St. Louis Post-Dispatch designer Erica Smith has released her second monthly analysis of the newspapers and newspaper journalists that Twitter. (Her July report is here.)
When Hurricane Gustav was heading toward New Orleans, the @gustavreporter (Chicago Tribune) and @trackinggustav (Statesman) were on top of it. With hurricane-specific accounts and reports from Louisiana. (Notice a trend? Those papers get it.) Statesman Internet editor Robert Quigley said @trackinggustav received 6,500+ page views directly related to his Twitter posts.
All of this re-affirms four things:
1. Newspapers can and should participate in social media.
2. Participating means not just throwing headlines at your readers, but following them and listening to what’s going on.
3. With Twitter, newspapers can make and break news just as quick — if not quicker — as the competition.
4. Twitter can drive traffic to your site.
Read the full post for her overview of Twitter’s increasing role in journalism. She tabulates an exhaustive list and analysis that covers
- which newspapers and journalists are Twittering
- relative follower gains and losses
- how the feed is being updated
The New York Times dominates the analysis, with 6 of the top 10 most followed newspaper Twitter streams, and 24 feeds overall, which is about twice as many as other top “Twittering” newspaper properties. (It should be no surprise to readers that our own Boston Globe has just 6 feeds, although that’s no bad considering their recent coverage of Twitter.)
