My classmates and I had a thoughtful discussion on practical uses of social media for journalists. However, during the course of the lecture, we were all live tweeting our thoughts, tips and ideas on the conversation.
As they say, you are the medium of the 5 people you surround yourself with the most. Follow those who inspire you. If you aren’t sure how to start live-tweeting, take a lesson from the greats. Follow well-known journalists with healthy credentials. They too were once in your shoes.
Once you’ve started live-tweeting, remember that hashtags are a key tool to create not only impressions, but reach. Impressions are the number of times your post shows up on someone’s feed, but reach is the number of unique eyes that actually saw the post.
Hashtags are important, but active voice is crucial. Some might call it the golden rule of writing in journalism. As mentioned by my professor, Dino Chiecchi, everyone loves to sing the song lyric “I shot the sherif,” but not many would sing “the sherif was shot by me.”
Knowing your audience will have a major impact on how they react to your tweets. Using language that correlates with theirs can increase impressions and keep them engaged.
Lastly, I wanted to end with not a statement, but a question for upcoming journalists. The last 10 minutes of class consisted of a deep dive into the credibility of journalists in social media. Everyone has perspectives and opinions on almost all important matters, but does a journalist have the right to voice theirs on social media? It’s not a crime, but when wearing the name tag you have promised to write and report unbiased content. Can a journalist’s opinions on social media and their work be unattached?
Even then, does it hurt their credibility in the eyes of the public that relies on fact-based information, or is it becoming more acceptable in the digital age of two-way communication?
Emily Tindol 