I first posted Twitter time management tips in February 2010. I updated them Sept. 4, 2012 as part of my #twutorial series.
As I visit newsrooms and since I started my #twutorial series of Twitter advice for journalists, people often ask how they squeeze Twitter into their busy days.
At one level, the answer is simple: You make time for what’s important. In my last post I noted why Twitter is valuable for journalists. If something is valuable, you prioritize and figure out how to fit it into your workday.
But I also understand the question and the challenge. Twitter can easily suck up big chunks — or lots of little chunks — of your day. And busy journalists face so many demands in shrunken newsrooms that we have to manage time carefully even with the tools that are valuable.
The tips specific to Twitter are coming shortly. But first a caveat: You need to invest some time learning to use Twitter, especially mastering advanced search and connecting with people in your community. I’m not going to pretend you don’t need to spend some time to learn and to develop a helpful network.
Learning and connecting take some time, but keep in mind that Twitter also saves you time. I’ve already noted how Twitter helps you connect with sources quickly in breaking news stories. You also can use Twitter (once you’ve developed a large, engaged following) to save time in other ways, getting quick answers to questions and finding sources for routine stories. (I’ll do a separate #twutorial post sometime on crowdsourcing.)
Now for the tips on Twitter time management:
Don’t drink the whole stream
When you start on Twitter, following a few dozen people, it’s pretty easy to read all their tweets and it’s natural to think that you’re supposed to. Then, as you engage on Twitter, you start following more people and it gets harder to read anything they say.
I like to think of Twitter as a beautiful, clear mountain stream. I can enjoy it lots of different ways: Sit on the bank and watch it rush by; wade in for some fly fishing (my fly-fishing son will laugh if he reads this, because I don’t fish); get a cool drink from the clear water; paddle a canoe or kayak (I do paddle); take off my shoes and feel the cool water rush across my bare feet. But I don’t have to spend my whole day in the stream. I don’t have to drink every drop or catch every fish (I’ve never caught a fish, but I do like this metaphor, so I’m pretending). I might hike some trails. I’ll need to cook dinner. I want to watch the sunset. The stream is only part of how I enjoy the mountains.
Same with Twitter. I can get benefit out of Twitter in just a few minutes a day. Some days I will want to spend more time with Twitter. Some days Twitter will provide great value and be worth spending lots of time. I don’t have to use Twitter just one way. The next tips will help you get quick use of Twitter, but an important part of the challenge is simply understanding that you can engage briefly without spending the whole day in the water.
Integrate Twitter into your day
We all have things we do as part of our routine that don’t require scheduling but take only a few minutes here and there: checking voice mail, returning phone calls, checking email, checking the wires. Make Twitter one of those things you do a few minutes here, a minute there. It will become a more productive and more valuable part of your day than most of those chores I already listed.
Tweet a few times each day
Twitter is not a spectator sport. You need to be part of the conversation. You can tweet in just a few minutes a day. Your tweets don’t have to take much time, but they help you engage with colleagues and your community. At least to start, schedule some good times each day to post a few tweets: First thing in the morning, after lunch, after the morning news meeting, before you go home for the day.
Check your “mentions”
The Twitter home page, Twitter clients and mobile apps give you a place to check all tweets mentioning you (@stevebuttry, in my case), whether replying to you, talking about you or retweeting you. Just click that every hour or so. If someone has replied to you or mentioned you, you can answer quickly. You can quickly thank people who are retweeting you (something I don’t do often enough).
If you prefer, you can set up email notifications in your Twitter settings, so you get an email whenever anyone mentions you or just if someone you follow mentions you. You also can set up an email notice in your settings of top tweets and stories from your network.
Save some searches
I have a saved Twitter search for “Steve Buttry,” because not everyone uses @stevebuttry. Using this search and the mentions, I can engage any time someone is talking to me or about me, without constantly watching the whole stream rush by or trying to catch up on what I’ve missed.
Save some searches for terms in the news or keywords on your beat and you can see those tweets quickly without having to read all the tweets in your timeline.
Use Twitter lists
As I noted in an earlier #twutorial post, lists help you organize the chaos of Twitter. I like the general Twitter stream, where everyone’s tweets come together in chronological order, most recent on top. I scroll through some lively, important or silly conversations going on in the community or the industry, click on links my tweeps have found interesting and laugh at the latest posts of FakeAPStylebook or Gene Weingarten.
The general timeline, with those conversations and links and laughs are exactly the time-consuming Twitter use that scares some people away. And I often don’t have time for that, even if I enjoy it. If I’ve been tied up all day working on something else, I may want to catch up on a few key tweeps so I don’t miss the tweets from my bosses and a few close colleagues. I have them on a private time-savers list, so I can catch up quickly. If I just want a quick look at what people are saying about innovation in journalism, I go right to my journoinnovation list. Or if I need a laugh, I go right to my humor list.
Tools such as TweetDeck and HootSuite make it easy to organize your tweets and monitor multiple lists, quickly checking the lists that are most important to you at a particular time. You can also save searches as columns in TweetDeck and HootSuite.
Use Twitter alerts
Just like Google alerts bring you important news stories without you having to search for them, Twitter alerts from services such as TweetBeep, Tweetalarm or Twilert alert you when people are tweeting about matters of importance to you.
Use Twitter tools
Helpful Twitter tools come and go. Some of the ones I cited in 2010 are no longer available and Twitter’s recent effort to take tighter control of its API could further limit the range of tools available to help. But tools such as TwitterLocal, Trendsmap, Nearby Tweets and Twitter’s Advanced Search help you quickly find tweeps in your community or monitor what the community is tweeting about.
Paper.li will organize the most popular links among the people you follow into a newspaper-like format for convenient daily reading. (You should know, though, that the daily tweets that your “paper” is out will annoy some tweeps. The paper is mostly for your benefit.)
Use Twitter as a news source
Twitter is a wonderful tool for keeping up on news on your beat (or news in general or news of the news business or whatever you’re interested in). Follow the right people and you’ll read a better selection of blogs than you are now and you’ll find them more efficiently. Learn to use Twitter effectively and you’ll save time on professional reading. I don’t even use an RSS reader any more because Twitter is so much better.
I need to stay on top of news of the news business, and Twitter is where I read most of my journalism news. You remember that famous nameless college student who told the New York Times the important news would find her? Twitter is how the important industry news and commentary finds me.
Use your cell phone or tablet
Use a Twitter app to make Twitter easier to use on your phone or tablet (I use Twitter’s app on my iPhone, Tweetbot on my iPad, but I know many who use other apps). You can browse some tweets or fire off a quick tweet while walking to or from your car, while waiting for a meeting to start, riding an elevator or using the restroom.
Andrea Sirman of the Ottawa Citizen provided this advice when I asked my tweeps in 2010 for advice on Twitter time management:
Tweet during uploads/MULTITASKRT
@stevebuttry: Twitter time mgmt. how2 benefit from Twitter w/o letting it suck up too much time?#twtime— Andrea Sirman® ♥ ☠ ♀ (@flashgirl) February 4, 2010
I am sympathetic to the challenges of time management using Twitter or any new tool that demands our attention. I am not sympathetic to time management as an excuse for refusing to stay current with the demands of digital journalism. Twitter is important for journalists. Make time for it. Learn to use it, and use these tools and techniques to integrate it into your day.
Previous #twutorial posts
Step one for using Twitter as a reporter: Master advanced search
Use lists, TweetDeck, HootSuite, saved searches, alerts to organize Twitter’s chaos
Denver Post staffers’ #theatershooting coverage demonstrates Twitter breaking news techniques
Hashtags help journalists find relevant tweets and reach more people
Advice and examples on how and what journalists should tweet
9 ways to find helpful people and organizations to follow on Twitter
To build Twitter followers: Join the conversation, tweet often, be yourself
10 ways Twitter is valuable for journalists
The post above represents a significant rewrite of my 2010 post. I am using the same URL to avoid confusion or duplication. But I also see some archival value in preserving the original post. So that follows here. You will see considerable repetition, of course, if you keep reading. And some of the services mentioned below no longer exist.
Twitter time management
I’ve fielded the question/complaint several times in recent weeks: How do I find time to Twitter?
At one level, the answer is simple: You make time for what’s important and Twitter is an important skill for journalists to master. Figure it out.
But I also understand the question and complaint. Twitter can easily suck up big chunks — or lots of little chunks — of your day if you let it. And busy journalists facing too many demands in shrunken newsrooms can’t afford to let anything steal away too much of their day. So in some January Twitter workshops in Ottawa and again in blog posts challenging the Associated Press Managing Editors to engage more on Twitter, I promised to provide some Twitter time-management tips.
The tips specific to Twitter are coming shortly. But first a caveat: You need to invest some time learning to use Twitter and connecting with followers, primarily people in your community and colleagues who share your professional interests. And also a suggestion for APME members: You spend too much time in meetings. Cut your meetings shorter and use some of the time you save mastering Twitter (and tell the overworked staff members who spend too much time in those meetings with you to do the same).
Now for the tips on Twitter time management:
Don’t drink the whole stream. When you start on Twitter, following a few dozen people, it’s pretty easy to read all their tweets and it’s natural to think that you’re supposed to. Then, as you engage on Twitter, you start following more people and it gets harder to read anything they say.
I like to think of Twitter as a beautiful, clear mountain stream. I can enjoy it lots of different ways: Sit on the bank and watch it rush by; wade in for some fly fishing (my fly-fishing son will laugh if he reads this, because I don’t fish); get a cool drink from the clear water (we’re not talking an Iowa river here, polluted by farm water); paddle a canoe; take off my shoes and feel the cool water rush across my bare feet. But I don’t have to spend my whole day in the stream. I don’t have to drink every drop or catch every fish (in truth, I’ve never caught a fish, but I do like this metaphor, so I’m pretending). I might hike some trails. I’ll need to cook dinner. I want to watch the sunset. The stream is only part of how I enjoy the mountains.
Same with Twitter. I can get benefit out of Twitter in just a few minutes a day. Some days I will want to spend more time with Twitter. Some days Twitter will provide great value and be worth spending some time. I don’t have to use Twitter just one way. The next tips will help you get quick use of Twitter, but an important part of the challenge is simply understanding that you can engage briefly without spending the whole day in a canoe.
Integrate Twitter into your day. We all have things we do as part of our routine that don’t require scheduling but take only a few minutes here and there: checking voice mail, returning phone calls, checking email, checking the wires. Make Twitter one of those things you do a few minutes here, a minute there. It will become a more productive and more valuable part of your day than most of those chores I already listed. Emily Muhlbach uses Twuffer to schedule her tweets, so they post through the day, even if she does them all in one burst.
Tweet a few times each day. Twitter is not a spectator sport. As I explained in my recent response to Carole Tarrant of the Roanoke Times and the APME board, you can tweet in just a few minutes a day. Your tweets don’t have to take much time, but they help you engage with colleagues and your community. At least to start, find a good time each day to post a few tweets: First thing in the morning, after lunch, after the morning news meeting.
Check your “mentions.” The Twitter home page and most Twitter clients give you a place to check all tweets mentioning you (@stevebuttry, in my case), whether replying to you, talking about you or retweeting you. Just click that a few times a day. If someone has replied to you or mentioned you, you can answer in just a few minutes.
Search your real name. I have a saved Twitter search for “Steve Buttry,” because not everyone uses @stevebuttry. Using this search and the mentions, I can engage any time someone is talking to me or about me, without constantly watching the whole stream rush by or trying to catch up on what I’ve missed.
Use Twitter as a news source. I loved that one of the reasons Carole gave me that top newsroom leaders are too busy for Twitter is that they have to read so many blogs and stories about our industry. Twitter is a wonderful tool for keeping up on the industry. Follow the right people and you’ll read a better selection of blogs than you are now and you’ll find them more efficiently. Learn to use Twitter effectively and you’ll save time on professional reading. I don’t even use an RSS reader any more because Twitter is so much better. I go whole weeks without reading Romenesko (once a must-read for any news leader), because Twitter brings me the lots of important industry reading before I would read it on Romenesko as well as pieces that never make Romenesko. You remember that famous nameless college student who told the New York Times the important news would find her? Twitter is how the important industry news and commentary finds me.
Use your cell phone. Use a Twitter app such as Tweetie (that’s what I use on my iPhone) to make Twitter easier to use on your phone. You can browse some tweets or fire off a quick tweet while walking to or from your car, while waiting for a meeting to start or riding an elevator. “Tweet during uploads/MULTITASK,” advised Andrea Sirman of the Ottawa Citizen, when I asked my tweeps for advice on Twitter time management.
Use Twitter Tim.es. This is a great tool for catching up when you’ve been away from the stream and using Twitter to help the important news find you. After you connect with some people in the business and in your community, go to twittertim.es and sign in using Twitter. It will present the links your tweeps (or you can customize based just on your media sources or Twitter lists — more on them shortly) are citing most. For instance, right now, my Twitter Tim.es highlights a really atrocious lead (likening a football game to 9/11, though I’m a little puzzled how a September story went viral in February) that 10 of my tweeps have highlighted, a TechCrunch payola apology and a TechCrunch post about the Facebook redesign. You don’t have to scroll through your tweets to find the links your tweeps are talking about. Twitter Tim.es does that for you. If you are tied up all day and want to catch up quickly on the Twitter conversation without scrolling through hundreds of tweets, this is a great tool.
Use Twitter lists. Twitter lets you sort the people you follow. I like the general Twitter stream, where everyone’s tweets come together in chronological order, most recent on top. I scroll through some lively, important or silly conversations going on in the community or the industry, click on links my tweeps have found interesting and laugh at the latest posts of FakeAPStylebook or OHNewsroom. That’s the time-consuming Twitter use that scares some people away. And I often don’t have time for that, even if I enjoy it. If I’ve been tied up all day working on something else, I just want a quick look at what people are saying about innovation in journalism. So I go right to my journoinnovation list. If I want to see what newsroom leaders are tweeting about (won’t take long; they don’t tweet a lot), I can do that. Or I can check in quickly with eastern Iowans or Iowa politicians. Or if I need a laugh, I go right to my humor list.
Use Twitter tools. I don’t use Tweetdeck (tried it once and a glitch kept me from getting the benefit I was seeking), but I know a lot of tweeps who were using it to organize their tweeps long before Twitter added its lists feature. Tools such as TwitterLocal, Trendsmap and Nearby Tweets help you find tweeps in your community or monitor what the community is tweeting about. Other tools such as MustExist and HourlyPress highlight the hot links on Twitter for you, similar to Twitter Tim.es. Hashtags and search (be sure to check out the advanced options) help you find tweets only about a particular topic.
I am sympathetic to the challenges of time management using Twitter or any new tool that demands our attention. I am not sympathetic to time management as an excuse for refusing to stay current with the demands of digital journalism. Twitter is important for journalists. Make time for it. Learn to use it, and use these tools and techniques to integrate it into your day.
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Will print this one out and stick it to my office wall, thank you!!!
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Great tips, Steve. I wish I could dip in and out a little more than I do right now, but with my weekly review, I feel pretty obligated to at least see everything posted by the journalism/media folks I follow.
The key for me in time-saving has become Twitter Lists. I use them in much the same way you do. My lists (which aren’t public right now) break my feed down into two categories: The stuff I need to catch up on, and the stuff that would be nice to keep up with if I had time. Creating that distinction with Twitter lists has been invaluable to me in making Twitter more efficient.
I’m a long ways from being an example of a journalist managing my time well through Twitter, but I have a pretty effective (if convoluted) system that’s doing the trick better each week.
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Mark,
Doing the trick better each week is how you master anything, isn’t it? The people having the most trouble with Twitter (or blogging or video or whatever) are the people who aren’t working on them very much.
These tips should help, and I’m glad Twitter lists are working for you. But doing the trick better each week is as helpful as any tip I could offer.
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[…] Twitter time management (stevebuttry.wordpress.com) […]
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[…] Twitter time management < < < Steve Buttry […]
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To think that if I had not been following you on twitter, I would have never found this excellent article on. SM. Social media is a tool for some, an addiction for others. It is interesting to hear that you were immediately gratified by your twitter interactions and it does not surpise me at all since I would say that tweeps have one thing in common that keeps them connected or provides them with the greatest ability to connect. And, that is: the same communication style. You’re speaking my language when it’s short a sweet and to the point. The challenge with having a social media presence is knowing when enough is enough. And how to use it productively.
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[…] for the workshop as well as to my earlier blog posts on leading your staff into the Twitterverse, Twitter time management, Twitter tips for journalists and Twitter’s value in breaking […]
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Twitter For Marketing – This site also has great information. It includes tutorials on twitter and using twitter tools, and also the best way to use twitter for marketing. It is definatly worth a read.
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[…] in Top tips for journalists Twitter: Introducing your news team to Twitter? Give them a copy of Steve Buttry's Twitter time management tips to stop them getting overwhelmed by tweets and to help them mine Twitter for leads. Tipster: Laura […]
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[…] also developed some advice on Twitter time management, prompted by an exchange about the light Twitter use by the board of the Associated Press Managing […]
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[…] English” (and thus frowned on for regular use in Times news columns) and tips on Twitter time management were also among the year’s best-read posts. I also noted how Twitter misses by miles […]
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[…] Twitter time management from Steve Buttry […]
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[…] recomienda la lectura de dos artículos: Twitter para salas de prensa y Manejo del tiempo en Twitter, así como una lista de periodistas recomendados a los que puedes accerder desde este […]
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[…] of your time. It will save you time in breaking news stories and in crowdsourcing. I blogged some Twitter time management tips that might be helpful if you find yourself spending too much time with Twitter (or not enough […]
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[…] Twitter time management. These tips are more than a year old. Not sure when/if I’ll be updating, but if you know of some newer tips, I’d love to link to them. They address the I-don’t-have-time-for-Twitter excuse. […]
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[…] Sometimes the resistance might be based in being overworked and feeling you don’t have time to learn Twitter or make good use of it. Here you need to show how quickly you can use Twitter, how it saves you time searching for sources, how you can use Twitter lists and tools such as advanced search, TweetDeck and HootSuite to organize tweets so you can search and monitor Twitter efficiently. I’d share my Twitter time management tips. […]
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This has just been re-tweeted today. You might have written this a while ago but the tips are still as good. Many thanks!
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[…] Twitter time management […]
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[…] My primary answer is that you can and should converse with the community and colleagues on Twitter as many different ways at you converse with the community and colleagues in person and by email (or chat or Skype or however you converse). If you feel that you don’t have time to use Twitter, think of it as conversation with the community. Editors make time to answer phone calls and emails from the community, to meet with community groups and people who show up in the newsroom. If you don’t think you have time for conversing on Twitter, check out my Twitter time management tips. […]
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[…] my updated Twitter tips for journalists, my live-tweeting suggestions my advanced Twitter tips or Twitter time management tips (which could stand an update; will try to do that soon) so I won’t repeat them […]
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Paper.li allows you to make a daily page pulled from the links from your twitter feed. One great use for this is that it’s a very efficient way to find the stories that people you follow are linking to.
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[…] our existing priorities. It reminded me that I probably need to blog and train more on the issue of time management (if only I could find the […]
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[…] other social media to report more effectively. We’ll talk about crowdsourcing, curation and time management. Here are slides for that […]
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[…] Twitter time management (these tips are two years old and in need of updating, but still should be helpful) […]
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[…] links if you’re not disciplined in your use of Twitter. (I’ll soon update my 2010 Twitter time management tips as part of this series.) But you should also know that smart use of Twitter can save you […]
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[…] than writing an entirely new #twutorial post this week, I have updated my 2010 post on Twitter time management tips. I put my new version on top of the old version in the same URL to avoid duplication (and keep […]
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This is great! I’m always interested to find out how I can use Twitter more efficiently and I will definitely adopt some of your tips.
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[…] I first posted Twitter time management tips in February 2010. I updated them Sept. 4, 2012 as part of my #twutorial series. As I visit newsrooms and since I started my #twutorial series of Twitter… […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips 0.000000 0.000000 Rate this:Share this:FacebookTwitterStumbleUponDiggRedditPrintEmailLinkedInLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. […]
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[…] responde e segue links se não tem disciplina no uso do Twitter. (Em breve vou atualizar minhas dicas 2010 de gestão de tempo no Twitter como parte desta série.) Mas você também deve saber que o uso inteligente do Twitter pode […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] منضبط في إستخدامك لتويتر. (سوف أقوم بتحديث نصائحي في إدارة الوقت على تويترالتي تعود إلى عام 2010 لتصبح جزء من هذه […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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Thank you for the good writeup. It in fact
was a amusement account it. Look advanced to far added agreeable from you!
By the way, how could we communicate?
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] responde e segue links se não tem disciplina no uso do Twitter. (Em breve vou atualizar minhas dicas 2010 de gestão de tempo no Twitter como parte desta série.) Mas você também deve saber que o uso inteligente do Twitter pode […]
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[…] Twitter (я скоро обновлю мой, написанный в 2010 году, пост о советах по организации времени в Twitter , который является частью этой серии). Но вы также […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips (2010, updated in 2012) […]
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[…] Updated Twitter time management tips […]
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[…] respondiendo y siguiendo enlaces si no eres disciplinado en tu uso de Twitter. (Pronto actualizarémis consejos de administración de tiempo en Twitter del 2010, como parte de esta serie). Pero también debes saber que el uso inteligente de Twitter […]
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