Lindy Kyzer, Army Public Affairs Specialist, Online and Social Media Division
Information moves faster than ever, and as the Army’s chief evangelist for social media I spend a lot of time talking about why that’s important for our Army leadership to realize. No longer do we have hours; we’re lucky to have minutes.
A perfect example was right before my eyes yesterday as I spent some time away from my desk and working out in the Pentagon gym – which is conveniently lined with TV screens featuring all the major networks. Being a news junky I typically align myself so I can see at least three networks as once. Yesterday my workout was timed perfectly to watch White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ briefing. Considering he was commenting on new developments every network was featuring the conference, each with their own version of the neon sign saying “watch me, watch me, I’ve got new LIVE news to report.” Now, if you watch the news as much as I’ll admit I have, you know that during press conferences they flash the highlighted quotes or key phrases in the bottom half of the screen.
Since I had time to kill and I needed to figure out some way to get through the next interval, I timed the length that each quote or headline stayed on the screen before they showed another. Can you guess how long it was? Across the networks, it took an average of 3 minutes for the highlighted/headline quote to change, and one news network had the same thing there for five minutes! As a social media savvy person I was thinking, geez, I would SO rather be following this press conference on Twitter. And, if I’d had the chance to see a screen with Tweet grid on it rather than [Name your favorite news network here], I absolutely would have.
As someone who has spent as much time working with the traditional media as I have social media, I still have a world of respect for the major news networks and still appreciate the feel of newsprint in my hands. I think social media and traditional media go hand and hand, and and any company, corporation or government agency who engages via social media platforms at the expense of their traditional media efforts is making a mistake. But the speed with which news travels has changed the paradigm for us public affairs officers and our journalist counterparts. A generation that’s sending thousands of text messages each month and sees the world through their Facebook “News Feed” needs its headlines faster than once every two minutes. Static messages have given way to constant conversations, and we all have to catch up.
Here at the U.S. Army we’re doing our best to be relevant and timely to the extent that we’re able. We’re live-tweeting press conversations on Twitter, conducting live-chats on Facebook and doing what we can to provide the kind of information that matters to the text-messaging generation. But, we have a long way to go, and like our friends in the mainstream media it’s tough to adapt our processes at the pace required. Some days we shine, and others we struggle, but we’re constantly striving to do our best for the Soldiers, families and citizens we serve.
What do you think of this Twitter trend? Are traditional network news updates still your style? Let us know in the comments section.
Thanks for the great good news very interesting.
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Lindy, as a PAO myself, I have engulfed myself with social media tools to be able to keep up with how news and information are being delivered and consumed. The Twitter trend is exploding and it is a great way to get “blow by blow” news coverage. I love Twitter Search too BTW. I do find though that I still get my “daily dose” of world news by checking major news network web sites. I’ve monitored those in my unit and the vast majority still use traditional media to get their news and they use social media to chat and share with friends.
I think though that a significant “shift” in how we digest news will eventually be dominated by social media once the majority of us have smartphones. Twitter is by and large a mobile social media tool or the “SMS of the internet.” So when our culture is truly “mobilized” on a mass scale with iPhones or Google phones, then I think you will see Twitter become the standard and traditional news updates will be phased out.
If you ask me, twitter seems to be the new born social network on the new era, it seems to be a better option for folks out there compared to tv, social networks are getting the green lights to entertaining people from politics, entertainment and all sorts. Nice piece.
Its amazing how more and more people are beginning to think in short, limited phrases. I, for one, tend to find myself wanting to write a press release as if it were a facebook status (please note, I copyedit carefully so as to avoid actually submitting such a release). Personally, I still love the integrity and credibility that comes with traditional news sources. Right now, there are numbers of ‘official’ profiles that claim to spread the truth. Once we nail down a way to create integrity and credibility in tweets and status updates, I’m all for receiving my news in a text message.
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