Darlington appoints UK’s first ‘Twitterer in Residence’
Darlington has become the first town in the UK to appoint a ‘Twitterer in Residence’. Many towns and cities have artists and writers in residence but Darlington came up with the idea of an official Twitterer to keep people up to date with the goings on in the borough.
Andy Atkins, a member of the Darlington Partnership which is behind the scheme said:
“More and more people are communicating using digital and social media and we want to reach as many people as possible so having our very own Twitterer was a natural progression. The aim of the Twitterer is to get to often harder to reach groups and to generate conversation and interaction in the town.”
After a call went out to find the town’s most prolific Tweeter, the job was given to Mike McTimoney – a social media fan and IT teacher here at QE. Mike tweets about anything and everything going on in the town, sharing news, insights and observations, and hopes people will follow him and join in the conversation. He tweets by the name the DarloBard and is paid the princely sum of £140 annually for the role – one pound for each Twitter character allowed.
Mike says:
“I am really into social media and all the fantastic opportunities the Internet offers – so I thought this would be an interesting thing to do. I think it is great to be the UK’s first Twitterer in Residence and hope other towns will follow suit. I deal with young people on a daily basis and think this is a great way to get important information to them.”
It’s hoped the DarloBard will join the ‘Twitterati’ and gain a vast army of followers like Stephen Fry, Philip Schofield and Jonathan Ross.
December 14, 2009