for Journalists

Steve Buttry, Gazette CommunicationsIowa High School Press Association

October 29, 2009steve.buttry@gazcomm.com

@stevebuttry on Twitter

Twitter use by age

Chicago Tribune graphic

Audiences for Twitter• Develop followers; they read your tweets• Use Twitter app on Facebook• Feed tweets into CoverItLive liveblog• Twitter RSS feed for home page, blog

What should I tweet about?

• Link to a new blog post, story, video, photo

• Retweet (with a comment) a link from a colleague

• Reply to students’ tweets• Tweet an unfolding story• Tweet something insightful or funny

Linking with Twitter

• Use compressed links: bit.ly, tinyurl.com, is.gd, tr.im, etc.

• Write a headline or a comment; give tweeps a reason to click

• Credit (RT or via)

Examples from one day in Iowa

• Click trends• Search hashtag #iagaymarriage• @tdorman from Supreme Court, press

conference• @DM_in_the_PM from rally• @dianeheldt from court

Advice from your peers• “We are starting to use twitter for getting

sources, gaining interest, and getting contacts.”

• Students covering games text scores to Twitter account editor, who posts updates.

– Sana Bakshi, @thevikingmag, Palo Alto, CA

Ethical considerations

• How do you identify yourself?• Separate personal and journalism

Twitter feeds?• What, if any, opinions are OK?

Be careful• 39 percent of teens have posted

something they later regretted.• 25 percent of teens have created a

profile with a false identity.• 24 percent of teens have hacked into

someone else’s social networking account.

Source: Common Sense Media, 2009 study

Wrapping up

• These slides at slideshare.net/stevebuttry

• Follow me on Twitter: @stevebuttry• The handout for this workshop is on my

blog: stevebuttry.wordpress.com

Some final advice

From @mathewi (Globe and Mail):Don’t answer, “What are you doing?” Answer, “What am I thinking?”

And from @stevebuttry:“What do I want to know?”“What am I reading?”