Twitter Potential for Journalists Can Be Overlooked

Posted by Larry Kilman on October 1, 2009 at 3:15 PM

Twitter is a powerful tool for journalists. It can be used to find sources, or to develop a story. Because it provides real-time search, it gives instance access to breaking developments -Google can't do that.Twitter can also be used to promote transparency. It can be used to aggregate other information on the story's topic, or run live polls. It can even be used to promote the work itself.But far too many news organisations see it at nothing more than a simple distribution platform and don't take advantage of the microblogging site's potential.

"What we have to remember is, it's not about us," says Robb Montgomery, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of US-based visualeditors.com, speaking at the 2015 Newsroom Conference in Prague. Microblogging sites like Twitter, and social media in general, rely on peer-to-peer conversations. "The web is built on small talk and small interactions," said Montgomery. "The power occurs because the small talk is in a network environment. Take YouTube, for example. It's not only about watching the videos, but seeing how many times it's been viewed, ranking them, sending them to friends. "That behavior around the content is very, very powerful, and news organisations have been very slow to pick it up. That behavior is really crystalized in Twitter." Twitter works because it is built on the ingrained behavior of young social networkers, said Montgomery. Need help understanding how to use Twitter? Montgomery provided the conference with a list of Twitter tools. The conference, organised by the World Editors Forum at the PPF Media Futuroom complex in Prague, can also be followed on Twitter.