I read a tweet today that the newly appointed Social Media Editor at the New York Times, Jennifer Preston (@NYT_JenPreston), hasn’t tweeted (used Twitter) in a month. There’s even a blog posting about this “news.”
With the sudden growth of talk about her anti-social social media behavior, Jennifer tweeted today that she’s been listening rather than talking, and thanked everyone for their comments.
This situation brings up two important issues:
1) It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of information available to you in social media, especially if you’re trying to talk and listen. When she was appointed to the first ever Social Media Editor position in May, Jennifer probably thought she could ease into the role and turn on the trickle of information by initiating a Twitter account. That trickle was like a dam burst and Jennifer was quickly inundated with comments and questions.
2) Newspapers are used to slow feedback cycles. They print the news which itself is nearly 24 hours old by the time it’s printed and distributed. People write feedback letters, send emails or maybe make phone calls to provide feedback and ask questions. It’s a pretty slow process. In social media, news travels fast and news of your mistakes travels even faster. Newspapers are not yet equipped to live in the internet age much less the social media age. That’s why newspapers everywhere are dying.
Kudos to the New York Times for reaching out to social media. Now they need to figure out how to keep pace. Easier said than done.
