Why should journalists and media organizations take note of Pinterest? Simple. Women love it.

In case you’ve been under a rock, Pinterest is an online pinboard for expressing yourself by pinning photos of things you like on virtual bulletin boards. It was developed back in 2009.  But in the last few months it has become the latest social media darling. It seems like every time I’m on Twitter I come across another story about Pinterest. For example, bloggers are writing about how to use it for business or even for news.

Women love Pinterest

According to Tech Crunch, Pinterest has more than 10.4 million registered users, including 2 million daily Facebook users. A graph from Inside Network’s AppData shows a 30-day increase in Pinterest members that displays a strong spike. Most of the users are women.

Why should this matter to journalists or news organizations? Women readers have proved illusive to traditional news organizations for decades, despite the fact that females make roughly 80 percent of the buying decisions in America. In today’s challenging transition for journalism, news organization cannot afford to lose a single reader — male or female — especially ones coveted by advertisers.

As I wrote on this blog back in 2009, news organizations’ migration to the web has largely failed to attract female readers despite the fact that women are online as much or more than men. My post then explained that news efforts to woo women largely focuses on treating issues important to women as features (not news), expecting women to appreciate the same topics and format that men do, or trivializing subjects women care about if men don’t see them as relevant.

Will embracing Pinterest reverse this trend? Probably not. But what it will do is put a news brand where lots of potential readers are and give them an experience they enjoy.

People use Pinterest essentially in the same way as they’d use a physical bulletin board. For example, people might pin pictures of furniture they like to jog their own memories when they redecorate. Others use it to list quotes they love or pictures they enjoy. Anything that’s visual is fair game.

People can follow others on Pinterest if they like what they post. They also can repin posts, which is similar to retweeting on Twitter. Repining is to take the content another has shared and share it with your followers as a means of affirming the original sharer. Pinterest is so new that users notice — and feel kind of pleased — when someone repins their stuff. They also can like things others have shared, a la Facebook.

How could a news organization use Pinterest

To me, this offers potential for local news organizations as a tool to engage — particularly with women.

I’d suggest local news organizations start by  doing a local story about Pinterest. Who is using in their community? The news organization could create its own Pinterest account and search for local pinners to use as sources in this story — and beyond.  Need a local woman to interview for a story about kitchen makeover? Find her on Pinterest. She probably has pinned all the things she wants in her own makeover. Need women with children to interview for a story? Search on Pinterest. Wonder how men are using Pinterest? Find them there.

Start their own “What (insert name of your community) People Love” pinboard on the news organization’s account and repin pictures and quotes from people in their community onto that board. The news organization can open up the site to allow others to pin to it, creating a way to engage directly with community members.

Once news organizations got started, I suspect interest would grow, and news staffers would likely come up with even better ways to use Pinterest. Mind you, I’m suggesting Pinterest is part of a comprehensive engagement effort, not the only tool in the box.

News with a dose of relationship

What I suspect appeals to women about Pinterest is the sharing. Pinning something is a way to say: Here is what I like, and I want to tell you because that bonds us. And if you like it, too, even better. I have found a kindred spirit. This may not be an impulse all people have, but 10 million and growing is a sizable swath of people.

In essence, Pinterest could give news organizations a way to “give women news with a dose of relationship,” as I advised in 2009 on this blog.

Certainly, it is true that fashion, decorating, and crafts predominate on Pinterest. None of these topics necessarily fit the standard definition of news. But, as I wrote in October on this blog, perhaps news organizations need to redefine what they consider news to include “what people share.” In addition, what I find so attractive about Pinterest for news organizations is that we do not quite yet know its potential. All we know is this: Women like it. Lots of them.

Already, some women are using Pinterest as a political activism tool. For example, consider this pinboard lambasting Rush Limbaugh for calling a law student a “slut” for supporting President Barack Obama’s new policy on contraceptive coverage. This board created a spot for women to like the pinboard much as they’d like a Facebook status or show even more support by repining it or following the board. If Pinterest continues to be used this way, it offers a virtual way for women — or anyone — to protest, share opinions, talk about issue. Gee, that sounds a lot like news to me.

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I have new duty to add to journalists’ jobs: Imagine how readers will use the information news organizations disseminate.

In the past, it was enough to gather the information, accurately explain it, and make some sort of sense of the news for readers. Now, journalists need to imagine what is is like to be the consumer of that information — and to use that knowledge to better craft the messages, regardless of what format (text, video, photo, audio, social media) they employ.

An example illustrates my point. Recently, my family and I were driving back from a New Year’s trip to New Orleans. We were about half-way through the 20-hour drive, when we hit the snow-and-ice covered roadways of Interstate 81 in southern Virginia. We were going along at a decent clip, when suddenly traffic stopped.

Read the rest of the post at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.

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It’s that time of year again. A time to reflect back and look forward. I think it’s also a good time to review what posts from Save the Media captured the most attention — and traffic in the past year. Here are the top posts on Save the Media in 2011, based on pageviews. (Feel free to check the top posts for 2010 and 2009).

1. A journalist’s guide to the ethics of social media. This was remains in the #1 spot for the second year in a row, after moving up from fourth place in 2009.

2. A journalist’s guide to the Twitter #hashtag. This post was new in 2011 and got many a tweet. It’s a quick way to explain to Twitter newbies what that weird tic-tac-toe thing is on Twitter.

3. So what is journalism? This post is moving up. It was #10 in 2009, moved up to #7 in 2010. It’s still a salient topic as the lines blur between nonjournalists and journalists in our changing media landscape.

4. Journalists, don’t commit the seven deadly sins on social media.This is one of my favorite posts. I’m glad to see it move to #4 this year.

5. 10 ‘journalism rules’ you can break on your blog. This remains my post that has spurred the most interaction — comments, other blog posts, tweets. It was #1 in 2009 and dropped to #4 in 2010.

6. Is blogging journalism?. After two years as #5 on my list of most popular post, this one remains a steady draw, although slightly less than in previous years. The question, of course, remains relevant.

7. A journalist’s guide to search-engine optimization. This is one of my earliest posts, dating to my blog’s 2008 beginnings. It was #8 in 2010, so it has moved up a bit. To me, it is even more important today for journalists to understand how SEO works than it was when I wrote this post.

8. More on newspapers’ use of social media. This post is the cornerstone of what my blog is about — how journalists can — and should — use social media, and how efforts by newspapers to control that may run afoul of their long-term goals. It hit the #9 spot on my top posts list in 2009, and moved to #6 the following year.

9. Old journalism versus new journalism. This is a newcomer to the top-10 list. It offers what works from the past — and what doesn’t — as journalism evolves.

10. Five Twitter etiquette rules you should never (ever) break. Coming in at #3 in 2010, this remains a popular post. My favorite rule continues to be: Do NOT send automatic welcome direct messages to new followers. It feels like spam, and it’s a good way to get unfollowed. (And, certainly, don’t send aut0-DMs that ask me to buy your eBook. Ewww.)

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“Great entrepreneurs do not really see the future as much as the create the future they envision.”

That’s a quote from MIT professor Michael A. Cusumano from a piece he wrote on the late Steve Jobs, but I think it offers some insight for the future of journalism in 2012. I think we in the industry need to heed this advice and create a future for journalism — rather than just wait and see what happens.

If I were creating this future, a large component of it would include offering greater customization of news and information for readers.

Read the rest of this post at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.

If your Facebook feed is like mine, it has been full of complaints recently over the latest Facebook changes. People don’t like the Twitteresque status-update feed down the right-hand side. They don’t think Facebook should decide what “stories” are likely to be popular. They don’t understand the new friend groups, unless they are also on Google Plus and love its “circles.” In general, it seems many people want to go back to the old way (which they hated when it first came out, too.)

Arguments against the changes range from concerns the alterations will help advertisers not users to opposition to Facebook trying to be in the “news business” at all. However, the point of this post is not to debate whether the Facebook changes are good or bad. The point is: There is much news organizations can learn from the Facebook changes.

Read the rest of this post at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.

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Today, I turn my blog over to a friend and former colleague, Amber Smith. Amber and I worked for years together at The Post-Standard in Syracuse, NY. Now, after 25 years in newspaper business, Amber has
joined the marketing and communications department as a senior editor at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. She recently bought an iPad, and these are her reflections on how tablets can change — and may help save — the media.

If the Web is the death knell for newspapers, the iPad is their savior.

I say that not as a hopeful journalist — because I recently left 25 years
in newspapers for a new career in health care marketing — but as a faithful
reader.

I’m not the typical techie early adopter. I got my iPad as a gift. Until
recently, I didn’t own a smart phone, so I wasn’t even familiar with “apps.”
I wasn’t prepared to be blown away by some of the newspaper apps. The New
York Times app looks like the venerable New York Times. The USA Today app
looks like the color-splashed USA Today. The Washington Post app looks even
better than The Washington Post with its big, beautiful Washington landmark
photos on it’s launch page.

It’s no wonder almost 32 percent of people who use an iPad or other tablet
device read printed newspapers, books and magazines less than they used to,
as found in a recent Forrester Research study. The apps on the tablets
feature the same great journalism as the corresponding print editions — but
without the expense of printing and distribution. From a reader standpoint,
they are even better than their print editions.

Consider:

• I can read my iPad on the sidelines of a soccer game without wind ruffling my pages.
• I can read my iPad while soaking in a bubble bath without water drops smudging the pages.
• I can read my iPad in a dim or dark room because it is back lit.
• I can read my iPad at the breakfast table, and there is ample room for my bowl of cereal.
• I can read an article on my iPad, and rather than physically cutting and mailing, I can email its link to a friend. Better yet, I can post interesting articles to my Facebook wall to share with all my friends at once.
• No more trudging down the driveway to dig a plastic-bagged paper out of the snow. No more fishing for quarters to feed a newspaper box. My iPad doesn’t even require me to climb out of bed to retrieve the most current issue of my favorite newspapers.
• I can easily fit my iPad in a purse or notebook to carry with me anywhere, no worries about double folding or ink stains.
• The iPad, like the Internet, gives my newspapers a 24-hour news cycle. I can update my newspaper apps first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening, and see a potentially entirely different newspaper each time. I can update whenever I am on line, and then read at my leisure.

I find the newspaper apps easier to navigate than newspaper websites. The designs are unique to each publication and seemingly tailored to readers, more like traditional newspapers.

Of course, many readers have embraced their newspaper’s website as they have canceled their print subscriptions, sounding the aforementioned death knell. We have developed new habits as we are tethered to desktop computers during our workday. We pay nothing to subscribe to RSS feeds or Google alerts or scroll Twitter to find out what’s happening. The venues and formats have changed, but our appetite for news remains.

Some readers will say they miss the actual newspaper, its smell and its texture and the ink it leaves on fingertips. But I believe most readers are more practical than nostalgic. We will use (and, I believe, pay for) newspaper apps that can tell them what’s playing at the local movie theater, what happened at last night’s city council meeting, why the police cars were at the neighbor’s house down the street. And, we will appreciate depth, independent investigation and perspective that is the domain of newspaper journalists.

Newspapers did a good job over the decades of establishing themselves as primary and trustworthy sources of news, the Fourth Estate, a crucial element of democracy. They will survive if they follow us readers and satisfy our appetite for news.

Sure enough, when I talk to a journalist who has just started on Twitter, inevitably the question will come up: What’s the tic tac toe thing all about?

Welcome to the hashtag. The hashtag is simply adding a keyword with the pound sign or hash (#), which does look a bit like a tic-tac-toe board, to a tweet. It’s an innovation that evolved organically to help people communicate better on Twitter.

The hashtag has two main purposes:

1. To help sort and organize content.

2. To help people communicate emotion or nuance in their tweets.

Organizing content

The idea here is that you put a hashtag on a tweet that shows the topic of the tweet. For example, in the rash of tweets about the riots in Egypt, people would use #Egypt in their tweets about that issue. 

Using the hashtag makes aggregation of tweets about that topic easier. For example, even today — weeks after the conflict broke — if you throw #Egypt into a Google search, you will get real-time tweets about the issue where people used this hashtag.

 Journalists, look for hashtags and use them in your own tweets. Here is how:

Searching for hashtags

Searching for hashtags is useful for journalists to help find what many people are tweeting about an issue, not just those whom you follow on Twitter. It’s a good way to follow the news through the crowd-sourced tweets of the masses. It helps sort through the barrage of information on Twitter if you are just looking to read about one topic.

Hashtags also offer a clue to what is popular at the moment, which might prompt your own reporting or coverage. If you keep seeing a hashtag for a certain topic, odds are that’s a talk topic as we say in the business.

You can search for hashtags through Google as I did above. You also type the keyword with hashtag into a Twitter search to find all the tweets on that topic, as I have done here for #CharlieSheen. It is important to note that you can type a keyword without a hashtag into a Twitter search, but you will end up with different results, as I do here for Charlie Sheen.

The beauty of searching by hashtag is you get the tweets in which someone purposely added a hashtag, so using this methods focuses your search.

Searching for hashtags is particularly useful for following a live event, like a ball game, public meeting, trial or a conference. Find the hashtag, plunk it into Google or Twitter search and read along.

I’ve started “watching” Syracuse University basketball games this way when I can’t make the game, and it’s great. I can read what the journalists covering the game are tweeting but also what random fans are saying, as well as fans for the other team. This really adds to the whole experience because it’s like having your own, personalized blow-by-blow announcers.

I also have followed hashtags to keep up on what’s going on at a conference I was not able to attend. It’s a useful way to find out the highlights through the lens of conference participants.

How to find the hashtags

It is important to make sure you are searching for the hashtag that most people are using for topic. Sometimes, it becomes clear quickly. When I was watching Syracuse University in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee stadium, I could tell pretty quickly that #pinstripe was the hashtag of choice.

But sometimes finding out what hashtag is being used most for a particular topic can get confusing. What’s the trend can be helpful tool, as it lists top hashtags of the moment. Hashtags.org is also useful.  You can type in what you think might be the hashtag and see what results you get or try several variations (#pinstripe, #pinstripebowl, etc.). Hashtags.org provides stats on how much the hashtag you typed in has been used recently as well as tweets that contain it. Mashable offers additional tips on using and searching for hashtags.

Using hashtags in your own tweets

For journalists, using hashtags in your own tweets offers many advantages. First, it helps your tweets on a particular topic get aggregated along with other tweets on that topic. For example, back to my Pinstripe Bowl example, if you’re covering the Syracuse Orange versus the Kansas Wildcats for the Syracuse newspaper, obviously you want Syracuse fans to read your tweets. They likely already follow you on Twitter. But you also wouldn’t mind if Kansas fans read your tweets that may contain links to your stories because it expands your reach and readership. Obviously, Kansas fans are unlikely to be following you already on Twitter.

So plunking in #pinstripe into your tweets gets you read by a wider audience than if you don’t.

Using a Twitter hashtag when covering a live event is particularly useful, especially if you are also tweeting other things at the same time. That way people can keep track of what interests them.

Using hashtags to communicate nuance

Another use of the hashtags is to add some personality or emotion to tweets. This evolved, I think, because computer-mediated communication in general can lack the richness of face-to-face communication. I can’t smile or wink or nod or use my body language to show I’m being sarcastic or I’m kidding in a tweet.

Emoticons, the smiley or frowny faces people put in a computer-mediated messages, are an attempt to circumvent this problem. The hashtag is, too.

People have started added commentary to their tweets using the hashtag to show irony or humor or just add some emotion. In a post that every Twitter user should read, Jessica Hische explains this use of the hashtag well.

Hashtags used to convey emotion, feeling, irony.

So why does a journalist need to use hashtags to add some personality to tweets? First, personality on Twitter is a good thing. Twitter is a conversation; it’s not about shouting “me, me, me.” It’s about engaging people virtually, and people who are interesting and funny are more likeable than those who lack these qualities.

Another reason journalists should use the hashtag to add emotion or personality is that it marks you as a Twitter native. No one wants to be the nerdy guy running behind trying to catch up. Journalists need to be leading, not following on social media. One way to do that is to learn to use Twitter well and do so.

Nothing marks you as a newbie quicker than misunderstanding Twitter basics. Twitter, I find, is a pretty forgiving community. So don’t sweat a mistake or two. But for journalism to re-invent itself as it really needs to, it need to radically change not just make minor adjustments, as Mathew Ingram points out in this very important post. “Getting” how to use social media is part of that radical change.

So don’t just dip your toe into the water, leap in. #andhavefundoingit

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In the early days of this blog, I wrote about how journalists can use Twitter on the job. This is an update.

Many of the same suggestions remain important, although I believe that Twitter’s potential benefit for journalists is even greater now than when I wrote that early post. I believe Twitter is useful — quite useful — for journalists to find sources, gather ideas for stories, and chat with readers. I know it works for my blog. I did a quick check of my 2010 stats, and found that 43% of my traffic comes from Twitter referrals. Wow!

The value for news organization is they can be constantly expanding the reach of their audience, rather than being content with just the folks who happen to live in their community. Yet, I know many journalists remain skeptical.

Recently, I taught an undergraduate class on how journalists can use Twitter. Afterward, I ran into newspaperman I know who adjuncts for the university. I told him I’d just taught a class on Twitter, and he said, “Did it take 30 seconds?”

I laughed, but inside I was cringing. Why are journalists — smart, dedicated newspeople — still resisting a tool that could help them do their jobs better? To me, it’s a bit like refusing to use a pencil to report on a fire in the rain, insisting instead to keep using a pen with ink that smears when it gets wet.

The most important lesson for journalists who want to use Twitter on the job is to get followers. Without a critical mass of followers, tweeting is like talking to yourself in a closet. This powerpoint offers some suggestions on building up followers and more on what to do once you get them. And if you haven’t read my Twitter etiquette rules, you might want to check them out.

Enjoy!

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So 2010 has come and gone. In case you missed some of the most popular posts on Save the Media during 2010, here is a list of the posts that my readers clicked on the most. Enjoy reading ones you missed or taking a walk down memory lane and re-reading your favorites. You can compare with my top posts for 2009.

1. Journalist’s guide to the ethics of social media. This one bumped from fourth place in 2009 to the top of the heap a year later. The post urges that ethics for journalists using social media are the same as for journalists in general: Be accurate, be fair, disclose conflicts, tell the truth.

2. Twitter etiquette, style rules for 2010. This post moved from 7th place in 2009 to number 2. It’s an early look at Twitter and how to use it gracefully.

3. Five Twitter etiquette rules you should never (ever) break. This post was new in 2010 and was the most tweeted of any of my posts. It’s an updated look at how to use Twitter for journalists, or anyone.

4. Ten journalistic rules you can break on your blog. This post drew more controversy than any I have written. It was my most popular post in 2009, but it continues to draw readers. If you haven’t read it, take a look and see what you think.

5. Is blogging journalism? This post stays at the same point on the list of popular posts as it did in 2009. The question remains a viable one, although blogging has changed much since I wrote the post. So what do you think? Is blogging journalism?

6. More on newspapers’ social media rules. This post, which came in at number 9 in 2009, examined how some newspaper biggies grappled with how their staff members use social media. The issues continues, though, as journalists make sense of how to use these new tools.

7. So what is journalism? Clocking in at number 10 in 2009, this post has gained some popularity. In it, I asked Twitter users to answer the question in a bit of web-based crowd-sourcing.

8. Journalists’ guide to search-engine optimization. This is one of my earliest posts, written when I started this blog back in 2008. It didn’t make the top 10 list in 2009, but over time, it has gained a following. It’s a no-nonsense, non-technical look at how SEO impacts journalists’ jobs today.

9. How journalists can use Facebook. This post remains at number 9, as it was in 2009. When I crafted it in 2008, using Facebook as a journalistic tool was in its infancy. However, the ideas still offer a framework for using Facebook today.

10. Journalism’s relationship to social media has matured. This was a hopeful post I penned in early 2010, noting that journalists seemed to be balking less at using social media and really taking advantage of its benefits. I think this trend has continued. Do you?

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Steve Yelvington had a great post recently about the seven deadly sins of journalism companies that has been making its way around the Twitterverse. My favorite from his list is sloth: “No, we don’t need to change. We don’t need to reconstruct our sales forces, create smart incentives for digital sales, take the risky path, practice interactive journalism, try something new.”

His smart list inspired me to come up with my own seven deadly sins, but I direct my sharpened pen at the journalists themselves as they use social media. As anyone who has read even one post on this blog knows, I’m a huge proponent of journalists using social media to connect, reach readers, gather ideas. Journalism, as an industry, seems to be in phase two of its relationship with social media. For the most part, we’ve moved on (thankfully) from “social media is stupid.” But we’re stuck (at least many of us) in the rut of using social media just one way, limiting our use to render it useless, aiming to devote as little effort to it as possible, or dipping in on occasion but not sticking with it. Then we wonder why it doesn’t work.

So, here is my list of seven deadly sins journalists should not committ on social media. Kick these seven habits, and you’ll have a social media plan that you’ll see beginning to work.

Pride: Back in 2009, having a Facebook fan page or a Twitter account might have come with bragging rights for a journalist or news organization. Not anymore. Just having one is nothing to be proud of. In fact, if that’s you all you do with it, no wonder you’re underwhelmed by the results.

A fan page is only worth it if it fosters interaction with readers, gets people talking, and leads to story ideas or sources for reporters. Having a bunch of people “like” your page may be a start, but it’s hardly enough to translate into true engagement.

To get to engagement, you need to participate in your page by posting regularly information, tweeting it, sharing it, actively soliciting followers, and talking to them. Also, figure out how your readers want to use your page. That’s your key on how you should use it. For a look at how a successful newspaper Facebook page works, check out this ranking from the Bivings Group on the best in newspaper fan pages.

Greed: Want to know if you’re committing the social media sin of greed on Twitter? Check the ratio between your followers and those whom you follow. If it’s way off-kilter (or God forbid, you don’t follow anyone), you’ve been greedy. The problem with greed on Twitter is it limits your ability to make full use of the medium.

Twitter is about conversation and networking through weak-tie relationships. To make your tweets worth anything, you need a critical mass of followers. One of the best ways to build followers is to follow people (Remember, we learned this in kindergarten: Want friend; be a friend.) However, if all you have is a bunch of followers, you’ve turned your Twitter feed into a dissemination device. But you’re not engaging. The result: People may read your tweets, but they are less likely to retweet them. So you lose out on the generalized reciprocity that works on Twitter. So you only get access to your actual number of followers. You miss out on the exponential number of readers who might get your tweets from retweets from your followers.

Envy: Your competing news organization gets a big scoop, so you ignore it and wait until you have the story before tweeting it. That may seem like traditional journalistic good sense, but it’s not in today’s world. The web is instant, and your followers depend on you for the latest, most updated news. They don’t care if it came from you. They don’t care if your bosses are mad that you missed the scoop. Your job is to serve your readers (and hopefully your bosses will see that, too).

Sure, go after the story with a vengeance and tweet the heck out of each development that you get. But you’re only thinking of yourself if you fail to tweet a competitors’ scoop to your news-hungry readers.

Wrath: The best social media journalistic plan can be derailed by a bit of anger or rage. Someone hates your story, so they crucify you in a blog comment. They are insulting, ignorant and ill-informed. You feel it’s your duty to fight back. Resist.

Why? In keeping with the religious theme of this post, I turn to the Bible for sage inspiration. Proverbs advises: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly,  or you yourself will be just like him.” That could have been written for the social web.

The problem with arguing with a fool is you just escalate the situation. The person doesn’t listen or learn. You get increasingly strident. No good comes of it. And you end up with a permanent, searchable, online record of one of your least-attractive moments. 

So what’s the answer? Very stringent moderation at newspaper sites is a good first step. A second step is to foster an environment on a new site that makes it clear that idiots aren’t welcome or engaged. This comes from consistent and frequent interaction with readers who offer constructive criticism or thoughtful sentiments, coupled with rapid deletion of vitriolic comments from trolls until they go away like any other bully.

But even with these efforts, the least among us will spout off. Go ahead and rant and rave to a colleague, a spouse, a friend. Just don’t do it online.

Lust: How do journalists commit lust on social media? By tweeting or blogging trash, hoping for a quick rush of traffic that’s actually meaningless in terms of real, long-term engagement. Yes, tweeting or blogging about the Kardashians will generate traffic, as will promoting online stories about entertainment industry hijinks and excess. Certainly, there is a lot of interest in celebrities’ exploits, and I’m not saying it’s a sin to tweet or blog or post about them.

However, unless you’re an entertainment publication, that’s not where you should put most of your focus if you want true reader engagement. You’re just titillating, and there’s very little reader loyalty in that. Plus, if you’re a local newspaper or TV station, people are reading your web site because they want to know what’s happening in their community. They can find out the latest celebrity exploits lots of places; they can only get the local scoop from you.

Gluttony:  If you are snarfing down Twitter accounts like too many cookies at Christmas, you just might be a social media glutton. Yes, Twitter accounts are free. But you don’t need that many. Why is this a sin? Because there is a fine line between tailoring accounts to the specific niches in your readership (a good thing) and confusing the heck out of your readers (a bad thing.)

Unless you’re a big media outlet like The New York Times, you’d probably do better with a main news organization account and a handful of speciality accounts for key topics like college sports or food that likely have very specific audiences in your community.

Leave the rest of your Twitter action to individual reporters, using accounts in their own names. Individual reporters will develop their own following, based on their own beats and personalities. By tweeting under their own name, they foster the kind of conversations that can make Twitter valuable. (People converse with people, not news organizations).

But aren’t we losing a branding opportunity, you lament? Not really. Your reporters should include your news organization name in their bios, and they should tweet regularly from your news organization web site. This will bolster your brand. Plus you still have your news organization-named accounts to brand you.

Another glutinous social media practice that I truly hope will die in 2011 is the creating of special Twitter accounts for specific events that a news organization is covering. It may sound like a good idea, but it’s not. Why? Because readers don’t want to hunt all over to find out what Twitter account is covering the big game or the key political race. They want the account they already follow from your news organization to serve them.

Go to the reader; don’t make the reader cyberstalk you. Also, these “once in a while” Twitter accounts likely don’t have enough followers to make them worth your while. You’ll reach more people with your regular accounts.

Sloth: Sure, we’re all busy. I know. But social media only works if you think of it like a relationship. At the start, the wooing stage, you need to spend a lot of time. Court your followers. Seek them out. Spend time with them. Search for them on Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare.

Put a lot of thought into the sweet nothings you send out. Read every word your news followers/friend say. Of course, as in real-life relationships, this stage does not last forever.

You move into the more solid kind of relationship that’s built on past success and interest. People check out your blog or your Facebook page because they’ve learned to know you’ll have cool stuff there. You’ve developed some trust, but you must maintain it. Don’t take your follower/virtual friends for granted. Be consistent and show them some virtual “love” by retweeting or tweeting their posts, answering their blog comments, responding to their Facebook queries.

The goal isn’t to spend hours a day on social media. It’s a bit like exercise: 30 minutes three days a week is better than a full-bore workout only once a month.  It’s OK to take a vacation or skip a few days. Relationships, even virtual ones, ebb and flow. But whatever you do, don’t stop communicating completely. We know what happens then: divorce.

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