Today in an e-mail from Twitter’s PR team, the company introduced Twitter for Newsrooms (#TfN), a compelling resource akin to Facebook for Journalists that will help optimize the platform’s reporting potential. The guide contains four sections, #report, #engage, #publish and #extra, each with a variety of best practices geared towards streamlining Twitter reporting and making Twitter a more efficient journalism tool. While much of the information won’t ring fresh for reporters already knee-deep in social media sourcing, it’s a comprehensive and helpful resource for journalists of all levels hoping to gain some insight into Twitter’s potential for journalists. So what does the new guide include?

#Report
“A suite of search tools that allow you and your colleagues to search as much as you need to.”

• Twitter Search: How to employ Twitter search to get up to the minute information on a specified topic.
• Advanced Twitter Search: A more in-depth way to search Twitter.
• Tweetdeck and Twitter for Mac: How to use these apps to best monitor a certain topic or hashtag.
• Archive Search: How to use Topsy to find older tweets.

#Engage
“Examples of journalists using Twitter to improve the way they connect with audiences, share news and, through it all, build deeper and broader communities.”

• A Twitter Glossary, so you can catch up on your @ reply and hashtag knowledge.
• Short case studies demonstrating journalists like Katie Couric and Melissa Bell effectively using Twitter to engage and report.
• Tips for how to best brand your Twitter presence.

#Publish
Tools that enable you to “connect tweets to actions.”

• Web Intents: Popup-optimized flows that make it easy to commit simple Twitter functions like @ reply or follow without leaving the homepage.
• Blackbird Pie: A WordPress plugin that “embeds HTML representations of actual tweets.”
• Official Display Guidelines: For use of tweets in Media.
• Official logos: Easy to download official Twitter logos.

#Extra
Helpful links to Twitter blogs, Twitter in other languages and a variety of other resources.

Twitter for Newsrooms has been a long time coming, and we’re excited to see a streamlined platform for journalists hoping to flex their social reporting muscles. What do you think of #TfN?