By Austin Arias
@austinarias
It is safe to say that today's media has been infected with the social media bug. Media organizations and freelancers alike have been turning to popular networks like Facebook and Twitter to spread the news. In an effort to understand this recent phenomenon, I took the time to research journalists who call social media a "second home" of sorts. I wanted to analyze their profiles on Twitter and see how they use it to reach their audience in a new way.
Chris Taylor, known on Twitter as @TBOChris, is an editor for TBO.com, the online component of a Tampa Bay, Fla. media conglomerate. Since joining Twitter in Sept. 2008, he has gained 1074 followers, follows 871 Twitter users and has tweeted a total of 3,232 times. Taylor tweets at least 3 - 4 days a week and tweets quite often during those days. The number of tweets tends to increase if he is covering a breaking news story or important development. About 75% of his updates are related to his profession, with some personal ones making up the rest. He is a new father, so tweeting new memories occurs often. He also does a lot of re-tweeting of the company's other Twitter users and a lot of research through posing questions to his followers and profile visitors to help build a possible new story. One question he poses often is "What news do you want to see? What do you want to know about?," in hopes of increasing user satisfaction. Taylor also takes the time to reply to his visitors, who may be asking about a past news story or trying to get more information on a topic. Overall, Taylor uses Twitter to his advantage in his professional life as a journalist and "keeps it real" with an appropriate amount of personal content that allows the visitor to connect.
Lisa Fung, known on Twitter as @lfung, is the Online Arts & Entertainment editor at the Los Angeles Times. Since joining Twitter in Aug. 2008, she has gained 1,055 followers, follows 169 Twitter users and has tweeted a total of 3,686 times. Fung tweets multiple times a day as stories are posted online under her division's pages on the Los Angeles Times web site. The only tweets that are not links to online articles are ones with entertainment news updates. There are very few personal tweets. The ones I found mainly involve her staff. She retweets articles and information posted by the Times' staff or other Twitter accounts primarily. Overall, her use of Twitter is for the most part, strictly professional, using it as a tool to increase readership.
Annie Reuter, known on Twitter as @yousingiwrite, is an freelance music blogger in the New Jersey area. She joined Twitter in Dec. 2008 is quite popular with 1,441 followers and follows 674 Twitter users. Her overwhelming number of 6,381 tweets are a combination of new blog updates, replies to visitors, retweets of music news and personal reflections. Her Twitter mimics her adventures touring the country covering music through postings on Twitpic and updates on her location. Reuter is a lover of music which is evident in what she writes and in her replies. In terms of her professional to personal ratio in her postings, I would say that the majority of her posts are personal. However, this is the nature of what she does so the personal tweets fit. Overall, Reuter does a great job of promoting her blogging efforts while connecting with her readers through her use of Twitter.
All three of these journalists primarily use social media for different reasons - one professional, one personal and one a mixture of the two. However, they are all effective users in that they accomplish their intended goal - whether it is to simply promote the latest news or allow the user to follow their adventures in a new way.
Every journalists use of social media is custom to them, which is proof that social media and journalism are "together in harmony."
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