The Australian’s guide on how not to use the new Twitter Poll
The Australian’s technology writer David Swan, aptly named @Swan_legend, was keen to show off Twitter’s new poll functionality yesterday. However he inadvertently offered up a masterclass on how not to run one.
Which newspaper is better? was the question posed to his 1,491 followers with the choice being The Australian (naturally) and its arch rival the Australian Financial Review. You could say he was setting himself up for a fall.
As a professional researcher I would have advised a couple of different approaches here. To get the most valid possible, the two options should be rotated (not sure if you can do that in Twitter). To ensure you get some good PR bullets, you should ask readers to rate both newspapers on a range of issues including Business news, Cultural news, Sports new, Political news, Culture etc. Also ask respondents how often (if at all) they read the paper. The Twitter application looks pretty limited for proper research.
As a professional researcher I would have advised that as around 7 in 8 Australians don’t have a Twitter account to use a methodology that allowed all Australians an equal opportunity to participate.
* valid result possible
As a non professional watcher and Newspaper reader I would not rate the Australian at all, its a kind of print version of Faux News AKA Murdoch think, I can think of 10 papers I would read before that load of rubbish and lies
As a thinking man, I would advise not to try and big note yourself and company on a social platform accessible to all. Also note to take advice from so called professional researchers and apply some common sense and understanding of social media ffs.
*not
“As a professional researcher…” is the new “Hi I’m Troy McClure”
As a decent human being i would recommend not reading The Australian
Hey Ryan and Dick – great to meet you :/
Of course you’d probably appreciate comments from the ignorant and ill-informed as is commonly the case in discussions on research.
Enjoy the weekend.
Pure GOLD.