LEWIS 360°

A Twit arrives on Twitter

It took me a while to be convinced of the power of Twitter. Too much mind-numbing triviality, too much of the "Look At Me, I'm In With The In-crowd," too much of "Actually, I'm not quite sure what the hell I'm doing."

However, today The Daily Mirror nobly informs us that Jonathan Ross has been using the micro-blogging website to prattle on about how much fun he has been having since the Beeb decided to suspend him for three months following the row over Sachsgate.

To quote the self-styled "ageing roue", Wossy informs the blogosphere: "Smoking a cigar and watching Sex and the City season 6. Suspension is fun. Wondering what record I should play on first radio show. Maybe - You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone."

Now, I wasn't one who joined the tabloid-inspired stampede calling for Ross to be hung, drawn and quartered over what was basically a crass, puerile and certainly unfunny stunt. However, surely it would have been wiser for him to keep his head down and not broadcast his smug thoughts to the burgeoning ranks of the Twitterati?

The fact that a mainstream red-top has picked up JR's self-satisfied Tweets and published them proves the growing power of Twitter among journalists and its arrival to a mass market audience. Any PR wanting to stay in touch, place a story, convey a message or fathom what reporters are up to, ignores the site at their peril.

However, there is room for improvement on Twitter and Ross's arrival on the scene is a great moment to shake things up. How about cutting the 140-word message limit for annoying, self-regarding celebs for a start?

 

Do PR people Dominate Twitter asks BusinessWeek

Interesting conversation taking place on BusinessWeek reporter and Numerati author, Stephen Baker's blog.

To boil it down, there are a few uneasy BusinessWeek reporters roaming the halls because their Twitter handle has been exposed (isn't that the point of Twitter?) and, voila, they have 500 more followers than this time last week - most of whom are PR professionals (and they have 500 more by tomorrow).

So what's the concern?

If it's that they're worried they'll be spammed with point product release announcements and new hire releases, I understand. But my argument is that tools like Twitter are making us better and more effective at communicating. We're truly interested in what the media is publishing/broadcasting. That's our job. So rather than relying on Cision or Vocus, which are generally solid databases but can hardly keep up with today's pace of change with beats, likes/dislikes, etc., we need to know what journalists want.

For example, countless emails are shared daily across my agency alerting colleagues how to pitch reporter X, how reporter Y wants tech gadgets sent to him, or the fact that reporter Z only excepts pitches via Yahoo Messenger on Saturday mornings between 8:30am - 8:35am. Fine. We want to know so we can be a better resource. In fact, as I was writing this post, the following email came to my in-box:

Hey all,

<REPORTER NAME> tends to post questions a lot via Twitter. Has anyone responded? I’d like to know if she prefers receiving pitch responses via email, Twitter or a Direct Message on Twitter.

Dare I say it, but we also make suggestions as to what we believe their readers will want. Sure, there's the weekly anti-PR rant about a flack who failed to do his/her homework prior to hitting the send button. But that's good for us and good for reporters. Those that fail to play within the rules will be left behind.

If the concern is more a change management issue, the crumbling walls between reporter and everyone else, the window into their profession and perhaps losing control, that I do not understand. They'll just have to get used to it.

Christmas Crunch

Season's Greetings everyone from LEWIS. In this year's LEWIS Christmas Card we see Santa being hit by the global credit crunch. Sad times indeed. But fret not, as you can help him earn some money and make him dance for his turkey dinner.

Click on the link below and see if you can get on the high score table.

http://www.lewispr.com/christmascrunch/

G1 v iPhone v Storm v... Javelin?

In the UK each of the main network operators has been able to boast exclusive rights to a big new handset. O2 started things off by gaining exclusive rights to the iPhone. T-Mobile managed to secure Google's G1 for themselves and then Vodafone snapped up the Blackberry Storm. As a loyal Orange customer I was a little frustrated that Orange hadn't managed to get rights to any of these exciting new handsets. I forced myself to be content, however, with my current Blackberry Curve 8320 which, after all, has been the best handset I have ever owned. Joy to my ears then to hear that Orange are going to be selling the new model of the Curve... the Blackberry Curve 8900 also known as the Javelin. They might not have exclusive access to it but that's fine. Spread the joy I say. It is Christmas after all. All I want for Christmas is... a new Curve. Thank you very much.

Lights, Cameron, action!

It may have been an attempt to show that Damian Green was 'guilty only of doing his job' on a 'dark day for democracy'... But the webcameron footage of police 'rifling through' the Shadow Immigration Minister's stuff is a coup for political blogging.

One can only imagine the decision-making process behind the idea to send in the webcameraman... Since it was published on the webcameron site today, there has been blanket coverage on the news.

The one constant? The snazzy purple logo in the top left of the screen. Wonder how the site traffic is doing?