Twitter’s new Spaces feature allows journalists to build a close connection with their audiences while expanding stories coverage. In a guest post for OJB, Catalunya Ràdio’s Carla Pedret shares her tips for using the platform.

Newsrooms face the dilemma of adapting to new platforms so often that it has its own name — the Shiny Object Syndrome. One of the latest in that long, long list of shiny new things for journalists to get to grips with is Twitter Spaces (TWS). Launched in December 2020, it’s a live audio chat streamed through the Twitter app — but should you be using it?

The first questions that anyone should ask before trying the platform are the same as with any new tool:

• What kind of users has the platform? Are they an audience we want to connect with?  
• How is the feature going to help us get closer to our goals?   
• Have other media outlets used the tool? How? What were the results?   
• Does the tool need to be updated frequently? How does it fit into the newsroom’s workflow?   

Asking those simple questions before deciding the next move is going to be a game-changer in your digital strategy.