Twitter 101 for Student Journalists

Plenty of people use Twitter just like they use their Facebook status feature.

My personal opinion: That’s not making the best use of Twitter as a networking tool.

My circle of friends on Facebook and my circle of followers on Twitter have fairly little overlap. My friends at UNL might care if that I hate this or love that, but Joe Journalist on Twitter probably doesn’t.

My point? Don’t feel like you have to use Twitter just like Facebook status updates. If you’re like me, you’ll get much more use out of it if you don’t.

F.A.Q.

“What’s with all the @ symbols?”

To address someone, type an @ sign and then that person’s username. For instance, my sister (@eriningram on Twitter) could type:

You are the best sister ever @emilyingram.

twit

Kidding.

But that combination of the @ symbol and my username will make that tweet (or individual Twitter message) appear when I click on the button that looks like this one.

Besides, the more you are actually talking with people on Twitter rather than just typing 140-character messages into the abyss, the more use you’ll get out of it.

Having a conversation with yourself online is just as crazy as it is offline.

“What does RT mean?”

RT is short for re-tweet. This basically means you thought what someone wrote was especially interesting or clever, so you want to spread that message to your followers.

When you re-tweet something, make sure you add @ and that person’s username immediately after it, so people know who originally wrote that interesting quip.

“I don’t get it.”

Read this. Now. I’m not kidding.

If you’re breaking any of those seven rules and complaining that Twitter is useless, you’ve probably found your problem. Follow those guidelines and see if things turn around.

“But I’m a journalist. How am I supposed to use this thing?”

Everyone uses it differently, but these blog posts can give you some ideas:

  • stacieburke
    Is there a place online to tweet from two different accounts at the same time (without signing out of one and into the other all of the time)? If so, which is the best?
  • I haven't used any Web-based Twitter clients that allow postings on multiple accounts, but they do exist. Mashable has a nice rundown of various options.

    What I have used, though, are desktop Twitter clients - which you download and install on your computer - that allow you to easily manage multiple accounts. I'm a fan of Tweetdeck, but I know Seesmic Desktop is another popular choice you might want to check out.
  • erin ingram
    but emily! you are the best sister in the world! and this is a nice explanation of twitter.
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