At a session geared towards social media newbies, panelists Owen Lei of King-TV, Jewel Gopwani of the Detroit Free Press and Allison Looney of Gannett set a reassuring and encouraging tone.

“You have to educate yourself and take baby steps,” Looney said. “You’ll be going to the next level and then the next one after that. Before you know it, you’ll be educating other people.”

Gopwani advised that when using Twitter, you should limit yourself to 120 characters, even though tweets can be up to 140 characters. “I want to give people the space to retweet,” Gopwani said. “This way they can retweet it and nothing gets left off.”

A wide variety of people, of different ages, races and socioeconomic backgrounds, use Twitter, the panelists said.  “Twitter can be a great way to diversify your sources,” Gopwani said.

Lei recommended using search.twitter.com, and then clicking on “advanced search.” He frequently uses this tool to see what people in a certain location are discussing. When the Kinect first came out, Lei utilized Twitter to find a local family who had purchased the gaming system. He interviewed and filmed them for that night’s newscast.

“Use Twitter because it can augment your existing newscast,” Lei said. He also encouraged reporters to thank viewers or readers via Twitter, and to make a habit of sending out a tweet each morning.

— Michele Chan Santos, AAJA Texas