Using

in the newsroom

Twitter can be confusing if you're not familiar with it. Its users talk about things like tweets and followers and twitter feeds. Sounds tough to translate, doesn't it? But once you get the hang of it, this social network can be a useful tool for communicating, sharing information and generally making yourself more accessible. All these things can be valuable for a newsroom. Read on to see how Twitter can help us do our jobs better.

Understanding the lingo

Tweet: a message you post on Twitter. It's 140 characters long and answers the question “What are you doing?” Many people include links to other sites in these, and everyone can see them. You can protect your page, however, to control who follows you.

Followers: People who sign up to see your tweets. You can follow other people, too.

Twitter feed: A list of tweets from everyone you follow.

@username: How you reply using a tweet. These then show up in a section of the site called “replies,” to see everyone who's responded to your tweets.

Direct message: A way to contact someone through Twitter that isn't open for public consumption. Many people do this to exchange contact or other information they're not comfortable with the whole world seeing.

Twitter and news

When news happens, we try to post it on our Web site as soon as we can. We've talked a lot about how to send out text message alerts about breaking news, as well. Twitter can help us with that – we can link to our stories using tinyurl.com or another url shortening service. All followers can opt to receive their updates as text messages at no cost to us. We simply have to let them know that's available and where to sign up.

Twitter is also a great way to find out what people are talking about, especially if we keep a close eye on local users. In other areas, Twitter users have scooped traditional media – including the Associated Press – by reporting what they see in real time. For example, information about China's major earthquake in May was flowing freely on Twitter before any news outlets reported it. If a Twitter user we follow reports breaking news in Champaign-Urbana or East Central Illinois, chances are they've beaten us. But we can be next on the story – and possibly have an eyewitness source.

This could especially be true if reporters can cultivate Twitter sources on their beats. For example, an education reporter might find parents to follow. If the PTA is raising a stink about something, there is a good chance that parents might tweet about it.

An interview with Craig Newman, who populates the Chicago Sun-Times' Twitter feed, revealed that Twitter can be used to cover huge events (he tweeted the Democratic National Convention) and fed onto a newspaper blog site for readers' enjoyment.

Twitter and the community

Another useful aspect of Twitter is that it allows instant two-way communication. We can talk to community members and ask them, “What's happening in the community that's important?” and “What do you care about?”

When we started The N-G's Twitter account last week, we focused on feeding our news into it. We updated quickly and often. At least one person following us wasn't happy with this:

“ @news_gazette Goodbye, this is not the news I'm looking for.”

If this happened with the newspaper, we might have lost that reader forever. But with Twitter, we have the chance to ask, “What kind of news are you looking for?” That particular user wanted our news tweets to be categorized. It started a conversation with others about how we tweet. Many told us they didn't want a “firehose” approach to our news.

Twitter can also be used to get input from the community about our newspaper itself. The Sun-Times has used it to settle editors' disputes when putting together the paper. Newman has asked followers for headline ideas or where a story should be placed. This gives Sun-Times followers some buy-in, and allows the Sun-Times to take advantage of their sometimes great ideas.

Lots of papers (and other “Tweeple”) organize what they call “Tweet-ups.” These happen when people who follow each other meet at a public place, like a restaurant or a bar, to talk in person. It's another good way for people to get involved in our news organization.

Twitter and untapped audiences

It's no secret that The News-Gazette doesn't appeal to many University of Illinois students, and we have trouble reaching them. Newman suggested going in and talking to a couple of journalism classes about Twitter. This is a sure way to get at least a couple of users almost instantly. If we can follow them and other students, it'd be a good way to find out what's happening on campus and what issues they care about. If breaking news happens on campus, our followers might be a good place to start when looking for reaction quotes. Same goes for other community members who don't read the paper but still have a stake in local news.

How to use Twitter

So now you're convinced that Twitter might be a good tool to use when you're reporting the news. But – how do you actually use it? This section is dedicated to finding people and being the best Tweeter you can possibly be.

1. Be tenacious

It can be tough to find people on Twitter, especially locals. It doesn't have a “Champaign-Urbana” network like Facebook. You really have to look carefully to find those you want to communicate with. You can do this by:

• browsing local blogs. If the blogger uses Twitter, he or she will usually post a link.
• using search.twitter.com – search things like “Champaign,” “Urbana” or the communities you cover. You can also find people talking about these communities – lots of alums tweeted things like “Going to the football game” over UI's homecoming weekend.
• trying other search tools. Newspaper reporter Daniel Victor, who works for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., suggests Twitterlocal.net. It allows you to see the latest local tweets or sign up for an RSS feed of these. He also uses tweetscan.com to search for people discussing or tweeting from his location.
• googling “site:twitter.com location champaign” or fill in the community in which you're searching for users. This tip came from someone @news_gazette is following. We tweeted that we needed help finding community members, and he chimed right in.
• socially networking. See who other locals are following – chances are, other local people are mixed in there, as well.

2. Be conversational and a good communicator

We might be an institution pushing out news, but our quick experiment with simply feeding links into our Twitter account proved that it's not the way this medium works. Twitterers want to converse with you, not read a feed. Newman said in the three weeks after talking back to other users, his following went up by 1,200 people. He also stressed the importance of always replying when someone tweets you. It's the way social networking works, and people want to feel like they're important enough to get a reply.

3. Be active and quick

If you never tweet, you might not have ongoing conversations with other users when you need them most. You can't let your account languish, or there's no point in using Twitter. And if you're working on breaking news, tweet it as you get it (and make sure it's right). The word on new media journalism is “We don't know much, but we're going to tell you what we know as soon as we know it.” Add value to the timeliness of your news by getting it out there.