When will Twitter stop being the headline?

I think it’s time that we stop thinking of Twitter as being the story and realising that it’s a place where stories are discussed, or occasionally, emerge. Twitter is a medium. It was amazing, groundbreaking when it first came out, but far too many people are using it as a ‘sexy’ news hook for stuff of very little substance.

This thought came to my mind when I was reading a piece on Mashable, about Simon Cowell leaving American Idol. The post looked at how Twitter reacted to the news of his departure. At this point in Twitter’s story, it seems a little bit like lazy journalism to me. Twitter is not that groundbreaking anymore. It is one of many mediums online where, yes, conversations happen. It is a medium for conversation and news, so why is it newsworthy when conversations about news happens on there? We’re not excited when people discuss something topical in a forum or on their blog, so why do people use this as a newshook for Twitter? It isn’t one.

This is part of a general trend to use social media as a way to get a bit of press attention. This happened last year with the dedicated Twitter agency (??) and I honestly question the discussions around campaigns such as Pepsi’s, when they decided to drop super bowl ad spend in favour of social media projects. The fact that they did this, got more press attention than the actual Refresh Everything campaign, which is to award people for ideas that will make a positive impact to their community. Journalists and bloggers picked up on the shock move to shift ad spend from the Super Bowl, instead of examining the campaign itself. Whether this is how it was packaged by the PR company, I’m not sure. But I’d bet that more people can name the fact that Pepsi have dropped super bowl ads in favour of social media, than say what the actual project is, let alone even name it.  This is what the conversations should have been about. That’s what the news story should have been about – taking social media to a different level with an international crowd-sourcing project.

I’ve said before that social media are just the tools. What you’re doing with them should be the news, not the fact that they’re being used. At some point, Twitter is going to have to stop making headlines just for being Twitter. I realise this post may seem a bit cynical and negative (not like me at all!) but I just want news about social media to stop being clouded by the mystique of it being ‘social media’ and look more at the actual initiatives and real-world impact campaigns have. I’m just not too sure how much Twitter headlines I can take (the irony)