last with Andrew Nystrom of the LA Times and Keven Sablan of the OC Register at the Redwood Bar. Hopefully, they see my actions at the VC Star along the lines of "imitation is the sincerest of flattery" or as my friend Downtown Scotty Brown says Amateurs retweet, professionals steal.
Finally, if you see the VC Star screwing something up on Twitter (or simply missing the boat on an opportunity), don't hesitate to let me know!
And since you made it this far, you might also find these resources interesting:
The big change was that I took out all automation (the account was being populated by a "breaking" news feed that can now be found here: @vcsbreaking)... and made sure that each tweet was handcrafted.
The "big" lesson I learned: - The VC Star has too much content for one twitter account. I quickly found that some of the more obscure articles were being shared and retweeted (and I love retweets!) but it rarely makes sense to publish "niche" articles to the main @vcstar account because I know that they could only appeal to a small portion of the accounts followers.
And the traffic results were quite impressive. A screenshot I took yesterday from supr (which tracks clicks from links I'm posting to twitter) shows that the clicks on links that I've been posting have gone from a few hundred a day to over a thousand a day (and still growing pretty impressively).
However, more interesting, there has been a noticeable increase among VC Star staff in using Twitter. While I've made almost all the updates to all the accounts over the past two weeks or so (How I managed this without spending all day every day in front of a computer is worthy of a follow up post!), word is spreading about the power of twitter to not only publish ideas, but to crowdsource them. And I'm most excited that I've had more than a few journalists reach out to me to ask how they can get involved with using Twitter more effectively. I'm confident that as the journalists get more involved, you're gonna see higher quality tweets, richer engagement, and better outreach to the VC community.
Probably the only lesson I've learned that has a negative slant is that I now think I've created one too many accounts. When I created the @vcsedu account, I hadn't realized just how much overlap there was between "education" and "community" articles. For almost every article with an educational slant, I'm conflicted because I also want to publish it in the community section. At least in the near term, I'm going to abandon the @vcsedu account.
So far, it's been a wild ride over the past two weeks or so where I feel like I've learned a ton about what works (and what doesn't) when tweeting as a newspaper, and I can't wait to see what great things happens as we get more journalists involved!
With regard to many of the things I'm doing with Twitter at the VC Star, I'm not sure where my original ideas start and where I was inspired by a great conversation I had last with Andrew Nystrom of the LA Times and Keven Sablan of the OC Register at the Redwood Bar. Hopefully, they see my actions at the VC Star along the lines of "imitation is the sincerest of flattery" or as my friend Downtown Scotty Brown says Amateurs retweet, professionals steal.
Finally, if you see the VC Star screwing something up on Twitter (or simply missing the boat on an opportunity), don't hesitate to let me know!
And since you made it this far, you might also find these resources interesting:
Hi Dustin Luther,
StumbleUpon has a drop-down MENU when you reach this site. Twitter doesn't provide a MENU.
Perhaps I don't understand your idea for Twitter followers. When you Tweet and have followers, do your followers sign-up in each of the following categories? So, each category is on a different Twitter page to "Follow"?
* @VCSCrime
* @VCSPolitics
* @TimeOutVCS
* @VCSCommunity
* @VCSEdu
* @VCSPreps
* @VCSEats
* @VCSBiz
* @VCSFire
Please note that when I follow other media, just one news item and URL will take me to their site's Home Page where I read more than Biz or Edu or Fire.
Thank you.
~Sharlet (aka Sharliebel)
Writer Poet Stories Reviewer P.R. Educator
www.sharliebel.wordpress.com
Sharlet,
I'm not sure I totally understand your question...
However, the logic I'm using is that if you want to get all the information about a particular topic as covered by the VC Star ("politics" for example), then I'd recommend that you subscribe (or follow) the @VCSPolitics account.
If you want a mixture of the top news/story items (as determined by myself and the editors at the VC Star), then I'd recommend subscribing to the @vcstar account.
Does that help?
Re: "How I managed this without spending all day every day in front of a computer is worthy of a follow up post!"
Some people don't like automation. Though I understand and appreciate their position, I think their being too "purist" about it. A little automation isn't exactly a bad thing. :-)
Thats very good to know... thanks