Twitter's more important now than ever

By Matthew Boyle | mboyle@flagler.edu

At the Society of Professional Journalists Region Three Spring 2010 Conference last weekend, speakers and panelists drilled Twitter even further into our skulls.

Not that emphasizing Twitter’s importance is a bad thing, but, I don’t think I’ve ever heard more about 140 character mini-messages in my life. Either way, it got me tweeting.

Over the past three days, I’ve tweeted 11 times. Since I opened my Twitter account more than a year ago until the March 19, I tweeted only 39 times. Expect more on-the-go tweets and regular updates from me.

Another thing the conference rejuvenated for me was my Facebook usage. I was going through a rough relationship with Facebook, a separation that brought me close to closing my account.

The SPJ Region 3 conference got me back on Facebook interacting with readers and friends, for better or worse.

Etan Horowitz, a digital media producer for CNN International, taught me and other conference attendees how to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media as a reporting tool instead of just a content promotion tool.

Horowitz showed us how to find Tweeters down to a U.S. postal code or a international city, a way to find previously impossible-to-locate sources and means to generate citizen journalism content.