After beginning this series of blog posts I opened myself up to everything NC Times, including following @NCTimes on Twitter. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to find NCTimes on Twitter, they also have a Facebook and a MySpace page, but again, it is not something that they promote obviously on their online edition. You can find their social networking links by clicking Contact Us and then Social Media.
The North County Times fails on Twitter for two reasons. First, they misused their Twitter account by mixing personal and organizational messages. Second, they have not Twitter enabled their site.
Twitter was originally intended as a personal medium. However there has been a rise in the number of Twitter accounts used for non-personal communication. @TrackThis for example provides a package tracking Twitter service. Twitter itself provides a service for reporting Twitter spam via @Spam. The @NCTimes account should, in theory, be used to report information about the North County Times and it does:
Want an early peek at our new local social networking site? Check out my.nctimes.com … #nctimes
It is reasonable, even expected, to see it being used to announce news stories:
CHARGERS: Tomlinson will stay in San Diego after agreeing to deal. http://tinyurl.com/daaol4
Breaking News: OCEANSIDE: Search suspended for survivor of plane crash” #nctimes ( http://tinyurl.com/bpbt7v )
However, it becomes confusing to see tweets from this account in first person voice:
Reading: “REGION: Bill would let agencies trump homeowners association rules” #nctimes ( http://tinyurl.com/bl5dxw )
It begs the question, who is reading? Is this an announcement of a new news story or is it something from a few years ago being re-read by an individual. As a corporate branded account the tweets should consistently describe what the newspaper is doing, and I certainly hope the newspaper isn’t reading itself.
The NC Times offers a great deal of options on how each story can be further used. At the top of each story we find options to print and email stories.
Below the story we find a great number of options for submitting this story to third parties and saving a link to this story. At least one of the services listed is now defunct.
Conspicuously missing is a Tweet This button that would promote this story via an individuals Twitter account.
In summary, the NC Times misses an easy win with a simple Tweet This button and simultaneously presents a confusing persona on Twitter. All this while spending their energy building a walled community.