I’ve been reading the responses to Scott McLemee’s Twitter piece at Inside Higher Ed.
Malcolm L. Campbell comments:
I can understand why a university press blog would read like a string of press releases and, likewise, why Twitter comments would be a refreshing change of pace. PR professionals aren’t usually free to state opinions or make ad hoc comments within the scope of their jobs because everything they release actually requires attribution from a source who is authorized to speak to the press on behalf of the press. Why? Everything they disseminate is a company viewpoint.
This definitely reflects one of my concerns about contributing to and administering the UIP blog. I’d like the blog to be a snapshot of what is happening at the press; what are our authors thinking, who is talking about our books, and what is happening in digital and scholarly publishing? If the University’s Vice-President takes a look, I don’t want there to be too many reflections on my son’s Guitar Hero prowess. That said, the forum should be open to informal commentary from UIP staff. I think that balance is the key.
Sandy Thatcher from Penn State University Press responded to Campbell’s comment:
Malcolm Campbell’s post leads to a question: if PR folks feel more liberated using Twitter than company blogs, are they engaging in PR or just BS (that word made famous by Princeton’s best seller)? What they say on blogs would appear to hew to some company policy about what communications are used to help promote the press’s publications. Is there no company policy about what is said on Twitter? . . . As a press director, I’d like some reassurance about the payoff from Twittering before allowing my press’s employees to spend too much time Twittering away.
My first thought is that Penn State would have a great Twitter feed. Their blog is probably my favorite university press blog, but there is occasionally some (entertaining) content that I would shy away from posting on our blog.
In the end I’m wondering, how many tweets could I have twittered in the time it took me to post this piece?
