Remember when Pizza Hut put out a job posting for a “Twintern,” a.k.a. someone who would Tweet for the company and assist with all things social media? Well, a lucky UNC-Chapel Hill student, Alexa Robinson, was brought on board to manage the @pizzahut Twitter account for the summer and did such a fantastic job that she’s been offered a full-time position as master of all things Twitter at Pizza Hut.
It seems that the folks over at Pizza Hut don’t know exactly what her job title should be. Potential ideas are “Chief Creative Tweeter” and “Social Twitterfly.” Yikes. So the restaurant chain is inviting the greater public to submit creative title’s for the all things Twitter position. Alexa will select her favorite consumer-generated submission and put it on her business card. And as an added bonus, the person who submits the winning entry will be awarded free pizza for a year. To submit your idea, you need to Tweet directly to @pizzahut with your suggestion and tag it with the hashtag #PizzaHutTitle.
The role of the chief Twitterer at Pizza Hut was to be “a social media journalist” who chronicled ‘”in 140 characters or less what’s going on at Pizza Hut,” said Bob Kraut, Pizza Hut’s vice president for marketing communications, in an interview with the New York Times earlier this year. The individual also has to monitor Twitter for complaints about the brand and engage with consumer on the microblogging site.
With the power that Twitter (and other social media sites like YouTube and Facebook) wields over mass communication about brands, celebs and products, it’s not surprising that Pizza Hut would choose to keep the “Twitern” on as full-time staff. There are no doubt countless other minions working for brands and companies to manage their Twitter streams and social media presence.
Where is the part where you explain twitter’s business ?
Today’s Recipe: Journalism 2.0
Ingredients*
(1) Pseudo-relevant headline that draws clicks at the expense of accuracy
(1) Random speculation presented as analysis
(2-5) Typos and/or grammatical errors
*Legitimate sources are not used in this recipe
Directions
- Mix well, but don’t spend more than 15 minutes on it
- Publish
I would go with Publicity-hound or Media Outreach
$this is the business here! ‘get covered on techcrunch because some random company runs a microblog on your website’
YAY Chapel Hill
See my school rocks.
And the guy next to me in the cafeteria is on twitter.
The epitome of “finger on the pulse” journalism.
Hi there,
Twitter is one the best social networking and business promotion tool.
It’s not amazing if Pizza Hut is acquiring the staff to manage social streams like Twitter or facebook.
We have found twitter to be a great tool to find freelance work as well
Wow who knew twittering would become a job initself. Kudos.
Really TechCrunch?
There has been a noticeable lack of intriguing articles on TC lately, yet I keep clicking on them and I keep feeling disappointed.
Maybe I’m just losing interest in these topics all together.
I think it’s time for TechCrunch to add another top section to their site (probably between Gadgets and Mobile) called “TwitCrunch” – All and Only Twitter focused news bits. That way they can express their love affair with Twitter in peace while they leave the news alone.
It will also be a great place to check out whenever that service goes down.
Of course, all entries : 140 ch.
Uber Social Media Web2.0 twitter graph hacker
I’m always surprised to hear that people still use Twitter.
for the job title, I would suggest “useless pizza crap”, much like this article.
is the social media economy more or less worthless than the virtual goods economy? here, have a virtual tractor. why, thank you, you just made my fucking day.
m in the pizza hut…im in the taco bell….im in the combination pizza hut taco bell
I think you’re looking for the 3-way combo: KenTacoHut which encompasses all the goodies fast food can offer.
Just submitted a few titles. The pizza for a year thing is just too irresistible not to try…
I’m always surprised to hear that people are still surprised that people still use Twitter.
Fantastic idea! That is a great web 2.0 + PR strategy for Pizza Hut!
Slow news day…:)
I call BS! How is this news? Is TC just a rehash of # tags on Twitter these days?
You have an audience of minds willing and open to ideas, and all you’re doing is serving up this junk?
You’re starting to sound like the Cal professor I met a couple of weeks ago that tells his students to build an iPhone app so they can learn about tech business!
Robert Noyce is spinning in his grave.
Someone please tell me why we care about Twitter? Traffic is slowing from the US, they don’t offer any real value over FB status updates and the guys running the show have NO idea how to run a business. Where is the revenue model?
Last time I ate at Pizza Hut (Jan 2007) I got the worst case of food poisoning on record. I had it coming out both ends like a fire hydrant for 4 days. Tweet that.
I vote for Jabba the Twitter Hut
how about Social Slicer.
Here at Oakley (@oakley) we have a full time, dedicated social media representative. Twitter, Facebook, etc.
You can build your business on Twitter just like Alexa Robinson did with Pizza Hut by using http://www.flashtweet.com!
In response to @flashtweetapp: Why would I pay $7/month for what I can get for free at http://www.hootsuite.com ????
Wow, they got over 100 suggestions already. How they are going to manage it on Twitter? They should consider to use http://tweetbrain.com to help them with the crowdsourcing (with voting, hide, best answer, listing of all the entries etc. plus its reward system feature)