The New York Times Turns Off Automated Twitter Account

Most of the time The New York Times’ official Twitter account, @NYTimes, is automated. However, this week it’s being run by actual people. Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland are tweeting from the account as part of a test to see if having a human run it is better for the paper.

Heron tells Poynter that the change is in response to people considering the @NYTimes account to be cold and robotic:

[Allowing human users] is about changing the perception, and it’s about being a little more strategic about what we put out there — finding the most engaging content.

Of course having the Twitter feed run by human users is a good idea, and it’s easy to see why: People like to be engaged. After all, it’s called social networking, not whatever the opposite of that would be. Antisocial inner monologue? We’ll go with that.

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