Jul 24, 2009 11:36 am US/Mountain
Getting Interactive With CBS4 And Twitter
Tweetdeck, Twitterberry, and Twhirl... Oh My!!!
Some advice for beginning Tweeters.
Written for cbs4denver.com by Tara Meyer
DENVER (CBS4) ―
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Assignment Editor Misty Montano tweets with her followers to develop stories for the 10 p.m. newscast on June 18, 2009.
Tara Meyer/CBS
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Tim Wieland, CBS4's news director, checks Twitter on his phone during an editorial meeting (with reporter Karlyn Tilley looking on.) on July 9.
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Twitter is a big part of CBS4's editorial meeting.
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Tim Wieland, CBS4's news director, logs on to Twitter from his office to see what Coloradans are discussing on June 18.
Tara Meyer/CBS
Social networking sites are all different but they can be extremely helpful, depending on how you use them.
"For anybody looking to benefit in social media, I have just a little advice," CBS4 Assignment Editor Misty Montano said. "First, know why you are going to be doing it. Second, have a strategy and a plan to stick to that strategy which can evolve and change but have a strategy, know your purpose of why you are going to be on there. And then, social media platforms work best when you are able to provide content, consistency and conversation."
Once that is achieved, the perks will follow.
"If you can provide all of those, you'll end up doing really well on these platforms and find valuable people who, if you are promoting a business, will maybe buy something from you, " Montano said.
When you get on Twitter, Montano advises that you should play around and watch others use it to get used to it. If you follow CBS4 Denver and tweet with us, you can really have a voice in the news that day.
"And once they have a feel for us, I'd hope that they'd begin to interact with us," CBS4 News Director Tim Wieland said. "When we ask for people that might fit a certain story that we are working on that day, that they could respond to us and explain how they might be a good interview subject for our story. In severe weather or breaking news, we have many followers who send us pictures now and we have a lot of people that use us as a resource, too. "
Even our followers who may not interact with us receive the benefits from the information that we tweet.
"They are using it as their news feed aggregation sites," Montano said. "They log on, they can see all the news feeds or see what they are interested in."
In addition to being accessible from the Web at Twitter, clients like Hootsuite and Twhirl have cropped up as convenient tools to make the most of the Twitter experience. These programs can help shorten URLs for long links Twitterers may want to include in their tweets.
Twitter can also go with you during the day with mobile applications like Twitterberry, which is designed for BlackBerry cell phones, or Tweetdeck, one of the many ways iPhone users can explore Twitter.
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