There is nothing like the feeling of a newspaper between your hands, sitting on the couch with a hot cup of coffee on Sunday morning, reading the important stories of the week (or the comics ). But, with the influx of blogging and social sites like twitter – what is happening to the news?

I remember the earthquake in California a few months back. What I remember was not the shaking of the ground but the thousands of tweets that were all talking about it….at least 30 minutes before the first news story hit. Even then, the first news stories were via blogs, not print. If you wanted to read about the earthquake on real newspaper, you had to wait until the next day. With all that in mind, it is no surprise that the journalists are turning to social media. Although there tons of newspapers that have blogs and twitter accounts, there is one in particular that has been doing a great job – and is continuing to improve – the OC Register. *I admit I may be a bit biased, since I live in Orange County, but that’s beside the point. Since I am always the curious one, I got in touch with the leader of the OC Register online task force – @KSablan – to ask him a couple questions about how they are using social networking. He explained that they started with blogging and the network grew from there. Each of the top reporters manages their blog on their particular topic and then starting working with Twitter. He explained that the OC register has their main twitter feed, @OCReggie and many of the reporters manage their own twitter as well, integrating their posts with some personal tweets. What I found so interesting was the fact that it was real people – unlike some other newspapers *who will remain nameless*, when you reply to the reporter or to @OCReggie, you get a real answer, from a real person. As Kevin said, “We like to manage it ourselves, see what people are saying. Get real feedback and be involved”. And isn’t that what social media is all about?

The reality for newspapers is that social media is just a creative way to market themselves. It isn’t a replacement for news – it is a creative addition, a way for more stories to be available for the public.
What market or business do you see as the next to get the most out of twitter?

Related posts:

1. Social Media and the future
2. How to be a better social media-er
3. Simple mistakes to avoid in social media

Kirsten

Tags: journalism, Social Media, Twitter
Categories: Motivation from other bloggers, Social Media | View Comments