Whether crowdsourcing or breaking news, journalists use Twitter in a variety of ways. In fact, the microblogging site launched a newsroom earlier this year to show journalists and publishers how to use the site for reporting, sharing stories, and engaging readers.
I’ve been on Twitter for a number of years as @kathysena, and I’ve found it helpful to me as a freelance journalist to be familiar with social media, especially Twitter. I’ve used it to find article sources, to share links to articles that I’ve written and to find new writing gigs. In January 2009, I was doing a keyword search for “freelance writer AND social media” and I came across a tweet from Giselle Benatar at Consumer Reports. She was looking for a journalist who was experienced with social media to represent Consumer Reports on Twitter during the first 100 days of the Obama administration after the inauguration. I got in touch with her and it turned out that my background was a good match for the job.
Happily, things went very well, and I’ve now been Consumer Reports’ part-time social media reporter for well beyond 100 days! It has been two and a half years, and we now have 10,802 Twitter followers on that account. People know they can follow @ConsumerReports for a straight feed containing all of the latest blog posts, etc. With @CReporter, they know they can engage with a real person, ask questions, share comments, etc. They each serve a very different purpose.
How much of your day is spent tweeting vs. other activities?
I work for Consumer Reports for two hours per day Monday through Friday. That includes working with the editors and chatting via email about upcoming blog posts or magazine articles, as well as representing CR on Twitter. I share links to new CR blog posts, answer questions from followers, do surveys, etc. About once a week I put together a social media report for my editors, and that includes screen shots of trending CR-related topics on Twitter, interesting individual tweets from that week, etc. It’s fascinating work and I get to work with really sharp, dedicated people.
Social media gigs don’t work the way magazine contracts do, so what should freelancers consider when negotiating/pricing these kinds of gigs for a publication or corporate client?
I am working as a freelancer for CR, on a weekly-fee basis. I think when you are first talking with a publication or corporate client about doing social- media work for them, you need to really determine exactly what the expectations are on both sides. Are you responsible for a particular number of tweets or Facebook posts? Are you expected to work a certain number of hours? With whom will you work and how will you get the information you need to do your job? Make sure you have a very clear understanding, and then put that in writing so everyone is on the same page.
Have you found that there are optimal times of day or frequencies for tweeting? Or is the substance of the tweet more important?
The content of your tweets is #1. But spreading them out, and not doing too much at once, is important, too. People don’t want their tweetstream clogged up by too many tweets from the same person or organization. I try to do a good job of spreading out my tweets over the course of the day. I’ll do some in the morning, talk with the editors via email about what’s coming up, go do some other work for other clients, and then come back and do some more tweeting.
