Saturday, March 12, 2011

Add one more Twitter feed to your list: Gannett's

It hadn't occurred to me until now that Corporate didn't have an active Twitter account. Now, it does -- an @gannett feed started, apparently, in concert with the new corporate branding campaign. "We're tweeting about trends in media marketing and what's happening with our portfolio of news and media companies,'' says @gannett's bio.

The first tweet was published March 3 -- approximately four years after Twitter initially caught fire at the 2007 South by Southwest festival, now underway once more in Austin, Texas. (Indeed, it appears someone from Corporate is twittering there as I post this.)

At the moment, @gannett has 224 followers. Meanwhile, the unauthorized and irreverent @gannettlogo has 253. (And yours truly has 929 @gannettblog. But, really, who's counting?)

7 comments:

  1. Seems like they can't figure out whether they want to tweet links to news stories (USAT tsunami coverage) or to tweet about the media business.

    Those are two completely different types of tweets that will attract two different sets of followers, and a blend of both probably won't attract any. It's somewhat ironic that a media company would stumble like this out of the gate.

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  2. 8:50 In fact, @gannett's bio says it means to do both. I suspect that, over time, it will focus on media business.

    Otherwise, as you say, it'll be too fuzzy. After all, the individual papers already have their own Twitter feeds for content.

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  3. It says media marketing so I assume target is advertisers. The newspaper sites have their own feeds. But given a horrific earthquake in Japan, they cannot ignore that. seems logical for a news company to link their coverage.

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  4. Maybe the @gannett twitter account can get someone to update the Gannett logo atop the Crystal Palace -- it's still the old design.

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  5. Mind-bogglingly inept. GCI not only can't stay ahead of trends. It can't even follow them with any sense of relevance, timing or understanding of how exactly 'this thing works.'

    You can only imagine CD sitting there in his lofty CP thrown, patting his belly, crowing to any subordinate within audible range, 'See?! We really ARE what they call these days, a 'New Media' company! We got a TWITTER account now! D-yamn right!' (High fives all around.)

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  6. The boss wanted a Twitter account when we started rolling them out for reporters. So we gave the boss one. The boss never followed anyone. The boss never tweeted.

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  7. Yep, 10:59 p.m., had that in Westchester. Maybe if the newsroom had a recording of a train whistle it might have drawn more attention to itself.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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