Is reference via Twitter possible?

Last night I had a “great idea” for an experiment: reference via Twitter! Our reference department already has a Twitter account (NLC_Reference) so all that needed to be done was to make sure someone was watching the account’s e-mail address and to then let people know that they could send us reference questions via Tiwtter’s direct message feature. We’d then receive the questions (short ones obviously) and direct message back the (again, short) answers. Well, it turns out things are always as easy as they seem.

Unknown to me, in order for person A (a patron) to send a direct message to person B (the Commission), person B needs to be following person A. Up ’till now, this account hasn’t bee following anyone as we’re just posting questions asked to show the diversity of questions we get at a state library. There really wasn’t any need to follow anyone. But to accomplish this idea of mine the following would need to happen:

1. We market the fact that we’re accepting reference questions via Twitter and tell people our username.
2. They follow us.
3. We receive an e-mail telling us of the new follower.
4. We go to the Twitter page of the new follower and start following them.
5. They receive notification that we’re following them.
6. They can now send us direct message reference questions.

Granted this isn’t exactly the most complicated set of procedures in the world but one must wonder if it’s worth the effort for the limited exposure. (We’ve got a MeeboMe page which doesn’t require a user to do anything in order to ask us a question.) Say they start following us late on Friday. We’re not going to follow them back until Monday morning. The result is several days before they can even ask the question let alone receive a response. Also, we’re worried that if people know we’re “following” them they might try to ask us a question publicly instead of via direct message. Despite the fact we are technically following them, we’d have no intention of actually reading anything they post. Might then someone think we’re ignoring them if we don’t respond?

The decision isn’t mine. I think I’ve explained everything accurately to our head of reference and she’s going to mull it over. I’ll keep you posted but any comments on this would be greatly appreciated.