Tweet critique

Tonight I received my first Tweet critique from a follower. He stated, "Too many RT's that aren't relevant to News, I'd like to keep following you but there are too many twits for me." I promptly sent a reply thanking him for letting me know this.

Luckily, he hadn't unfollowed me yet so I sent him a direct message saying, "seriously, thank you for being honest with me. I'm still learning my place as a journalist on twitter. I understand if you no longer follow." This is complete honesty. I find myself struggling at times of defining who I am on Twitter, always aware of my journalistic integrities, and trying to combine them with my goals I hope to achieve by using social media.

I received a reply to my direct message that explained his position on my tweets. I asked questions in return to get specifics on his concerns. I thanked him for chatting with me and told him I would keep his comments in mind as I continue to use Twitter.

I've set my identity on Twitter to be: a person with a job and a life following me on Twitter, but I happen to be a journalist who works at a TV station in Denver. I share tweets about myself and I tweet about news, working in news, working in news at CBS4 News. I'm curious, am I seen first as a journalist or as just another person by those following me?

This is where I find myself struggling at times. I have made friends with people on Twitter. We have conversations, some related to news, some not. When possible I try to bring news back into the conversations. I have people following me just for my news tweets.

The critique tonight said he didn't mind my non-news tweets, but that the way I answer tweets and the re-tweets of @cbs4denver and @skyjosh get hard to follow. I can understand being overwhelmed by tweets when I re-tweet either @cbs4denver or @skyjosh because then he's receiving the same tweets twice. However there are many Colorado viewers who follow me but don't follow both or either @cbs4denver or @skyjosh. When I re-tweet those posts, my goal is to get the most information out to the most people.

As for how I answer or comment to tweets, it's my opinion since I'm a journalist trying to be open, when possible, I re-tweet the posts and post my comments or answers so all can see what I'm responding to. More often than not I put my answer in the re-tweet so I don't have to send out multiple tweets.

Tonight I responded to a tweet asking if boys will ever grow out of burping and farting jokes. This is something I ask almost daily as a step-mother of two boys. (I'm starting to accept I will never understand boy humor!) This tweet received several responses. I re-tweeted these responses to show the complete conversation. It was also me relating to people as a regular person, not just a news person.

It was right after this I received the tweet critique. I really do understand. Did I cross a line? Did I go to far? These are good questions. I'm glad I was able to chat with the person who sent the critique. I thank him for being open with me.

This kind of critique is something other Tweople don't have to pay attention to if they don't want. But, as I am a journalist trying to be open in how I use social media, I open myself to these kinds of critiques and discussions.