Column: How Twitter Is Changing Poker

Barry Carter explains why he thinks anyone with an interest in poker needs to open an account on twitter, and how the social media platform is changing the way we think about poker.

Twitter and Poker

Recently, I have been theming several of my articles on the role of twitter in the poker world. Last weekend, we ran an interview with power tweeter Kevin Mathers, earlier this week I listed my top ten poker tweeters and I have a few more interesting features in the pipeline.

If I haven't already convinced you, I think anyone with an interest in poker should be active on twitter. I actually think anyone with an interest in anything should be on twitter; it is becoming such a relevant part of life in 2012. But there are plenty of great poker reasons to start an account and get tweeting.

People say they don't join twitter because they don't know what to tweet about - this entirely misses the point of what twitter is. It is not a "social" network in the way that Facebook is, in fact it is probably best described as a "listening" network. The true strength of twitter is in how you use it as a consumer, rather than as a place to make friends (but it is great for that too) - so you don't need to ever send a tweet yourself to get the benefit.

Tournament coverage

Possibly the area where poker has carved out the most unique niche on twitter is in the world of live tournament reporting. The craft of reporting from live events has never been a perfect science, and the bloggers who do it have a thankless chore, because they are expected to report on every fan favourite as well as every player whose friends are asking about them, and there usually is not much tolerance if they report a hand wrongly.

Tournament bloggers do a very good job in hard circumstances and they will never be obsolete, but twitter has managed to organically make the process of tournament reporting so much easier. This is because poker players, from recreational players all the way to world champions, feel compelled to report on their own tournament as it is happening. Most well-known players have a twitter account and a great deal of them tweet their chip counts, bad beats and exit hands for their followers.

This not only helps the official tournament bloggers update with accuracy; it provides a much more robust picture of the tournament as a whole. It is already starting to happen, but I expect live tournament reporting to get more and more integrated with twitter in the future.

Hellmuth tweets his WSOP

Fan clubs

If you consider yourself a dedicated fan of a particular player, then you really need to follow them on twitter, because most of the players with a genuine fanbase are very active on it. They post thoughts, chip counts, videos, pictures and perhaps most importantly, often interact a lot with their followers.

Typical favourites @Phil_Hellmuth, @RealKidPoker and @TexDolly for example are simply must-follows on twitter if you are a fan of them, because they are all prolific tweeters.

Exclusive promos

Most poker companies have a dedicated twitter account, and many of them use it to give their fans exclusive offers. Usually the players who follow a poker room or company's twitter account are among their most loyal customers, so they tend to reward them with exclusive twitter promos, which also are a great way for them to attract more followers.

This mostly comes in the form of freeroll tournaments where the password is only available to twitter followers, but also in the form of giveaways and twitter-based competitions. Whatever online poker rooms you play at, check out their twitter accounts and you will soon see what I am talking about.

Customer feedback

I mentioned it at the top of this feature, but the true strength of twitter lies in how it acts as a "listening" platform. The people that use it best are the ones that use it much as a customer service department, rather than just a marketing platform. Twitter is a great place for people to give direct feedback; that feedback is public and cannot be ignored.

The companies that use twitter the best are listening to and responding to what their customers are asking of them. Because those customers are publicly tweeting their concerns in front of an audience of potentially hundreds or thousands, they are almost forced to respond promptly.

So, you have a problem with the rake at a poker room, don't like the structure at your local card room, or didn't like how one of your favourite players played a hand on TV? You can tweet them about it and expect a response.

To give you an example of how this works: a couple of years ago, the WSOP announced their press guidelines for the series that year, which stated anyone working as press would not be allowed to play in bracelet events. As you can imagine, those of us in the poker media went ballistic and started tweeting how much we disagreed, always mentioning the @WSOP twitter account as we did.

The guidelines were changed within just a couple of hours, as it was clear that the WSOP had got the decision wrong and were getting some bad press. The power of twitter changed a guideline that would probably have taken weeks or months to reverse otherwise; at the same time everyone respected the WSOP for responding quickly to this customer feedback.

Breaking news

Tom Dwan Tweeting

The other way in which twitter has changed the way we live is in how we consume breaking news. Poker is of course no different and the first place any poker news is broken is on twitter. As a journalist, it is the first place I check when looking for news. In particular, it was the only place to go when the news of Black Friday and the worsening Full Tilt situation first materialised.

It is also the first place we can expect anyone involved in these stories to respond to any breaking news - for example the first place Tom Dwan made any public statements after the FTP Ponzi allegations was via his twitter account.

Finally, certain stories get more exposure than they perhaps would have otherwise. Stories that might have otherwise been brushed under the carpet get more exposure as poker players start to "trend" them by tweeting about them and asking questions - the Chino Rheem and Michael De Vita Epic Poker stories, for example. Just like a poker forum (and in conjunction with poker forums), twitter provides in insight into what poker players are saying, but on a much more public platform.

Twitter is a really odd entity to explain to someone who is not familiar with it, and it really does take a while to get to grips with it. But I urge all of you to take an interest in it and learn what it is about, because the story of poker, and so much more, is being told on twitter - you are missing out if you are not a part of it.

Don't forget to follow @HQPokerStrategy and @Barry_Carter for all the breaking news.

Related articles
• Top Ten Most Interesting Poker Tweeters
• Interview with KevMath

by Barry Carter