How To Use Twitter As A Newspaper

Twitter is today’s ”interactive newspaper”.

It is the place I go to for the latest in news, sports, business, weather and professional and personal intersts. If you use Tweetdeck(Twitter) it can be a great screen to organize these interests. You can do this several ways:

Create lists of information

Organize your followers by contetnt. I usually put companies like CNN, USAToday, NewsChannels, NewsPapers in a list called “News” – One column for specific information.

Organize your columns by hashtag. #

• Create columns for marketing like: #socialmedia, #onlinemarketing, #marketing
• Create columns for industries like: #ag, #food, #environmental

Organize your screen by function

• Mentions: Which contacts are talking about you or retweeting your work.
• Interactions: Which people are talking about you and following you
• Tweets: What information are you sending out and when did you last share something.

Organize your time

• Check out your columns created above in real time throughout the day
• Use search functionality on key words to find information posted on that particular topic
• Quickly scan your columns for good headlines and click on links to gain more in-depth information.
• Also, consider scheduling your tweets to help you organize your time.
• Just like a newspaper, you need to read it and then put it down for awhile.

Start writing the news for you and/or your company

• Here is the biggest difference, you can now write news stories
• You need to tell people why they should read your content and connect with you.
• Just like a newspaper, you need to update your content on a regular basis.
• You also need to write so that your paper is interactive and worth sharing.
• Make sure you acknowledge your readers with a return reply.

If you approach Twitter like a newspaper and use a tool like Hootsuite or TweetDeck (I prefer the TweetDeck Google Chrome Extension) , you will see Twitter in a new light and you will see the value in using this social media platform as a news service. The only difference is the news service is interactive and required your input and readers to make it an effective platform.

Be a leader on Twitter and start making news and sharing insightful information. Connect with your users, but ultimately find a way to make it a fun experience so you stay with it on a consistent basis.

“Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net“.