I received the below email Today from the Newspaper Association of America telling me about them recently joining Twitter.  They joined today according to TwitterHolic but their posts go back to November of 2008, – they aren’t human.  They are being fed from Twitterfeed and Digsby.

I like the idea of NAA joining in the conversation, but how about having a human being at the helm to editorialize the information flow?  As it stands now, they are using twitter as an RSS feed and that just stinks.  I understand they want to use it to cover upcoming events, but what about the other 363 days of the year?

I hope NAA and any newspaper looking to utilize twitter as a social networking tool realizes that it’s the interaction that builds communities, not applications in and of themselves.  The Internet Editor for the Austin American_Statesman has a great blog post about abandoning twitterfeed to gain audience.  Here’s an excerpt:

The way I think about it is a morning news radio show. I say good morning, I say goodbye at the end of my shift. I thank them for contributions, etc. -quigblog

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Here’s the email:

This Week’s Quick Tip: Follow the NAA Community on Twitter

The NAA Community recently joined Twitter, a social networking tool that provides a simple way for people to connect, exchange information, and even receive breaking news. You can “follow” the NAA Community to get the latest updates on NAA services and product offerings, fellowship application deadlines, upcoming events, the latest Community blog content, as well as news from NAA staff as they travel to newspaper site visits, industry conferences and more!

Sign up to now to ensure you don’t miss our extended coverage of the upcoming NAA mediaXchange conference in Las Vegas! To get started, sign-up for an account or log-in to Twitter, and visit NAA_Community to begin following.

We hope you find this Quick Tip easy and useful, and we’ll be back with another Quick Tip next week!

Need additional help? View our Online Tutorial or have a look through our FAQs for official answers. You may also or peruse the information in our NAA Community Blog — everything from how to get started to tips and tricks designed to help you get the most out of your Community. Just visit: http://community.naa.org/help or call 571-366-1200.

Thanks,
NAA Community Team

UPDATE:

I sent NAA_Community a tweet to see if a human was on the other end, listening and I got a response!  I hope this person, whomever they are, starts posting.