Twitter announced yesterday their introduction of Twitter for Newsrooms (#TfN) which is a tool meant to increase its reporting potential for journalists. The site guides users into four places: #Report, #Engage, #Publish, and #Extra, all which
have resources within that make Twitter a better journalism instrument. The information Twitter presents through the #TfN site is nothing increasingly new to journalists that currently use social media as a resource, but is a way of compiling such information in one place for easy reference to how Twitter can specifically play a role in journalism.
Within the #Report category, users can search long and wide within multiple search tools as well as information on Twitter Search and how to get real-time information on specific topics. Tweetdeck and Twitter for Mac are also featured with information on how to make these apps work for monitoring topics and hashtags.
The #Engage category shows how Twitter for journalism is currently being used in effective ways. A Twitter Glossary allows users to catch up on their Twitter lingo and usage of symbols such as @ replies or #hashtags. When users feel confident in the Twitter lifestyle, they can check out the “Effective Tweeting” and “Branding” links which demonstrate great examples of journalists that tweet effectively as well as ways to brand their own Twitter presence.
Moving on to the #Publish link, users can find helpful plug-ins and guidelines for incorporating tweets into webpages and other media. This section of #TfN also shares how to get people to take action on the user’s tweets: @ reply, follow, and re-tweet. The #Extra category is a support section that includes Twitter’s support handles, official blogs, and translations for when users run into any issues.
Twitter for Newsroom’s biggest goals are to make resources available in a quicker manner and allow users to understand what makes telling a story through social media an engaging story and, through that, how to gain a bigger audience.
