Media warm to Twitter lists but public remains cool
Image: Danish Government
Social media has been placed at the centre of many news organisations' coverage of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Twitter lists have been popular for aggregating the tweets of both journalists and organisations at the conference, however it seems that the public are yet to warm to them.
News organisations, such as the BBC, have set up special Twitter feeds to promote coverage from the conference. The Danish hosts have set up an official Facebook page and Twitter feed and the US Department of State have launched their own conference Facebook page.
However with thousands tweeting with the hash tag #cop15 it can be difficult to find sound among the noise. Twitter lists are a great feature that help to do this. The Guardian and Huffington Post are among those with lists aggregating the tweets of key organisations at Copenhagen, such as Greenpeace and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The Huffington Post also have lists for news organisation and journalists tweeting from Copenhagen.
However the amount of people following these lists is still relatively low. The Huffington Post only has a handful of people following its lists. The more popular Guardian list only has 350 followers, a small proportion of the 10,000 people who follow GuardianEco on Twitter.
Sky News today ran a Twitter list for coverage of the Pre-Budget Report, but it only attracted 16 followers.
While more people seem to be turning to Twitter to follow news organisations, it seems that Twitter lists are yet to take off with the public.
