newsonaut

Turning inner space into outer space

May 1, 2012

The AP breaks with Twitter, engages with Facebook

Does the Associated Press take Twitter seriously? These numbers speak for themselves:

About a dozen staffers run the AP’s flagship Twitter account, and the AP’s 20-plus Twitter accounts are run by around 100 staffers.

Those figures come from Josh Sternberg at Digiday, who provides an inside look at how the wire service uses social media. It’s unimaginable that these people work full-time on nothing but Twitter, but the commitment is there.

The article notes that AP uses Twitter mainly for breaking news and Facebook for news of a more “transcendent” nature. Still, the wire service places much value in Facebook:

The AP finds that Facebook, not Twitter, is the best social tool for engagement. It has five or six accounts that actively communicate with its fans. It also does a lot of crowdsourcing on Facebook.

Twitter’s great for news junkies who need their news fixes, but Facebook does a better job of spreading your message far and wide — and in the end brings in much more traffic than Twitter.