Social media: Here’s how reporters can use it

For journalists, social-networking sites can be used as a communication tool, a source for news stories, a breaking-news platform, another place to publish content and a way to grow audience.

I made those points to a packed audience at SABEW 2010, business editors and reporters who use social media but wanted to understand how it can be valuable for journalits.

“Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and even Flickr are just tools. We are the social media,” she said.

To get started, I suggest taking a look at what other business journalists are tweeting. MuckRack.com has one of the better lists of business journalists on Twitter. We at BusinessJournalism.org maintain a Twitter list of business journalists: @BizJournalism. If you are not on it, send us a message: @BizJournalism on Twitter and we’ll add you.

There are more tips in the following handout from my SABEW presentations. I’ve also broken out details about how useful Twitter’s advanced search can be. And my PowerPoint slideshows may help give you some ideas on starting out with social media and making the most of the free online tools.

And if you want more:

SOCIAL MEDIA 101 – A VALUABLE TOOL FOR REPORTERS

SOCIAL MEDIA 202 – SEARCHING, SOURCING, ETHICS