Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

Above all else, I would expect two things: engagement and authenticity.

Since I first started encouraging NPR folks and shows to use Twitter last year, I've seen us try a lot of things: Twitter accounts like nprnews, which is just a rehash of our primary headlines RSS feed; bpp, the Bryant Park Project account used to chat with their community of users on a wide range of topics; and accounts like nprnewsblog, which blends automated blog updates with occasional comments from Tom Regan or me, particularly on primary nights.

Which of these work best? Well, it depends on your perspective of course, but for my money, BPP is the best thing we've got going on Twitter right now. It took a while for it to reach critical mass - it averaged less than two tweets per day in October - but as Bryant Park staffers saw the number of folks replying to their tweets, a rolling conversation erupted. They began incorporating it into their work routine, and kept the tweets going after work as well. Now, they're averaging upwards of 20 tweets a day. And looking at their tweet stream, you'll see that just over a quarter of their posts are actually public replies to others, either answering questions or participating in multiple conversations simultaneously. The team has gotten very good about signing off each tweet so you know if it's Laura, Allison, Matt or someone else writing the message. And it doesn't take long to recognize who's who - they each have their own style, even though they're compressing their thoughts into 140 characters or less.

Meanwhile, they're using these conversations as sources for on air dialogue as well. BPP staff regularly ask users questions via Twitter for topics they're trying to cover on air. Sometimes Twitter users will suggest stories or guests - and in some cases, they become guests themselves. One of my favorite examples of this happened when BPP began chatting it up with redsoxcast, a twitter account that offers play-by-play coverage of Red Sox games. It didn't take long before the conversation blossomed into a radio story as well as an online slideshow. Conversations generate coverage, which generate more conversation - a virtuous cycle that's a win-win for show producers and their community of fans.

The BPP Twitter strategy is beginning to rub off on nprnewsblog as well. When we first set up that account in the fall of last year, it was just an automated rehash of blog posts, with a headline and link for each new post. That in itself was perfectly okay for a while, but it didn't exactly generate much interest. By the time we got to Super Tuesday in this past February, it had only attracted a few hundred followers. But that night, we shifted gears in a big way. While Tom concentrated on posting new blog entries, I manned the Twitter account, writing summaries of precinct results as they came in from the AP, asking Twitterers about what was going on in their precincts, and passing along the calls when NPR's election unit called a race for a particular candidate (sometimes beating our on-air coverage, much to the amusement of our Twitter fans).

Since then, the nprnewsblog account has grown to nearly 4,000 subscribers, making it one of the largest news services on Twitter. While most days the bulk of messages are still automated summaries of blog posts (63% of them, for those of you keeping score), Tom's gotten comfortable in chatting and answering questions much more often than he used to do it. "It's a great tool," Tom told me earlier today. "I often get story ideas from the folks on Twitter. It's like having a whole lot of people looking for stories or passing along interesting ideas."

Meanwhile, I still chime in as well from time to time, along with Michael Olson of our election unit, particularly during major political events. Even if we're not physically present at an event like a caucus or campaign rally - and personally, I'm never present at these things - there's a good chance that other Twitter users are there, so we're able to use Twitter to track these folks down, find out from them what's happening on the ground and join them in a conversation as the story unfolds.

In each of these cases, I've pushed really hard for our Twitter experiments to embrace authenticity and engagement. Tweets from NPR folks need to be written in their own voice. Public relations-speak on Twitter is the kiss of death; you just don't get the medium if you're using it to spew talking points. If other Twitter users don't have a sense of the human being behind the Twitter account, they're gonna lose interest in you real fast.

Even if you're being true to yourself when you're posting your tweets, you can't ignore the fact that there are all sorts of people who want to interact with you. That's why I'm trying to get us away from feeds like the nprnews Twitter account where we just publish, and embrace feeds where we converse. Even though the Twitter tag line is "What are you doing?" the heart of twitter is really "What do you want to talk about?" And it doesn't take long to notice that Twitter users are serious news junkies; they want to talk about what's going on in the world and in their lives. Twitter is helping my NPR colleagues tap into these conversations for ideas and inspiration, while providing users with even more things to talk about. Creating a more informed public is at the heart of NPR's mission, and Twitter is an emerging tool for us to accomplish that mission.

So as far as WBUR is concerned, here's my advice. Don't publish - converse. Use your Twitter account to start new conversations in your community and learn about what people are saying. Get some of your colleagues using it, though if you do it all on one Twitter account, be sure to sign your tweets individually so users know who they're talking to. Follow as many people as you can manage, even if they're not all following you back. Whenever possible, answer user questions publicly. Organize local tweetups, or attend ones that others have organized. Become a part of the local Twitter community. And above all, explore ways of using these conversations to improve the quality and diversity of your journalism, whether it's on air or online. There's a huge community of people out there rooting for you and eager to help. Open the doors and invite them in. -andy