Twitter is the new office water cooler

THERE has never been a social media event like the Oscar Pistorius trial. Apart from being the first trial in South Africa — and possibly globally — to have its own TV channel as well as “pop-up radio” in the form of dedicated online broadcasts, it is also the first time that we have seen a court case bring together live broadcast and live social media feeds on this scale.

The interplay between TV and Twitter, in particular, has been fascinating: rather than competing for attention, the two have neatly complemented each other both in feeding off their respective commentary and drawing attention to specific content.

The Twitter-TV alliance has highlighted the potential of integrated cross-platform communication for business.

This points to one of several business lessons arising from the trial.

The most obvious and even banal business truth to emerge is the fact that a well-planned campaign across different media formats has far greater impact than stand-alone efforts. And, by extension, each format, medium or platform boosts the other, rather than competing with each other.

Less obvious is the nature of the social attention span at work. Data gathered by social analytics company Fuseware on Twitter conversation about the trial has shown a clear pattern that is directly related to the working patterns of South Africans.

On a typical day in the past week, the Twitter conversation about the trial began as people woke up and prepared for work, rising to a peak of about 500 tweets per hour by 7.30am as most people were about to leave for work.

The volume dropped off for the next hour and began to climb again as people arrived at work and “used” company networks to get back onto social sites.

It rose slowly but steadily through the morning and then, as lunch hours began around midday, it shot through the roof, reaching close to 2 000 tweets an hour. As the trial adjourned for lunch, so did Twitter, although not entirely: volume remained relatively high, at well over 1 000 tweets an hour, before leaping again as the trial resumed.

Clearly, attention remained focused on the proceedings in court, only dropping off — sharply — when the court adjourned in the afternoon.

These trends are counter to general Twitter trends reported by Fuseware late last year, which showed a small peak in conversations at 9am — office arrival time, when the world seems to check in on social media — and then a massive rise starting at knockoff time, from about 4pm.

The message to business is

Management needs to wake up and smell the coffee machines

clear: when major news is breaking or developing, no amount of company policy will keep staff off social media. Block it from the company network and it will simply move to the smartphones most office workers carry in their pockets today.

The uncomfortable reality — and an open but unquantified secret before now — is that social media is the new water cooler.

If management is patting itself on the back for getting people to reduce their watercooler conversation, it needs to wake up and smell the coffee machines that increasingly occupy individuals’ desks.

Water-cooler conversation has given way to Twitter conversation. Now, when office workers are feeding their appetite for news, gossip and sharing, management won’t even know it.

Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter @art2gee

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