Murdoch joins Twitter – but what’s in it for him?

Rupert Murdoch may be one of the most influential people people on the planet (Forbes magazine ranked him the world’s 13th most powerful man in 2010), but his opinions have until now been mainly divined through the political allegiances of his newspaper and TV outlets.

On the final day of 2011, however, the media mogul joined more than 100 million other people worldwide when he launched a profile on the Twitter social media website. Since then Mr Murdoch has expressed his views on a range of subjects – political, social and, occasionally, domestic.

Several of his tweets are devoted to today’s Republican caucuses in Iowa. He describes evangelical Christian candidate Rick Santorum as the “only candidate with genuine big vision for country” and someone showing “principles, consistency and humility like no other”.

But the News Corporation chairman, an avowed libertarian, also reserves praise for another Iowa candidate, the maverick right-winger Ron Paul, and the “huge appeal” of his libertarian message.

His fondness for US President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also reflected in several tweets. But the authorised biography of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is unfair – “family must hate”, he suggests.

Insights into Mr Murdoch’s own family are few, however, apart from one tweet from 31 December which reads: “Great time in sea with young daughters, uboating.”

Out of touch?

140-character expressions of support for US politicians are all very well – but what benefits are likely to accrue to the billionaire businessman as a result of his public foray into the twittersphere?

After all, Mr Murdoch failed to cover himself in glory when he appeared before a Commons select committee on phone hacking in July last year. He struggled to answer several questions and admitted at one point: “I’m not really in touch.”

Lara O’Reilly, Marketing Week’s digital and media specialist, believes it is a question of “better late than never” for Mr Murdoch. “His joining up with Twitter flies in the face of the perception that he is out of touch,” she told Channel 4 News.

“He might have launched The Daily (an iPad newspaper founded last February) and led the way by pushing several of his sites behind paywalls, but he himself was seen as a little bit dated in terms of how he approached digital media.”

And is Rupert Murdoch’s relatively late arrival on Twitter a reflection of how News Corporation and News International are “behind the curve” in online innovation? Not according to Lara O’Reilly. “News International is investing millions in a new digital hub, and they have put a hell of a lot of money and confidence into such things as the paywall strategy,” she says.

Silver surfer

Although the 80-year-old Mr Murdoch joins an undoubtedly select group of octogenarian tweeters, demographic analysis shows that Twitter users tend to be older than users of other social media sites such as Facebook.

A 2010 comparison of Facebook and Twitter users found that more than 60 per cent of Facebook subscribers are 34 years old or younger. By contrast, 53 per cent of tweeters are 35 or older.

The comScore internet research company attributes Twitter’s more mature demographic to the fact that its initial popularity was in business settings and news outlets, attracting primarily older users.

That may now be changing, however. The top five most followed Twitter users – Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears – undoubtedly owe their appeal to a younger audience.

Whatever the age group to which Rupert Murdoch addresses himself on Twitter, he will have to be vigilant about how he expresses himself. One of his first efforts included the observation “maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country”. The tweet was subsequently removed, but not before it was captured re-tweeted – among others, by former deputy prime minister John Prescott.