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Twitter at Work in Citizen Media

Now that you know how to use Twitter, it helps to keep in mind how to use it to aid your citizen media efforts. Here are some examples of Twitter at work on that front:

Let Flickr be your radar screen.

Credit: Ben Frantz Dale, via Flickr (CC license). Source link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benfrantzdale/1056282822.

• Radar Screen. What if there’s no military base near your town, and someone from your community suddenly tweets, “Just saw a giant double-rotor military helicopter outside my office window. It was shaped like a telephone.” Or what if you like to cover stories that your local mainstream media miss, and you see this tweet: “Figuring out who to vote for in school board and county races that the SF Bay Guardian can’t even be bothered to rant hysterically about.”
   
• Asking questions. You can ask people about nearly anything on Twitter: Beekeeping, advocacy groups, prices - you name it. Whether you ask the questions or just see what answers other people’s questions get, this can help you spot sources, issues, insight, and news.
   
• Community Building. You can find local Twitter users through TwitterLocal. Try following some of the more active local users and engage them in conversation. Then watch for announcements of informal get-togethers called “tweetups” - where local Twitter users meet at a coffee shop or park just to socialize. If you know you have some local followers, then propose a tweetup yourself. Also, publicize your Twitter username on your business cards, Web site, e-mail signature file, and any other way you routinely share your contact information. That’s an easy way to build your posse as you’re out and about in your community.
   
• Publicity. When you publish a story, photos, or video, Twitter can be a great way to quickly alert the people most likely to be interested. That’s how Boston-based citizen journalist Margalit announced her coverage of a local train crash on May 29, 2008.

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