I’ve opened yesterday’s (Sat July 16) Express and Star this morning, to find the incisive poltical insight this week (Daniel Wainwright’s column) is discussing if Twatter, and specifically, one particular post on Twatter, is a worthwhile use of a council communications officer’s time. Someone wrote in to question if a tweet saying “Rain rain, go away” was worthwhile.
Let me set out my views on this. I’m a regular critic of Walsall Council, and I’ve been a critic of Twatter as well.
Oddly enough, Walsall MBC were the driver that made me open a Twatter account. I wanted to ask them a question, and actually get an answer fairly soon. Because Twatter posts are public, and interactive, and the Walsall comms team actually staff the account, rather than doing what some organisations do and merely use it to post their RSS feed, I got my answer. Hell, I’ll go as far to say that the @walsallcouncil feed is actually a very useful, informative service.
Besides anything else, since for the service to be useful, it has to be staffed, exactly how long does it take to type at most 140 characters (and less in this case)? I think it’s fairly important that the communication is timely, and human. Get a life, and for the E+S, come on, you can do better.
[edit]
I see The Plastic Hippo has done this too, with rather more eloquence.
Not with more eloquence, old chap, just with too much long-winded pomposity. I admire your ability to get straight to the point.
Who would have thought that the crisis in print journalism would become so severe that it`s main online tormentors would defend Walsall council?
We have reached, I think, a tipping point.
Long-winded pomposity? I think not, but thank you for your kind words.
I did think it strange that all the usual suspects for a bit of council-bashing leapt to it’s defence, but it seems justified.