Evan Milberg: Comm 361

This chapter focuses on microblogging in the field of journalism with an emphasis on Twitter.

Intro to Microblogging

Microblogging sites let you post brief text messages (usually up to 140 characters) on the Web. The interesting part of microblogging is that you can post these messages through a mobile device, a computer, instant messaging, e-mail, and other ways.

Twitter is the most popular microblogging service. Some of the reasons it has become so popular are its ease of publishing and consuming, along with brevity of messages. There is also a sense of connectivity of updates that makes people feel connected to each other.

Why is Microblogging Important?

The major thing that sets apart microblogs from regular blogs is that microblogging happens in real  time. As it relates to journalism, readers want to know what is happening right now! While this may take some readers away from Google, Google has countered with its own real-time technology, Google Wave.

In this age of journalism, every venue for print media is augmented by microblogging or other forms of Web 2.0. With Twitter, journalism becomes interactive.

Limited posts to 140 characters is a great tool for teaching journalists as well. With limits on how much you can write, it challenges journalists to get to the point as quickly as possible.

Microblogging has become an effective medium for breaking news, building a target audience, and marketing a publication’s brand.

Using Twitter

Just like with regular blogging, before you create a microblog, you need to know what your purpose for the microblog is. In the field of journalism you could either try to build a community of readers, create a network of people who follow a specific topic, create a network with other journalists, or seek marketing opportunities.

It’s important to undertsand the language of Twitter. The most common type of communication between two people with Twitter is the @ symbol. Everyone on Twitter has a Twitter ID, and when you insert the @ symbol before a person’s ID, that signifies that you are sending a public message to that person. If you want the message to the private, you can send a DM, or direct message, similar to e-mail.

Another common occurance on Twitter is the retweet tool, which allows you to show people who follow your tweets something that someone else said.

Building a Twitter Network

You could say that the follower is the unit of measurement for Twitter success. However, you cannot simply post things on Twitter and expect millions of people to read it instantaneously. You have to start by building a network.

Before anyone can follow you or know you exist, you have to follow other people first. Twitter is like an RSS feed, except instead of following one source, you are following a bunch of people in real time as they post.

This chapter is dedicated to blogging. A good blog, which requires dedication and determination, is like a continuing conversation with readers. Every college journalist should have one.

Blog Basics

Blogs are defined by three key characteristics:

1. They are frequently updated Web sites that display content in reverse chronological order
2. Each entry in the blogs has a headline and a body
3. They have links the direct the reader to a comment section

Another characteristic of blogs is that they’re important. They have changed they way journalism is done. Dan Gillmor created the first blog for a mainstream news organization in 1999, for the San Jose Mercury News.

One of the most important news values of journalism is immediacy, and blogging’s combination of interactivity and easy accessibility allows for certain blogs to publish stories right as they happen. However, as a caveat, one should never sacrifice accuracy for immediacy. Blogging brings journalists closer to their target audiences and removes the limitations caused by time and space.

On top of these advantages, because blogging is a Web tool, it can be edited and experimented with, unlike print media. It is a far more flexible medium with limitless potential.

In order to become an effective blogger, you need to read other blogs and see what their strenghts and weaknesses are. You also need to learn the language of blogging. A key word that some may not know are trackbacking, which is a way of communication between blogs when one blog links material to another one.

Creating a Blog

The first steps in creating a blog should be deciding what the blog is about and what the purpose of it is. After that, think of a 1-3 word name, and write a short description of the blog. What is its mission?

After you cover the basics of establishing what your blog is about, you can work on how it looks. You can change everything from your page template, to the CSS code for the text, and the fonts and colors. You can even add gadgets or widgets, such as a calendar or a blogroll.

As far as creating content, Briggs offers a formula for driving traffic to your blog: post regularly, write effective headlines, and participate in the community. Some other tips include:

• Put the readers first: not try to impress them, but have their interests in mind when you write
• Organize your ideas
• Be direct
• Make your posts scannable: readers have short attention spans
• Use links, summarize, and analyze
• Participate in the community by reading other blogs and offering feedback

Keep in mind that when you create a blog, you are competing against other blogs for traffic. You can use beat the competition by adding an RSS feed to your blog. It’s the most efficient way to scan large quantities of information and it efficiently tracks the topics you have interest in.