10 best social media practices for journalists

Writing at Reportr.net Alfred Hermida says most journalists approach Web 2.0 social media services like Twitter, now called X, with a Web 1.0 mindset.

He’s right, my personal bugbear is that many media organisations insist their reporters use social media as a broadcast media and not for dialogue. Although not everyone makes that mistake.

The same applies to other micro blog services like Mastodon and BlueSky.

Hermida, a journalism professor, looks at a list of best practices guidelines for journalists using social media. Top of the list are the two most important:

• Have a voice that is credible and reliable, but also personal and human.
• Be generous in retweets and credit others.

Too often journalist and other organisations on social media come across as cold and impersonal. In some cases, the accounts feel robotic, because that’s exactly what they are. If media outlets are not actually using bots, they expect their employees to communicate as if they are bots.

And media outlets are often the least generous when it comes to crediting sources. It’s as if they fear they’ll lose readers if they point them elsewhere. Of course, they will lose some traffic that way, but they’ll gain more in terms of credibility by being more open and generous.

Reportr.net » 10 best practices for Twitter for journalists.

The original comments for this story were lost when the website moved to Ghost from WordPress. Here are the best ones:

aaronoverington says

• those tips apply equally for corporate tweeters too – particularly tip #4 (listen and respond to others). 

wiljr says:

• Seems most tips can be used for everyday interactions, too. Maybe even suggesting online and offline worlds aren’t too far appart after all?

This post was updated in November 2025 to reflect changes to Twitter, its rebrand as X and the emergence of Twitter-like alternatives.