As far as Twitter goes, I think both examples use their platforms well. Slate usually just links to stories on their website, which I think is all most magazine's should use Twitter for. Anything other than that, like publishing thoughts or opinions would really just be a reflection of the employee in charge of the feed. The authors can and should tweet what they want and if it's related to their story, I think Slate can retweet it, but I don't really think they should be generating much more than articles. Slate's Facebook page works similarly to its Twitter; mostly just link to articles on their website. On their Facebook, though, there is a greater degree of interaction between followers who comment on the posts (just the posts on Facebook, not in the comments sections of the linked articles). I think Facebook allows for an interesting conversation between readers; it's less formal than commenting on the actual article (if comments online can be considered formal) in that it generates more and shorter conversations.
One of the reasons I chose to focus on Colson Whitehead is because of his Twitter feed. As I said above, writers (especially if they're on the quippy side like Whithead) can be more personal with their tweets, and Whitehead's Twitter has a good mix of self-promotion (links to pieces, information about readings, etc) and personal anecdotes. On the other hand, his Facebook page (at least the fan page, his personal Facebook is off limits in my opinion) is very formal, listing essentially only his Wikipedia biography with very little interaction between Whitehead and readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment