Among the social media skeptics out there, Twitter continues to get a bad rap. Long perceived as a total waste of time, Twitter still needs to do a better job convincing audiences of its relevance.
With 175Million users around the world with an estimated potential $10B market cap, Twitter is poised to become a very key player in the media world.
Skeptics will one day eat their words for I believe Twitter is bound to play an ever more important role in the publication and dissemination of real time news. In fact, you cannot call yourself a valid media company without a twitter channel. For example, CNBC has several Twitter channels: @CNBC @CNBCbrk @CNBCtopStories @CNBCTheCall @MadMoneyonCNBC etc. Further, last spring the Huffington Post made headlines when it announced a designated Twitter feed for each of its departments: @HuffPostGreen @HuffPostPol @HuffPostMedia @HuffPostFood etc.
So what does this mean for you and how can you create your own meaningful news channel on Twitter?
First, start by finding relevant news distributors to follow. Twitter has a Who To Follow list of News organizations publishing on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/who_to_follow/interests. Find the publishers you like and Follow them.
Secondly, go deeper and use a directory such as Twellow to find more relevant Tweeters in your field of interest. The Twellow Directory works just like the Yellow Pages in that it breaks out users into relevant categories. There you will find ‘News’ and the various content aggregators and news channels worth following.
Another notable directory is Listorious. Listorious is a user-generated directory of user-created lists. For example, I’ve published my ‘Water-Tweeps’ list of those ocean and water conservation activists I follow in the directory. By doing a simple search you can deepen your news channel by adding other relevant content aggregators or dive deeper into a particular topic you wish to remain informed about.
Once you’ve built a base of tweeters, Twitter will then suggest other relevant folks for you to follow: Who To Follow. From there you can grow your list organically.
To now make sense of the chaos, use a management tool to organize your interests by topic. For example, in my personal account I catagorize the most relevant folks I follow by our shared interests “Greenies”, “Water Tweeps”, “Friends” or in my business account “Social Media” or “Marketing Tweeps”. A great management tool for multiple streams is TweetDeck.
Check in periodically throughout the day. When you get up for glass of water or to stretch and so on, check your news feed. You’ll be surprised what you learn.
Before you know it, you’ll want to jump in the conversation yourself! Happy tweeting!