Interview with Twitter’s Livia Iacolare

Livia Iacolare wants to make Twitter work for journalists.

As Manager of Media Partnerships for Twitter in Italy, Iacolare focuses on offering guidance and support to the social networking platform’s news and entertainment partners. And on Wednesday, Iacolare — alongside Jérome Tomasini, the head of news & politics for Twitter France — conducted two Twitter masterclasses for attendees of the International Journalism Festival, delivering best practices and tricks of the Twitter trade to reporters.

During the two-hour session, the pair shared ways to help journalists better detect news, report on their beats, curate information and engage with followers.

But even with all of the tools Twitter can provide, it’s important for those in the media sphere to remember to always apply one of the key principles of journalism when they use the service. Twitter, after all, is a news source that requires verification just as any other potential source would, Iacolare noted.

“It’s really important for journalists to understand that Twitter is a news service, just like a witness or anonymous tip or anybody who could tell you something about a fact that you are investigating,” said Iacolare, who previously worked as social media coordinator and producer/host at the now defunct Current TV and at Servizio Pubblico in charge of live interaction and social media strategy.

Iacolare also discussed the recently released and much discussed app Periscope, which allows users to share and watch livestreams from your phone. Iacolare, who dubbed the app a “little baby” as it is just a few weeks old, said it’s still in the debugging phase and likely could look very different in just six months time.

“We have to give it time to really exploit all its possibilities… Probably, Periscope in six months will be completely different, so it’s probably too early to say what it can be, but for now, we have seen interesting usages,” Iacolare said.

“What we have seen so far is really encouraging,” she added.

Check out the full interview with Iacolare here.

And watch the Twitter masterclasses below.