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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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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Here are some interesting links from around the blogosphere and tips about tools that I thought you might find useful. Enjoy.

CommSpace: A new social network just for media/journalism/communications professors, students, and researchers has launched! It’s run by Sage Publications, and I’m one of four students working with Sage to get the word out about it. We’re hoping it will be a place to share ideas, get suggestions for research ideas, make connections with people who share our interests. Check it out. (And while you’re there, be sure to join my Social Media Researchers group. Lot’s of good info.)

Twitter study: About a year ago, I tweeted links to a questionnaire about Twitter use, and some (many) of you graciously filled it out. Finally, I have results. Here is a link to an article in Computers in Human Behavior that came from the data. (Note: Whether you can read the whole thing will depend on whether your university has access to the journal.) Thanks to all who filled out the questionnaire!

Just for fun: This cartoon posted on Mashable has me laughing out loud (for real!) Need a chuckle? Check it out.

More laughs: Here is fun blog post about the “stages of Twitter” from “I tried it for a day. It’s sooo stupid” to “Twitter is down for a second! NOOO!” Enjoy.

How to innovate: Some sage (can I say sage about someone so young?) advice from FourSquare founder Dennis Crowley about innovation, courtesy of Gigaom. Best takeaway: “Don’t let anyone tell you your ideas don’t work.”

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I offered a list of Twitter etiquette tips for journalists — or anyone — a while back, and it got quite a buzz around the Twitterverse. Here’s round two: My updated list of what not to do on Twitter.

1. Don’t send an automated welcome direct message. I am not a fan of automated anything on Twitter because it’s a medium dependent on conversation, and automated conversations just aren’t fun. But the automated welcome direct message has really come to annoy me.

In the face-to-face world, we never walk up to someone we have just met and play them an oral automated message or hold a sign that says: “You’re going to love what I have to say.” So don’t do it virtually. It comes across as really spammy. And if it’s meant as a joke, it usually comes off as stupid, not funny. And if it includes a bid to “read your blog” with a link, it really is just junk mail. If it was in print form, I’d chuck it right in the recycling bin. If you want to welcome me to your community of followers, fine. It’s OK to send a real direct message that’s unique to me.

Talk to me — not at me.

2. Don’t protect your tweets. I’m not sure what the value of Twitter is if people can’t read your tweets. Really, why are you using a public medium for something so personal that it needs to be protected. I have a pretty iron-clad rule that I won’t follow people who protect their tweets. I break this rule only for people I know in the “real” world. I guess it’s OK if you use Twitter to whisper sweet nothings to a few people, but I’m not sure Twitter is the right place for that.

3. Don’t leave your bio blank.  Let’s face it: It takes about 30 second to fill out a Twitter bio for your profile page. Do it. It is one of the main ways people decide whether to follow you. I’m to the point where I pretty much won’t follow someone with a blank bio because I figure: If the person isn’t dedicated enough to fill out a bio, what could they have to say that I’d want to hear.

Now I realize some people get stopped because they want to make their bio clever or funny. They try a few things but feel the result is too bland, so they drop it. My advice: Don’t. I’d be more likely to follow someone who has a straightforward bio than someone with no bio at all. What I’m really looking for is whether the person tweets about topics that interest me: the media, social media, technology, mommyhood.

And while you’re at it, add a picture, please.

4. Don’t end a tweet with “please retweet.” It comes across, at least to me, as sort of icky. If your tweet is retweet-worthy, it will get retweeted, trust me. And if you want insurance, chat offline with your real, honest-to-God friends who happen to be on Twitter and ask them to retweet it for you. But don’t ask the whole Twitterverse.

To me it’s a bit like the rule on gifts for a wedding. If the bride and groom prefer money to blenders and toasters, that’s perfectly reasonable, especially if they’re planning a destination wedding in Hawaii, and they don’t want to haul lots of boxes back to the mainland. But it’s rude to put on the invitation: “Money preferred.” The way to handle that is through back channels. The mother of the bride tells her sisters, who tell their sisters, and soon everyone kind of knows to bring cash, not towels.

I realize retweeting and gifting a wedded couple aren’t exactly the same thing. But I think the commonality is this: In almost every situation, it’s rude to tell people what to do. “Please retweet” kind of steps over that line, at least for me.

5. Don’t tweet your own blog post more than three times a day. I regularly tweet my own blog posts, and I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as one also tweets other things. I’ve also found value in tweeting at different points of the day, to catch people in different times zones or who aren’t on Twitter all day. But enough is enough.

Again, the conversation metaphor is apt. Talk about yourself all the time when you meet new people at a party and you’re bound to be alone soon. I call it the 3-year-old syndrome. If you’ve had a 3-year-old (or ever been around one), you know what I mean. Three-year-olds are completely self-absorbed. I say that without malice. My kids were adorable at 3, and very young children are supposed to be self-absorbed. It’s how they survive. They need to get adults to do things for them. (Thank God, they are also incredibly cute.)

But the thing is most of us grow out of that, at least we should. For some reason, some people slip back into the terrible 3s on Twitter. (I know it’s usually called the Terrible 2s, but in my experience, 3-year-olds have it worse than 2-year-olds.) Resist the urge. Don’t regress. Grown-ups don’t do that.

Coming soon: My FourSquare etiquette rules.

What’s your Twitter pet peeve? What do you think of mine? Post a comment.

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I can hardly believe it has been more than a year since I started this blog. Back in those early days, I had hardly any readers. I was writing for myself, but bit by bit some of you started to read. I thank all of you for that. I appreciate your comments, your interest in what I have to say, and your ideas for the transformation of journalism. I hope to see you around the blogosphere in 2010.

Here are the 10 posts from Save the Media that you made popular in the past year:

1. 10 “journalism rules” you can break on your blog. This one raised the biggest buzz of anything I’ve written. Some liked it. Others didn’t. But it is safe to say this post got a lot of people thinking, which is always a good move in my book.

2. How Journalism Can Change. The credit for this one goes to my former Post-Standard colleague, Amber Smith. She blogs about health and fitness.

3. Top Twitter told for journalists. How to use Twitter as a journalistic tool, not just for telling people what you had for lunch.

4. A journalist’s guide to the ethics of social media. Is ethical social media use an oxymoron? I think not. I explain that ethics in social media are just like ethics anywhere else. Right is right.

5. Is blogging journalism? Yes and no. Blogging, I write is a tool, like newsprint or airwaves. Blogging can certainly be used for journalism, but not every blog is journalism.

6. The “hyperinterest” approach to news. What’s hyperinterest? It’s tailored to the niche. It’s specific to the audience.

7. Twitter etiquette, style rules for 2010. My take on the rules of Twitter.

8. How journalists can use Facebook.  Facebook is fun, but it’s also useful as a reporting, crowd-sourcing and community-building tool. Here’s how.

9. More on newspapers social media rules. This was about the ongoing hub-bub about The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal coming up with rules for how their staff use social media.

10. So what’s journalism? Folks on Twitter and yours truly tried to come up with a definition in today’s changing media climate.

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Twitter turns 4 in the new year, so I think it’s old enough to learn some manners. Here are my suggestions for Twitter etiquette and style as we head into 2010.  I’m sure I’ve missed some ideas, so feel free to add in the comments.

To tweet or to twitter: I think it has been well-established by now on Twitter that the verb is to tweet. I tweet today; I tweeted yesterday; I have tweeted many times. Twitter is not the verb. To twitter is something a bird does, by emitting chirping sounds. People don’t twitter. And certainly, please, dear journalists, let’s not switch back and forth between tweet and twitter as a verb. You wouldn’t do that with any other verb.

Twitterati: I think there is more ambiguity about the noun to describe people who use Twitter. Are they tweets or twits or twitterati? I, personally, prefer tweets over twits. But I like tweeps even more. Tweets feels a bit like saying, “Hey, these are my peeps.” But I’m not opposed to Twitterati, as long as it is used as a plural for both men and women on Twitter. Then, following the rule for Latin endings, one man on Twitter would be a Twitteratus; one woman, a Twitterata; a group of women, Twitteratae. Perhaps that gets too formal. Twitter user is also fine.

Twitterverse vs. Twittersphere: My preference for describing the whole world of Twitter is Twitterverse, mainly because I think Twitterverse sounds better than Twittersphere. (However, I much prefer blogosphere to blogoverse.) Yet, I think both are correct.

Thank you: I think a culture has developed on Twitter where it makes sense to thank people for retweeting your blog post or adding you to their Twitter lists. I think it’s fine, but not necessary, to thank people for following you. But, please, let’s outlaw this too-pervasive practice of thanking people through automatic direct messages, especially those that tout an e-book or blog. Why? Because that’s just spam in the clothing of faux friendship. I like to compare Twitter to a party. If you walked in and introduced yourself by saying, “Hi, read my book,” I probably wouldn’t talk to you much. You can tout your book — just wait to we have some semblance of a relationship.

Retweets: In the old days (like a year ago), people typed the word retweet before they retweeted (repeated) another person’s tweet. Today, that has been shortened to RT. But always be sure to credit the original person who tweeted. (Via @username works well.)  My rules on retweeting that others may or may not embrace is this: If you retweet, you can shorten the original tweet to fit the 140-character limit. But do not change the gist or meaning. That seems like misquoting, to me.

@Replies: Twitter is a conversational medium. People say things; other people respond. But when a one-on-one conversation goes beyond two or more tweets, it’s time to take the conversation outside — to direct messaging. A group discussion is fine to have on Twitter, I think. But when two people just talk exclusively through @replies, it feels a bit like listening to a stranger’s yelled cell phone conversation. Lower your voice, please. But if the topic is general and might be of interest to others — feel free to chat away without heading to the DMs.

1/2; 2/2: Twitter’s 140-character limit can seem restricting, but it doesn’t have to be. If you have more to say than can fit in 140 characters, use this approach. 1/2 at the start of  a tweet or @replies means: first part of two parts. The second part is 2/2. Now, I’d advice using this sparingly because often — but not always — the best route is to edit yourself. Also, the 1/2, 2/2 trick theoretically could be used for tweet, but in practice it is usually reserved for @replies and direct messages.

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Edited: 10:37 a.m. Dec. 29. Here’s what’s great about Twitter. I wrote this post, tweeted it, and within minutes got some smart comments froma fellow Twitter user, Frank D’Agostino, of Syracuse. I added his suggestions in italics, so it’s clear they came later than the rest of the post.

Edited: 11:25 a.m. Dec. 31. It’s official. Based on comments on this blog and suggestions on Twitter, I’m  updating my post to reflect my new belief that tweeps is the preferred term for people on Twitter.

Haven’t done short-takes for a while, so seems like it is time for my list of interesting stuff from around the blogosphere.

Great blogs: I love lists. I think they are a very useful way to convey a lot of information quickly in a format that’s easy to read.  Journalistics has compiled a great list of blogs about all things journalism — from citizen reporting to commentary to academia. Full disclosure: I’m humbled to have made the list, but even if I didn’t, I’d be linking to it and saving it as a delicious bookmark for future reference. You should, too.

Twitter list:  Have you started listing on Twitter yet? If not, you should. At the very least, it’s an easy way to keep track of the people you follow on Twitter by categorizing them into topics (journalists, academics, moms.) I find my lists are a good way to sort through the people I follow and to find smart new to follow from the lists of other people. Twitter lists also can be a powerful branding tool, Daniel Honigan writes on Old Media, New Tricks. Twitter lists can be part of building “reputational currency” on the Web, or as Honigan calls it: showing other people how well-rounded you are.

RSS feeds: I used to be one of those people who subscribed to blogs through e-mail, but that quickly became annoying. My inbox would fill with blogs I didn’t have time to read at that moment, so I would delete them. Then I discovered RSS. I have 67 blogs in my Google Reader right now, and I check the reader every few days or so. These are not the only blogs I read, mind you.  I’ve memorized the URL to the ones I’m really addicted to, so I don’t use a reader to get to them. But an RSS keeps everything there for me, so I can read it when I have time. To me, that’s one on the important factors in media today. Media should be tailored to fit the timen needs of  the reader of the message, not the sender of the message. Anyway, I know some say that RSS is passe, but I still find mine useful. Beat Blogging offers a thorough how-to for beginning RSS users with some examples of how journalists use RSS.

What not to cover:  Sometimes doing good journalism is about knowing what not to cover. That’s the point Jeremy Littau, a j-prof at Lehigh University, makes on his blog in a post about the Texas Tribune deciding not to cover the Fort Hood shooting. (I realize his post is from more than a month ago, but I think his point is timeless.)  The new journalism model, Littau writes, means: “You need to figure out what you are, then be who you are.” I agree. In a niche-dominated world, the old mass medium idea of serving everyone no longer makes sense. If you try to be something to everyone, you’ll end up being nothing to no one. A niche needs to be narrow, specific, and meaningful to a highly interested but perhaps small group of readers. The value is in reading multiple niches.

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