Last month a single 61 character tweet (12 words as a matter of fact) caused the S&P 500 to drop $136 Billion in mere minutes.
It boggles the mind and makes one try to find some sense in it. What does it mean?
Well, it certainly proved the tremendous reliance we all have on the content that comes from Twitter. Some would say investors rely too much on automated trades based on tweets.
It also proved the great value our society places on Twitter as a provider of content and information.
Tweets will now be featured in Yahoo’s news feed.
Yesterday Yahoo announced that it was taking Twitter very seriously indeed.
In her blog, Merissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo stated, “Tweets have become an important information source for many of our users, so we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Twitter to bring Tweets directly into the Yahoo! newsfeed.”
She went on to say that over the next few days users would begin to see Tweets “personalized to their interests and preferences” appear in their content stream, delivering on earlier promises that the search and new aggregation giant would move toward more personalization of content for its users.
[An interesting side note is that the title of Mayer’s blog post “@Yahoo delivers #bestoftheweb” is really not very tweetable. Oops. To start a tweet with a Twitter name is a mistake unless you are talking ‘at’ that person/account. It will not appear as normal tweet.]
Yahoo’s big search competitor, Google wasn’t able to keep its former relationship with the microblogging giant. Twitter results disappeared from Google some time back, making this an quite a win for Yahoo.
But what does this move mean for communicators?
While few details have been revealed, it’s probably safe to assume that Yahoo will feature tweets that are popular, influential and of course meet certain criteria for authenticity and newsworthiness.
As communicators we should be prepared and simply take this as a reminder of some best practices for content creation:
1) Create share-worthy content with tweetable headlines and by highlighting crunchy, interesting facts in bold font or in bulleted lists.
2) Cultivate social networks. Build credibility for your content and your brand.
3) Build relationships with influencers.
4) Calibrate your team for rapid response to current events.
Perhaps your content will make it to the Yahoo news page along with relevant content from trusted news sources which Yahoo customizes based on user interest.
One thing a fast-moving PR team needs is information. Stay on top of issues and opportunities as news breaks by incorporating MediaVantage into your communications strategy. Learn more about our real-time media monitoring suite.