Beijing Blogging Olympics

This year the Olympics will be blogged like never before! Apparently, 73% of American internet users watched video online in May and one in three mobile phone owners now has video capabilities on their phones, according to a recent Nielsen study. The blogosphere will be alive with all the events of the games. For example, the Guardian are live blogging the events as I write.

I have been very impressed with the online media centre blog for the 2008 Olympics. It incorporates a Twitter that allows you to send messages of goodwill, etc. Ours was: “Good luck with the Games in 2008, we are looking forward to them coming to the UK in 2012.” Email your comments to OLYMPIC2008@TWITTERMAIL.COM.

The site also provides a facility to DIGG news stories of the games and bookmark on Delicious.

A full list of 2008 blogging is here.

It is interesting how, with all these bloggers - their eyes firmly on freedom of speech and the Chinese government - everything is being pounced on. As a result, this video of John Ray the ITV journalist being arrested for covering a demonstration in Beijing was picked up far and wide and guaranteed widespread media coverage.

Why should the PR and media industry be using Twitter?

I have blogged about my fascination for Twittering a number of times before although I have to admit that the first time I heard about it I thought “What is the point?”

Euan Semple was the first person to sell the idea to me. I thought it was just another distraction in the world of Facebook, Youtube and BEBO. After all, why would I want to ‘micro blog’ especially as I was writing for three or four different blogs a week! Euan insisted it was good for tracking news, contracts and updates from media sources such as the BBC and Jeff Jarett’s Buzz Machine. I was fascinated to learn that ITN, BBC, CNN and Reuters all had Twitter accounts. That way I could catch breaking news as I was using it!

Twitter is essentially a ’status update’ for friends who ‘follow’ you. i.e. you can instantly communicate (in the same way as you would with a Facebook status update). The benefit is that people can provide an instant reply, allowing you to receive feedback on a project as you are working on it. In my case this was PRBristol.co.uk.

The great advantage with Twitter is that it can be used with mobile phone technology to track breaking news from journalists and sources on the move. From a journalists’ point of view, they can monitor influential sources, their movements or news on the network in real time.

By its very nature, Twitter is ideal for live blogging of an event. Sky news for instance used Twitter at the last budget and the potential for this technology to cover high-profile events was perhaps best displayed when the Orlando Sentinel newspaper covered the Atlantis and Endeavour space shuttle launches last summer.

More recently the earthquake in China was covered first hand via sources who were live blogging the event on Twitter as it happend. This type of content gives an instant flavour to news, satisfying our needs for rolling 24hr bulletins.

PRs and journos are all busy and many think that pressure from the online media movement means that they do not have the time to research a story thoroughly. So why not embrace the technology and let the Twitter network do the story-chasing for you! Here are two reasons for PRs and Journalists to use Twitter.

One reason why Journalists should use Twitter.

Twitter allows data mining which allows you to find story sources in the noise. Software like Tweetscan follow keywords (think: names of local politicians, cops, and business owners) related to your publications area. Twitter allows a journalist to contact them by DM on Twitter even if you can’t get them to return your calls of e-mails — if they’re a regular user, they won’t be able to miss that connection.

One reason why PRs should use Twitter:
If you can build an influential Twitter network, as Montage Communications does with followers from the Times, Guardian and Journalism.co.uk to name a few, why not use this network to push out your press releases and news? Through software like Twitterfeed, stories and blogs can be pushed out over your Twitter network with a link so all your contacts can keep up to date. This is far more believable than an email into an inbox of 1,000s on a newsdesk!

[ Twitter is not purely a broadcast tool but can be used to communicate with the people who are breaking a story. ]

Finally, Twitter can be embedded into all manor of sites and blogs, just like PRBristol’s own Twitter, which features on the site and our social network The Watering Hole. I can’t think of a more efficient way of spreading the word, can you?

PRBristol blog’s Twitter is PRBRISTOLBLOG.

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