Now that the good citizens of Iran have put Twitter on the map, I suspect many more journalists will stop wailing: "I don’t see the point. It’s so inane. I don’t want to know when someone’s stuck in a traffic jam or what they’re making for dinner."

I agree about traffic jams and dinner plans (and am told by the online gurus that tweeting the dish you’re whipping up in the kitchen will get you unfollowed faster than a porn site). I’m no Twitter expert but you’re really have to play with it and get a handle on it, Luddites, if you’re a  journalist — especially a blogger.

I’ve only been at it since March but I can really see Twitter’s value as a marketing and branding tool so, as "grubstreetSA" with 679 followers and following 1318 people,  here in a nutshell is what learned  (not necessarily in 140 characters):

1. You seldom have time to read all the tweets of  the people you are following but when you do dip into the timeline every now and again, you do pick up interesting links to stories etc in online media around the world.

2. There are some people out there such as Stephen Fry  who lead fascinating lives and write pithy tweets but, once you start following more than about 300 people, you can’t locate their Tweets among all the rest if you use your phone to Twitter.

3. Chiefly Twitter’s value lies in other people reading your tweets, i.e., as a marketing tool for your blog or website — or your stories on your news organisation’s website if you don’t have your own blog or site.

So, for instance, all the posts I do on my Grubstreet blog automatically get tweeted and I get a fair bit of referral traffic from this. Also, you can pick up story leads — especially for big unfolding events — and ask people to give you personal accounts of their experiences through email or on the phone after you’ve connected with them on Twitter.

4. The Twitter website itself is totally up the pole. It looks and acts like to was built in 1997 so don’t even bother with it once you’ve registered. A whole industry has sprung up around Twitter developing programmes to make Twitter easier for you to use. Mr Twitter, for instance, will look for and automatically follow people with whom you have similar interests and there’s Tweetdeck, which sits on your desktop and through which it is much easier to tweet and search for other people or subjects being tweeted.   

If this all sounds a bit daunting, get a friend or colleague who is already tweeting away to help you. Odds are they won’t mind and will be happy that you’re showing an interest.  

5. Finally, I recommend you ditch your Nokia or Erickson the next time you are due for a cellphone upgrade and pay a bit extra for something like a Blackberry. It makes Twitter much easier to deal with as well as receiving and sending emails from your phone, which is essential for today’s journalist. I’ve had a Blackberry for about four months and am a complete Crackberry convert!  

For more ideas, read this piece by an American journalist at the website of the Knight Digital Media Center: "Newspaper columnists ought to be the perfect bloggers. so why aren’t more doing it well?" (July 2, 2009)

And here’s a funny piece on classic Twitter faux pas on ABC News (July 2, 2009)  (Incidentally, picked up by me through Twitter)

Popularity: 3% [?]