Social media can be a boon and a bane to companies and consumers alike. It’s undoubtedly true that brands and consumers can have a constructive dialogue on Twitter and Facebook. Case in point: A WSJ subscriber misses an issue and tweets his displeasure to head honcho Rupert Murdoch himself. Not only did he get a reply, but some quality customer service as well!

Unfortunately, trolls abound in the online world and can drown out those offering constructive criticism. How can you tell the haters from those that are worth responding to? And how can you manage your time when it comes to responding to criticism? In the latest Mediabistro feature, social media experts weigh in on how to handle negative feedback in a way that’s best for you and your audience.

One big piece of advice: don’t just delete.

“How you handle a negative comment says much more about you than the comment itself,” said Shama Kabani, CEO of The Marketing Zen Group. “Removing a comment can lead to others accusing you of censorship and, at worst, can lead to a PR disaster.”

For more, read 7 Tips for Responding to Negative Social Media Feedback. [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]

“[Journalists] are increasingly being required to take away from time doing actual reporting to do a million other things,” said Menachem Wecker, education reporter for U.S. News & World Report. Which is why, if you want to succeed in the world of new media, having certain digital skills is a requirement. In the latest Mediabistro feature, seasoned journos tell which skills are the most important for journos to have, and give tips on how to boost your social media presence and resume. Below, an excerpt:

1. Social Media Management

Once you’ve written the perfect post, monitor how well it does through platforms like Chartbeat and Google Analytics. Find out how many shares you’re getting through Facebook posts or whether Twitter fans are actually reading your stories or just retweeting them. Then, take it a step further and promote your stories during the times of day when your audience is the largest. Tweetdeck will let you “future post” updates, as will other apps like Twuffer or twitmessenger. Now that social media is no longer just a fad, your goal should be to familiarize yourself with any and all platforms that will bolster the efficacy of your accounts.

For the full list, read 5 Digital Skills Every Journalist Should Have. [subscription required]

While many big media companies have a slew of social media guidelines for its staffers, The New York Times doesn’t. According to Phil Corbett, the Times’ associate managing editor for standards, that’s because they just feel like it isn’t needed.

Corbett told Poynter that strapping staffers down with a lot of rules is counterproductive. He then added some obvious points:

They need to realize that social media is basically a public activity, it’s not a private activity, and that people will know that they work for the Times, that they are Times journalists, and will identify them with the Times. And so they should just keep that in mind and be careful not to do anything on social media that would undercut their credibility.

In other words, use common sense and don’t be an idiot. Seems pretty straightforward to us.

If you want to build your brand or generate revenue for your business, make sure you check out Mediabistro’s Social Media Marketing Boot Camp online conference and workshop, starting tomorrow, Thursday, June 7. You’ll learn how to launch a social media marketing campaign and measure its results.

Over eight weeks, you’ll hear from leading social media innovators and put a complete social media marketing strategy into place across Facebook, Twitter, and other popular social media platforms. Your social media strategy will include content management, brand building, and data analysis.

You’ll learn in an innovative online format that participants love: live keynote speeches via video, practical how-to sessions, small group workshops with peers, and one-on-one feedback from an advisor.

Speakers include:

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When readers are skimming through a site on their browsers or Twitter feeds, the headline is the only thing that tells them whether a piece is worth their time. So, when tackling headlines for the Web, remember that clarity trumps cleverness (unless you’re writing for the front page of The New York Post).

“Headline writing for the Web isn’t headline writing for magazines — this is the land of the literal,” said Sara Wilson, a senior editor for The Huffington Post.

But that doesn’t mean a headline can’t also be engaging. “You want a strong ‘clicky’ headline that entices readers: a burning question, a big secret, a thing-you-need-to-click-on-this-headline-to-find-out,” she said. “But it should accurately reflect the ideas in the piece, or the readers will be annoyed.”

For eight more tactics on getting your article the buzz it deserves, read 9 Ways to Get More Comments, Tweets and Likes for Your Story.

If you ever needed proof that a non-Kardashian can rule Twitter, look no further than Toure. Seriously. Go ahead — look at his timeline.

Whether it’s a line-by-line breakdown of the song “Otis,” his take on the final season of Entourage, or the truth behind that Michael Vick article, the noted journalist and cultural critic has amassed over 36,000 followers by posting more than just links.

“I seem to look at it as if I’m on a panel, and there’s thousands of people there. And it’s a Q&A-type situation, so I make a statement that would relate to many people,” the author of Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness explained in our Media Beat interview. “I do want it to be conversational in that you can have an opinion back or an answer back to me; I can respond back to that. And there is an impulse to be ADD-ish on Twitter, to say one thing and to move on. And I wanna have a conversation. I wanna spend 10 or 15 minutes or 10 or 20 tweets talking about one thing and drilling down on one idea. Look, I hate small talk.”

So, what’s the one topic that got the Twittersphere in a tizzy? Tipping. Watch the full video to find out why.

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 2: Toure Tackles Watermelon, Fried Chicken and Post-Blackness in New Book

Part 3: Toure on Pitching, Getting Assignments, and That R. Kelly Interview

The Associated Press is starting to put some weight behind social media and networking with the appointment of a new manager to head up the news organization’s social media projects.

27-year-old Lauren McCullough, who has been working to lead the AP’s social networking efforts, has been named manager of social networks and news engagement for the new “AP Nerve Center.” She’ll lead the Social Network Center, one of four parts of the AP’s new New York HQ, the wire reported yesterday.

In her new position, McCullough will “direct the work of editors [in New York] and around the company in pursuing journalistic material from social networks, promoting AP’s presence and content on social networks, and providing feedback to news managers on topics of high interest on social networks.” She will also be working to set standards and practices that the AP’s reporters must follow when engaging in social network sites — other news orgs have also recently implemented such rules.

The AP may be a little late to the party in establishing a social media editor, but it looks like the organization is working to restructure the way its reporters gather and report the news, ushering in a new decade with a new view on what’s important to journalism today.

Read More: Lauren McCullough named to lead AP social networking efforts — AP

Previously: AP Names Top Editors To Run New News Center

Blogger, prolific Tweeter and NYU professor Jay Rosen spoke with German new media author Ulrike Reinhard recently about new media and its role in journalism today.

Rosen said he and his fellow professors are still figuring out how new media and social media fits into their J-school curriculum, but he said acknowledging its role in the future of the field is imperative. “Everybody who pays attention in events of journalism knows that the world of the press is undergoing a dramatic transformation,” he said. “It’s not just that journalism is moving to the Web…really the entire architecture of the press is falling apart. So we have to teach about this as a matter of survival.”

In addition to teaching the “rise of the Web,” Rosen said he also teaches blogging and social media skills — although he finds that the faculty sometimes has as much to learn as the students. Students, he said, come into NYU with knowledge of the Web as casual users, but are not prepared to use it professionally.

“Anybody who uses the web for their livelihood has to understand it as a system very well,” he said. “They understand the Web as an environment and they are able to communicate expertly on it.”

Rosen’s full interview with Reinhard after the jump

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