By Dara Hollingsworth
We can all agree that Twitter now plays a role in public relations as is evident from the recent guest speaker in our class, Barbara Gibson, a Twitter expert. I guess I have been slightly slow to accept the whole Twitter thing, I have an account but it was updated once, nine months ago when I created an account for Public Relations Writing. But I became convinced Twitter was here to stay while watching the OU Women’s Basketball team’s recent run to the Final Four on ESPN. The commentators and analysts mentioned Twitter numerous times because ESPN has a Twitter account. The account is used primarily for feeding followers story headlines from ESPN. Additionally, Rebecca Lobo, a women’s basketball commentator, urged viewers to follow her on Twitter to get an insider’s look into the tournament.
As of now ESPN has over 63,000 followers while it is following over 69,000. So what is ESPN’s purpose of all that twittering? Maybe it has something to do with an attempt to humanize the brand. It can allow ESPN to make a personal connection with its many admirers. It can be used to measure the perception of the network. The list of the positives goes on and on.
So will other networks follow ESPN? It appears they already have. All the major networks have some sort of Twitter account and CNN Breaking News has over 792,000 followers. Which just further proves that, like it or not, Twitter is here to stay.
