How are you using Twitter to disseminate information?

We use Twitter to post live quarter-by-quarter updates at Friday night football games.

I manage The Miami Hurricane’s Twitter account, @miamihurricane. In addition simply to pushing out new stories and blog posts via Twitter, I’ve used it to live blog football games — uploading photos with Twitpic — and to cover an Obama rally on campus.

We currently have 128 followers and sometimes get replies to questions we pose or in response to the live blogging. We’ve also had followers retweet updates and photos we’ve posted.

At work I like to use Twitter to keep up with the few sources that I follow, and who follow me. It’s been incredibly valuable because they can sometimes point me in the direction toward a source I didn’t know existed. They can also give insight to the inner workings of a subject I am working on.

We have incorporated twitter into two of our weeknight local newscasts. To answer your question first: @Fox5newsedge uses twitter as a live blogging tool for the anchor to communicate directly with viewers during the 6&11pm casts. Those posts give behind the scenes information the viewer at home would never know otherwise. ie. Backstory on news items, technical error explainers, more information than what just aired.

@Fox5newsedge also pushes content 4 times a day from the stations main website. Links to the major headlines of the day. And, during the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates, we live twittered the event with observations, strategy notes and fact checks.

We’ve garnered a modest following compared to national media outlets and figures. Are always looking for more ways to get viewers on the @fox5newsedge page during their day and specifically during the newscasts. Despite regular promotion during the shows, we’ve seemed to reach a bit of a plateau. But the twitter platform has provided an invaluable way to break down the walls of local television to bring the viewers into the planning and presentation of our Fox 5 Newsedge branded shows.

WTTG-TV Fox 5
Washington, DC

@All,

Are you providing two-way communication? Do you answer questions posed by followers?

@Becky,

How popular have your quarterly updates been? Have you considered adding in more information than 4 times a game?

@Greg,

How have people responded to your live blogging? Are you embedding your feed for these events anywhere else? You could embed your Twitter feed, for instance, on your Web site during football games.

Do you provide just what’s happening during a football game or do you also provide analysis?

@Kate,

It sounds like you’re using Twitter more as a tool to help you report in other mediums. How often do you use Twitter to help your report? In what ways does Twitter allow you to connect with sources that is different from traditional ways?

@Fox 5,

Do you provide two-way conversation with your followers? I noticed you said you provide back story, but can people ask you questions and do you answer them?

Do you guys blog at all? It might be a good idea to give your anchors blogs so they can converse with viewers.

“How often do you use Twitter to help your report? In what ways does Twitter allow you to connect with sources that is different from traditional ways?”

@pat
I use Twitter maybe once a week to help my reporting for print and Web, but I’m always watching for interesting information.

It’s so much easier to ask a question to my locals on Twitter than to call each and every one of them. I just wouldn’t have time to call that many people.

I can and have been at school board meetings and tweeted some details to people who I thought would be interested. They were, and the information they told me made the story all the better. The world seems more open with Twitter when your sources are on there. It’s all about accessibility.

This might sound silly but they seem more like people than sources, because I read about them planting in their garden, or going in for surgery, or any other life issue that happens on a daily basis (that they tweet about).

Ron Sylvester has found an excellent use of Twitter. As far as using Twitter as a reporting tool by itself for school reporting (as I am an education reporter), it would have to be a pretty extraordinary issue to warrant using Twitter I think.

@Pat,

Do you provide two-way conversation with your followers? I noticed you said you provide back story, but can people ask you questions and do you answer them?

Do you guys blog at all? It might be a good idea to give your anchors blogs so they can converse with viewers.

>> We do answer questions and engage as much as possible during the live broadcasts. One of the “viewer benefits” from our twitter involvement, allowing them behind the tv glass as a quasi-interactive local news experience.

The anchors do have blogs, but have seen mixed results. Blogs that are dry and just the facts don’t get much interest. Blogs that are opinionated can cross the ethical line between journalisma and commentary. And, the flame throwing from anonymous viewers in the comments section requires a heavy moderator hand which becomes more work than it’s worth.

Do you have any suggestions on how to spread the @fox5newsedge word to our viewers and encourage them to engage?

WTTG-TV

At The State newspaper, we use a number of accounts on twitter. We have our main account @thestate which publishes information via RSS feed. We also use @thestatesports to publish our sports information. When we do live blogging from the Gamecocks game, I personally man the sports account and do updates through twitterific that hopefully will drive traffic to the blog.

Quite a few of our followers on the sports account seem to responding fairly well once they figured out that there was actually someone manning the account on gameday.

We also have four different twitter accounts to we use to do live blogging from area high school football games. We use those accounts to fuel live updates on our Midlandspreps.com page. Mine is @statehighschool which updates this page and it changes every week for different games. I do my updating via Twitterific on the iPhone.

We have built up our followers, but I think it could be more, if would turn the twitter account into a two way street of information. It would be a lot more helpful, but we have to take baby steps right now.

@Pat, what would you suggest for reporters who want to start using twitter on their beats?

@Pat,

Embedding the feed is definitely the next step. We tried to use the default Twitter widget, but it didn’t work properly. Our plan now is to make our own.

People are responding, but not as much as I’d like. One good example was the Obama rally when one person asked about the hecklers and another asked where the livestream was online (I lost reception and couldn’t respond until after).

My football updates for @miamihurricane using include the following (depending on if relevant):

-How the university-sponsored buses are running
-How is traffic
-Weather
-Fan atmosphere
-Big plays
-Scoring
-Odd observations
-Photos: buses, traffic, crowds, field, stands, etc.

3G has not been my friend the past 1.5 games + the monsoon last game = coverage below the level of the first home game.

One time last spring I liveblogged a home baseball game last spring with more extensive game coverage than football because most followers watch football on TV.

Also, one day I just went snapped a couple pics of interesting things on campus — I should do that more often.