Chicago Tribune’s Colonel Creates a Twitter Army
Published by Rodney Rumford August 18th, 2008 in social media, twitter.
The talk around the bogosphere has been sounding the death knoll for newspapers and old media about how they just don’t “get it”. Well the Chicago Tribune “Gets It”, and a great example is their use case of twitter.
I recently had a conversation with Tribune Interactive’s Jonathan Ozeran (Sr. Associate: Office of the President) about the use case for twitter and how they have chosen to engage on twitter in Chicago. The social media team from the Tribune include: Erin Osmon, Amanda Maurer, Bill Adee & Daniel Honigman.
A few months back in March, the Tribune created a profile for ColonelTribune. As web ambassador; The Colonel helps the social media team listen, reach out & interact with twitter users. Over the last six months, the Colonel has established a solid foundation of twitter followers numbering nearly 900.
According to Ozeran: “Through Twitter, we’ve found a unique opportunity to embrace and participate in conversations taking place within the local community.”
“The Colonel’s loyal followers not only receive relevant news alerts and tips - they are also actively participating in a two-way conversation that occasionally leads to breaking news stories.” This is not some bot pushing feeds; there are real people behind the Colonel, having real conversations and engaging. This local twitter army also helps to break news stories. Such as a recent bomb threat and evacuation of a local building. The Tribune gives credit and props back to the tweeters. Nice Touch.
The Tribune has also taken some innovative steps that really forge and foster relationships by organizing local tweetups and meeting with the fellow tweeters at local dining establishments (and giving out paper Colonel Hats. I want pictures). This allows them to interact with other tweeters as well as the Tribune employees.
This deepens the bond with the followers of ColonelTribune and helps to solidify the Tribune brand very personally in a way that is not possible entirely online. The local community of tweeters feel like they have a voice that is being respected and listened to.
There are lessons here for news organizations and businesses of any size.
A Few Key Points About Twitter
* Twitter is changing the production and distribution of news
* Local news stories discovery
* Taking the pulse of local residents
* Fueling the way news gets covered
* Facilitates community engagement
* Acknowledgment of tips
* Friendships evolve on & offline
According to Ozeran, the one challenge they have is how do they replicate this locally in different communities where Tribune Media operates newspapers. They will continue to evolve and experiment with social media tool sets. They have been happy with what has happened with twitter thus far. They have noticed that the Colonels Twitter Army is full of unique, vocal and passionate users that want to engage. And so the Colonel listens and engages.
The Tribune “Gets Twitter”!
6 Responses to “Chicago Tribune’s Colonel Creates a Twitter Army”
- 1 Pingback on Aug 18th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
- 2 Pingback on Aug 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more widespread adoption of social media tools in newspapers as business management starts to realize that plugging their ears and screaming isn’t going to make the bad little social mediasphere go away
If you ever make it out to a Tweet-up, I’m sure the Colonel will give you a hat!
This is just another example of how Twitter is continuing on its quest to take over the world.
Putting together the Trib and “understanding new media” in the same sentence… it’s obvious you haven’t followed the Chicago Tribune for a while.