Jennifer Preston was named social media editor of The New York Times today.

Yes, the Gray Lady now has someone in charge of social media. The idea and title may seem funny to some, but it’s better than what The Wall Street Journal and others have been doing lately. It remains to be seen what Preston will do exactly and if she will really help make the Times more social, but early returns have been promising.

Preston asked users on Twitter today, “How should @nytimes be using Twitter?”

My first suggestion to Preston and the Times would be to be social. This is a given right? Wrong.

Check out the main NY Times Twitter feed. It’s anything but social. It’s a glorified RSS feed, composed of just headlines..

That should be corrected ASAP. The Times has almost 1,000,000 followers on that account, and the paper isn’t doing anything meaningful with it. First order of business for Preston should be to figure out how to make that Twitter feed social and useful.

It’s important to understand a news org and its readers before making suggestions. The Times has a rich history which must be kept in mind, and many of its readers are older. The Times should approach social media differently than a new media startup like TechCrunch.

There are, however, a few suggestions that I think all news orgs could benefit from. Here are a few suggestions from BeatBlogging.Org to the Times and other traditional news orgs:

• Be Social — If you’re going to be on social media, you should be social. This means engaging in two-way communication from the start with all social media accounts. This also means avoiding the urge to make Twitter into a glorified RSS account.
• Transparency — Social media is a great way to humanize reporters and pull the curtain back over a news orgs. Why not Twitter page one meetings and talk about upcoming stories? This would get people excited about upcoming content. A news org like the Times might even be able to charge for this access. People and organizations that are successful with social media are almost always transparent.
• Encourage every employee to experiment with social media — I mean everyone, just not content producers. Even editors who may not use social media for their jobs should be encouraged to play around with social media in their spare time. After all, if an editor is going to be managing other people who use social media, that person should understand social media too. Every employee at news organizations needs to at least understand and appreciate social media.
• Make two-way communication a requirement of content producers — The era of one-way media is over. The era of one-way stories is over. All content producers should be required to engage in two-way communication for their jobs. Content producers should take ownership of the comments after stories, posts, videos, etc. If content producers are required to engage users, it will be much easier for news orgs to build meaningful communities around their products. This could help end comment ghettos.
• Build a bigger network of sources — Social media can help content producers build bigger networks of sources. A bigger network directly translates into more tips, more confidential documents, etc. A bigger network will mean better journalism. Social media is a great way to build a bigger network.
• Crowdsource — Working on a story? Need to find experts or people to comment? Social media is a great way to do that. Need to get people’s experiences? Social media is a great way to do that too. Social media can even be used to get people to help report on a story. Our audience is a great, untapped resource. It’s time for us to harness it.

What would you suggest the Times do with social media and Twitter?