Pemaquid Communications

Friday’s ice storm proved to be an interesting case study in how folks are using Twitter to get the word out (or not).

I was awakened that day by my iPhone, which received this tweet from the State of Maine’s Twitter account @ http://twitter.com/www_maine_gov. I follow it for this very reason – to get citizen alerts on emergency conditions (kinda like the “Emergency Tweetcast Network”).

I haven’t been keeping track, but it seems like their follow count has increased quite a bit over the weekend.

I also follow @WCSH6 and @PressHerald on Twitter, and it was interesting to see how these conventional media outlets used the service. In terms of providing news-you-can-use, IMHO the results were not great, though @PressHerald came through at times.

Here are some example tweets from conventional media over the weekend:

Good:

http://twitter.com/PressHerald/status/1053143263

Yes, OK, fair warning. I’ll be careful out there.

http://twitter.com/PressHerald/status/1053778059

I feel bad for them; at least I know it’s a bad idea to run my generator in the basement.

Bad:

http://twitter.com/PressHerald/status/1055263330

Yes, lots o’ folks are w/o power. But that doesn’t help me much. Tell me where the downed power lines are, the large traffic accidents, what local authorities are saying to people in their respective communities about ETA of electricity.

http://twitter.com/WCSH6/status/1053509213

I could’ve guessed that. But I’m in my car on my mobile device – where are those roads?

http://twitter.com/PressHerald/status/1053582227

Street flooding? Where?!?

http://twitter.com/WCSH6/status/1052326387

Really?!? Drivers are sliding around? How about telling me where those roads/accidents are so I can avoid them?

http://twitter.com/WCSH6/status/1053359047

No shit, Sherlock!

If you’re going to tweet, please make it useful. If your mission is to provide information to the public, make sure that tweet contains actual information. Please don’t tweet and say, in essence, “go to my Web site for complete coverage”. A lot of folks had mobile devices that worked (the AT&T network was rock solid for me and my iPhone) but could not get to the ‘Net (my tweet peeps and I were hard pressed to find it all day Friday – I hear Portland coffee shops were crowded).

So, to news outlets: Don’t try to drive me to your Web site b/c your advertisers need pageviews for your banner ads. Gimme some news on the spot! If you don’t, I’ll gravitate towards others who will fulfill that need.