News Travels Fast: UIL Delay on Twitter

When TEA officially delayed all UIL events through May 11, it was fascinating to watch the news spread on Twitter. Over the next day or two, I spent some spare moments gathering data to show how fast it happened.

As best I can tell, the news broke on Twitter at about 11:07AM, when KXAN Austin News tweeted "UIL is postponing all competition until May 11 due to swine flu fears" to well over 4000 followers. From that message through 3pm, tweets about the announcement had about 430,000 followers:

# of followers of UIL Delay-related Tweets

A majority of those were the 300,000 followers of @BreakingNews, who are spread all over the world. If I remove that one tweet ("Texas is postponing all high school athletic and academic competitions until May 11 because of swine flu outbreak." at 11:26 AM), there's pretty constant growth reaching over 125,000 followers by 3pm:

# of followers of UIL Delay-related Tweets, not including @BreakingNews

Mostly this is just for fun, but it does lead to questions about timeliness and source of communications: How many affected parents heard about the delay from an unofficial source before any district employee contacted them? Is that a bad thing? (Please share your thoughts in the comments!)

More about the data: I used the Twitter API to search for UIL related tweets and download the results as XML files, then I recorded the number of followers each account had. I did my best to build an accurate picture, but the numbers can't possibly be perfect: Since these follower counts were gathered later, they are definitely higher than they were when each account made its UIL tweet. Not every follower of an account will have seen the UIL tweet. Although I gathered data on over 300 tweets, I certainly missed some.

TSPRA members on Twitter

This is a list of members of the Texas School Public Relations Association who are on Twitter. If you are a School PR/Education Foundation Pro who would like to be added, email me at terrymorawski@gmail.com with the following: Name, Title, School District/Organization Name, Twitter name.

Boykin, Alicia - Web Specialist, Mansfield ISD, @adboykin
Brown, Tommy - Public Information Officer, Alvarado ISD, @tommylbrown
Cantu, Jerry - Multimedia Specialist, Mansfield ISD, @davidjcantu
*Domitrovich, Brad - Director of Comm/PR, Bandera ISD, @braddomitrovich
Escovedo, Richie - Comm Spec/Webmaster, Mansfield ISD, @vedo
LaGrone, Charlotte - Dir of Comm Relations/Ed Found, Weatherford ISD, @clagrone
Morawski, Terry - Director of Communications, Mansfield ISD, @morate
Nielsen, Dave - Assistant Webmaster, Hurst-Euless Bedford ISD, @davidnielsen

Also see Texas School Districts on Twitter.

*Former TSPRA President.

OCC Week 3: Twitter

This week, we will take a look at Twitter. Honestly, Twitter is a wide open opportunity for our organization. Because the tool is so simple, building strategy around Twitter is much like discussing a strategy for how to use the telephone. Our Twitter recommendation will very likely evolve as those of you who are just trying out the service become more comfortable.
Mon/Tues: (If you already have an account, skip to #2.)

1.Go to twitter.com and register for an account. I'd get a personal account, just to play around if you are new to the service. Find 10 to 20 people to follow. There are some suggestions below. You can use the basic Twitter interface or get an app.(Desktop:Twhirl,Tweetdeck,Tweetie(Mac only); iPhone: Tweetie, Twitterfon; Blackberry:Twitterberry) The experience is much easier and more fun via apps, although the basic Twitter interface at twitter.com adds features everyday.

2. Find examples of professional organizations, corporations or other organizations using Twitter. You can follow them or just make note in the comments. Note anything you like or dislike about their Twitter presence. (If you don't feel you are a good judge of this yet, that's okay.)

Quick word of warning: Once you get a little comfortable on the service, it's easy to feel like posting any thought that pops into your head is appropriate. Twitter is public and can be easily searched. So, just basically be smart. I always follow the general rule that if I hesitate in posting something, I probably should not post it at all. That said, have fun!


Wed:

Thurs/Fri:

A few lists of people you might want to pay attention to:

TSPRA Friends on Twitter
Texas School Districts on Twitter

Media Outlets on Twitter
Media People on Twitter


Nuts and Bolts of Twitter Pres, Common Craft Vid other and Possibly Helpful Stuff:

The Nuts and Bolts of Twitter

View more presentations from Richie Escovedo.

Twitter in Plain English by Common Craft



Photo gracias: Flickr user ~aorta~

SPRINT now on Twitter.

Psst...Hey, have you heard of Twitter. Chances are, if you have a high schooler living in your house, at least they have. Twitter is a free social utility that is all based on a simple interface asking users to answer the question, "What are you doing?"

SPRINT now has a Twitter account. If you already have a Twitter account or are just curious, you can follow our account here. www.twitter.com/sprintx

We'll post info here about meetings, TSPRA updates, job postings and just good articles, blog posts, best practices, etc., that interest us.