Provident Partners news

With a simple Twitter message during the Republican National Convention, Provident Partners’ Albert Maruggi caught the eye of some media-business news writers.

First, writing for MinnPost.com, David Brauer explains how Twitter is “the place to be” for folks trying to follow stories about protesters and police raids. In the article, Brauer quotes Maruggi’s Twitter message when he says that Twitter is like “the police scanner of the 21st Century newsroom.” Brauer’s piece received national attention from the popular journalism news machine Romenesko, from the Poynter Institute.

A few days later, another Poynter outlet, the E-Media Tidibts blog, carried a piece titled “Twitter: Surprise Star of RNC Coverage.” In that piece, writer Maryn McKenna quotes a bit more of the same message from Maruggi. She writes:

But Twitter was the secret weapon. Tweets (Twitter posts) by a huge array of users — 17,855 posts from 1389 accounts over the convention’s four days, according to a C-SPAN page tracking the Twitter hashtag #RNC08 — wove a multi-stranded conversation about where protests were coalescing, how police were responding, and where the story was moving next. Twitter user, social media expert, and former journalist Albert Maruggi observed: “[Twitter is] the police scanner of 21st century newsroom. This from a guy that used to rewrite AP copy for 11pm newscast.”

For more great ideas from Albert Maruggi, follow him on Twitter or send him an e-mail. He has an iPhone, so he’ll see it right away.

Pioneer Press technology reporter Julio Ojeda-Zapata writes in a recent article that we’re in the midst of a “’social media’ revolution that has begun to change how civic and political groups — like the St. Paul-based team responsible for Republican convention planning — are using the Internet to publicize their causes.”

In the article, Provident Partners’ founder and president Albert Maruggi — also a former RNC press secretary — shares some of his insights on the convention organizers’ use of new Web communication methods. From the article:

“There has been a heated debate within Republican circles about social media,” [Maruggi] said. “I don’t think they jumped on it soon enough. What has worked in Republican politics has been more of a hierarchical structure.

“But little by little they’re starting to realize that this is about your own volunteers embracing your own brand,” he added. “You don’t worry too much that someone will get the talking points wrong. You want to see energy.”

Read the full article here.