In one of her recent E-Media Tidbits columns for Poynter Online, Amy Gahran discusses The Globe and Mail‘s use of social media as an example of some of the possibilities out there and how they can benefit an organization.

Gahran had an e-mail exchange with the Globe‘s communities editor Mathew Ingram. He explained not only the type of work he’s doing, but also how he sees the value of social media at the Globe.

Ingram wrote:

“We did a live blog/discussion during the Michael Jackson memorial. About 11,000 people took part (or at least watched), which was our best discussion by far. We pulled in tweets as part of it.”

Gahran noted:

“Ingram observed that although Twitter and CoverItLive may reach only a small proportion of the total population in a target market directly, those people may offer special value to a news organization:

• “Many of those people are likely to be what marketers like to call influencers. This has value because they can spread [the news organization’s] message.”
• “Network effect benefits: Links [to coverage] get retweeted and retweeted, and eventually reach a much larger group than it might first appear.”

Ingram wrote about the value of liveblogging for the Nieman Journalism Lab in April.