SuperVision

I'm enjoying watching newsroom managers react to Twitter. Their responses range from detachment and skepticism to passionate adoption. Most of all, they want to know how to make it worthwhile for newsrooms doing so much more with so much less. They can't be blamed for wanting a return on the investment of their Twitter time.

For those who remain uninformed or skeptical, check out Marshall Kirkpatrick's recent "How We Use Twitter for Journalism" on ReadWriteWeb.com in which he reports:

Or read this recent Poynter piece by social media consultant J.D. Lasica, who says:


If I were back in my newsroom, I would be encouraging the staff to use Twitter as one of multiple ways to interact with the public, share information and solicit ideas.

I say that because of what I've learned using Twitter in my Poynter work.

Using the Twitter application Tweetdeck on my laptop, I mine for ideas to use in this column and for the daily "Today's Journalism News" podcast I produce for Poynter (on Utterli, Poynter Online and iTunesU.) I use Twitter and Facebook to let followers and friends know when each day's podcast is posted.

I also use Twitter to share links to journalism news and to leadership and management information. It connects me with people who have ideas and responses they want to send my way.

Is it time consuming? Not really. I just figure out how it fits into the work I need to get done each day -- teaching, writing, seminar development, coaching -- and keep it from being an attractive distraction.

Here's my advice for newsroom leaders about using Twitter.

• Have a strategy. Don't just blindly declare: "As of this week, we all tweet!" Instead, identify who are the best people to do it, for what purpose and with what priorities.

• Provide training. Let your early adopters train others on staff. Trust me, Twitter is so easy even a manager can learn it.

• Look at examples of good Twitter use. For example,Consumer Reports uses Twitter effectively to solicit story ideas from its followers. Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post sends out interesting nuggets that could stand alone but often inspire me to read more in his columns.

• Use Twitter like a scanner for breaking news -- but: Vet those breaking news tweets as carefully as you do any other scanner traffic. Just because someone tweets or re-tweets, doesn't mean it is confirmed information.

• Appreciate, as I have come to, that the "Twittersphere" has an ethos of helpfulness. Politely inviting people to link to something worthy you've produced can be fine. Non-stop self-promotion isn't appreciated.

• Remember that tweets are both ethereal and permanent. Ethereal, because they are part of a continuous stream of information that followers may not be paying attention to. In fact, a recent study claimed the shelf life of a tweeted link is about five minutes. But though tweets fly by, they are also easily tracked. Muckrack.com, for example, collects tweets from journalists. If one of your intrepid staff sends out insipid posts, those words could come back to haunt your newsroom.

Perhaps if Twitter had been born with some heftier moniker -- you know, like "teletype" or "wireservice," and tweets were called "toplines," -- some newsroom managers might have warmed to the service earlier. No matter. What's important for managers is to help today's journalists understand the need to reach people wherever they are.

They need to understand that while journalists' values of truthtelling and independence are as important as ever, their skills and tools need updating. Properly used, social media can improve their journalism by enabling them to be both teachers and learners, speakers and listeners, the ones who question and the ones who answer. Twitter is just one of many tools to help that happen.

By the way, I'm @JillGeisler on Twitter.