The debate about how much Twitter followers are worth to organisations continues to be a hot one. Last year mobile reviews website PhoneDog tried to put a price on Twitter followers of $2.50 as it sued a former reporter, Noah Kravitz, for leaving and talking his followers with him.

The two have now settled out of court closing a case that has rumbled on for a year. Terms of the deal between Kravitz and his former employer PhoneDog were not disclosed, but the key point is that @noahkravitz will keep control of his followers. That’s another win for the employee and I think another really strong indication of who owns the followers. Read More »

The Washington Post reports on the curious case of The New York Times reporter, Jodi Rudoren, who has been given her own social media minder who will be looking at every Tweet and Facebook status update that she writes to check and edit them before sending.

We all know that social media can be tricky and that its instantaneous nature can cause huge issues for us all, which is a problem considering how essential Twitter has become to most working journalists today. There have been cases of journalists Tweeting in haste and suffering Twitter storms at length. It has in the worst cases proved the undoing of some journalists. Read More »

Earlier this week we were reading about how a growing number of journalists “can’t work without social media” and read Twitter as the most important of those journalistic tools.

Today Twitter has put out its basic four tips for journalists using Twitter, which is a useful addition and reminder to the many social media guides and tips that have been published including some here, which have proved some of the most popular posts on The Wall.

Those have included “The best social media policy ever written” and The New York Times with its ‘Five guiding principles of social media’.  So what has Twitter got for us? Read More »

There have been a lot of good guides and tips published on social media policy. There have also been a lot of good ideas put down about social media as well as some not so good ideas.

We’ve seen the good from The New York Times with its ‘Five guiding principles of social media’ and the Cabinet Office guidance for civil servants.

We’ve had more good from the BBC with its social media usage guidelines and The Guardian with its six tips for social media engagement. And then there has been the bad. Read More »

There has been an awful lot written about social media guides for journalists. Some good and some not so good.

This ranges from Sky News going anti social media earlier this year, and taking an approach similar to the one taken by the Associated Press took late last year when it has released new social media guidelines, to the tips and guidelines from the likes of The Guardian, the BBC and the Journalism Foundation among others. The New York Times, however, has a different approach.

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The number of tweets posted by journalists from UK media outlets fell by almost 25%, according to the latest NewsTweet Index from PR firm Portland, with big falls at Sky News, which could be linked to its controversial social media guidelines introduced earlier this year.

Overall apparent changes in the tweeting habits of some of the UK’s top journalists saw 80,000 fewer tweets sent in the last three months compared to the previous quarter despite the ongoing economic turmoil, elections, big tax (and pastie) stories, the government’s problems and the on going Leveson inquiry, which all featured heavily. Read More »

This is worth a read. The Cabinet Office has published guidance for civil servants on the use of social media as well as tips for government Departments on how to overcome the technical barriers to civil servants accessing the internet and social media channels.

It’s always good to hear some sensible words on social from someone very senior. In this instance they come from Sir Bob Kerslake (@sirbobkerslake), Head of the Civil Service, who talks about the change social media is bringing to the way the civil service, and the rest of us, will work in the future. Read More »

The Twittersphere lit up last night as it was reported that Sky News was introducing a new social media policy that bans its journalists from retweeting non-Sky sources. Essentially the broadcaster that has done so much to establish its reputation in social news is taking an anti-social media approach.

Staff were informed of the new social media policy in an email that told staff not to “re-tweet information posted by other journalists or people on Twitter”. Read More »

The 70,000-strong army of volunteers who will be helping the London 2012 Olympic Games to run smoothly have been told that they mustn’t mention details of their location, their role or any backstage information about athletes, celebrities or “dignitaries” on social media.

Considering the nature of social media on sites like Twitter and Facebook is to share precisely that information the London Olympics organisers appear to be issuing rather optimistic social media guidelines for volunteers. Read More »

The Associated Press has released new social media guidelines on how staffers should handle re-tweets (tips/guidelines from the Guardian and the BBC are also worth checking). Basically for the AP it comes down to not retweeting anything with an opinion. Doesn’t this slightly defeat the point of retweets or is that just me?

When someone says something that is interesting or controversial you want to share that with your followers. That’s the nature of social media and Twitter particularly. Read More »