By Shuka Kalantari (@skalantari & @KQEDhealth)
What is Twitter?
Any news or message in 140 characters or less. This includes your feed name (@KQEDhealth takes us up 10 characters of the 140).
Why bother?
Establishing social networks increase your visibility – both the content and you as a health reporter. People share your content with their own networks.
It’s a platform for breaking news content. News organizations like The New York Times often tweet their information before sending out breaking news emails. Also, it’s great for following breaking news events, such as the recent Occupy Oakland demonstrations.
Who do I follow?
Follow people and news outlets. For example, NPR’s health Twitter feed @NPRhealth, but writer and editor Scott Hensley also has his own feed, @scotthensley, where he posts other news also. Some people choose to follow a lot, others less. Not just a broadcast medium, an opportunity to build relationships. (List of top health reporters in resource section)
The basics
Hashtags = #word
useful for being searchable, and searching key terms and hot topics. For example, hashtag #hcr is used when referring the Affordable Care Act, i.e. ‘health care reform’
RT = retweet
reposting someones message
MT = modified retweet
a retweet that has been changed to be able to retweet within the 140 character limit, commentary added, etc.
Follow Friday = #FF
A way to give to give recognition to people, news outlets, etc. that you are following on Twitter. For example the tweet: “ #FF #health #news: @Reuters_Health, @NPRhealth, etc.” would indicate to your followers that these are good Twitter feeds to follow for health news.
D vs @twitter
D is a direct message to someone that no one else can see. @twittername is a message directed at someone that everyone can see
Using Twitter to advance your story
Before:
- find interviewees (general public and professionals) by doing general call-outs or reaching out to individuals
- Ask questions, it can lead to great stories
- searching key terms to see what others are saying
During:
- promoting your content, this where making friends on Twitter comes in
Using Hootsuite.com for Twitter
Third-party site to help manage Twitter. After creating Twitter.com account, create Hootsuite.com account and ‘connect’ with Twitter.
Scheduling tweets & RTs
Creating Twitter groups
Managing multiple accounts
Creating feed for Mentions, key words (hashtags), etc.
Resources:
Step-by-step instructions from UC Berkeley’s Knight Digital Media Center
Poynter.com: “10 ways journalists can use Twitter before, during and after reporting a story”
Video: “How to use Hootsuite and add multiple accounts”
How to: Organize a Successful Tweetup
Health Tweeps to follow:
International health experts you can follow
For health journalism news, follow @AHCJ and @AHCJ_Pia
Shuka Kalantari is outreach coordinator for KQED Public Radio’s Health Dialogues.
