Passionate about technology, media and chocolate eclairs, I've worked in web and print for over twenty years and now run a digital media consultancy in Scotland.
And so it was not to be. The Highland Council’s bid to end its system of emailing press releases to its list of media contacts presented such an uproar that it was forced to rethink its decision to replace the service with a Twitter feed.
And, despite my passion and support of social media, particularly Twitter, I think it was a bit of a badly thought out decision in the first place.
The council, in its wisdom, gave us less than two weeks notice that its press releases would no longer be sent by email, and that a Twitter feed would deliver links to the website instead.
I seriously checked my calendar to see if it was April Fool’s Day. Without being too critical of local media, none are using Twitter to any realistic professional degree, and it seems the council didn’t even seek the opinion of its recipients.
However, the media were quick to voice their opinion when they got the surprise notification in their email. At lease two media organisations decided that clicking ‘reply all’ was one way to get support from their colleagues in the media and clearly nailed their colours to the mast in their objections. One journalist I spoke to said the council would get no coverage in their organ if they switched to Twitter.
So is it the media not ready for Twitter, or the council jumping the gun?
It’s a bit of both… printed media in the Highlands, Moray and Aberdeenshire has a very poor presence where social media are concerned. The Press and Journal do a news feed on Twitter, but there is little from the core weekly newspapers, largely owned by one company.
The council has an obligation to provide a service that works for its recipients, and email does that exceedingly well in this context. I suspect, as I said here (Council’s bold move on social media) that going on Twitter is more about spreading their news deeper into the community – perhaps even bypassing the media or even beating it to the wire. The council makes no secret of the fact its news service is now on Twitter!
The upshot is that the council now have the best of both worlds. The old email system that that keeps the media happy, and the new Twitter system that gives them more exposure.
How the weeklies will take to the council seemingly openly publishing to the community first, remains to be seen.
I sigh heavily when I learn of another organisation deciding to use Twitter, because they believe it’s the one stop way to get into “Social Media.”
Unfortunately, bar one tweet, the Highland Council is using it merely to announce new content on its website.
If that’s all they want to do, then they could publish an RSS feed instead. Unfortunately, there is currently no means of obtaining an RSS feed from their site, which is probably why they’ve sought an alternative (manual) solution.
The Highland Council should wholly embrace the opportunities that Twitter gives them by involving its community, bringing ‘us’ and ‘them’ together, and thus more comprehensively breaking the ties with the local media.