Tweet your heart out

After reading the social media package, I ended up following some bread crumbs through the blog of one of the journalists interviewed for the article, Stephen Buttry. Buttry talks a lot about social media and digital journalism throughout his blog, and I ended up on a post about Twitter tips for journalists.

I'm a recent convert to Twitter, but haven't really used it much, to be honest. I think part of my problem is not fully understanding how it works -- particularly when it comes to having a conversation, because conversational threads are not as visually clear as they are on Facebook. But after reading Buttry's post about just how useful Twitter can be for journalists, I'm more willing to pursue this whole tweeting business.

He makes a list of some very convincing ways journalists can use Twitter (the following list is taken verbatim from his blog post):


* Monitor the activities and discussions of people in your community and on your beat.
* Connect with people who will provide you helpful tips and information.
* Connect with colleagues and share ideas with them or get ideas from them.
* Crowdsource stories by asking the community for story ideas or information.
* Quickly find people who witnessed or experienced a news event.
* Break stories quickly.
* Provide live coverage of news events.
* Drive traffic to your content.
* Report a story by text message using Twitter in disaster situations when you can’t transmit data, as the New York Times’ Brian Stelter did in covering the Joplin tornado.
* Improve your writing as you learn to make points directly in just 140 characters. (If a lead doesn’t fit in a tweet, it’s probably too long. It really helps me write better leads on my blog and columns.)


All of these points are helpful, but one of the most helpful as an up-and-coming journalist (at least for me) is the first one. As a newbie, I'm still learning the art and science of journalism. Learning who else is in the field -- generally, locally, and on the particular beat I'm interested in -- means I can learn from a self-selected crowd. I can tailor who I want my teachers to be, by reading the tweets and full articles of those I deem as important journalists. That's an effective tool all right.