Social Media 101:AP StyleSkylar Bergl

Twitter and Journalism

Common Uses for journalists: Tracking down sources Gather content Short form, such as blogs, content Sharing links Survey the public for opinions

Be cautious with sourcing on Twitter, confirm identities, don’t life material, make sure you attribute, verify authenticity, and heed the phony accounts

Practical Uses

News sources for breaking news CNN, ESPN, BBC etc. all use it to highlight news and stories

Blogging service Twitter is a good way to alert people to blog posts that you

have recently posted. Live Tweeting

At conferences or other events, people can use hashtags to aggregate all their related tweets together into one list.

Tweetups Ways to meet with other people who use Twitter

Twitter Language

Twitter has developed its own language, with terms that apply only to their use on the site

Knowing what they are and how they work is key to improving your Twitter experience

Power users know how to use each one effectively

Term

Follow

Handle

Hashtag

Retweet

Trending

Tweet

Unfollow

Definition

Action by which users connect on the networks

A self-selected username on Twitter by which users are identified

The use of # to convey subject so it can be indexed on others’ feeds

The practice of forwarding a message to your followers “RT”

Indicates a topic getting a lot of attention

Verb or Noun, “to tweet” or “A tweet”

To remove someone, thus not seeing their updates