Twitter began rolling out its latest feature – “lists” – to select users this week, with plans to opening it up to everyone soon.

Earlier this month, journalism professor and mindcast-extraordinaire Jay Rosen had his followers scratching their heads when he made this prediction:

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   jayrosen_nyu You’ll find out yourself soon enough, but I’m telling you now. “Lists” are going to change Twitter http://jr.ly/4jm4 04 Oct 2009 from web

Want to reach a larger audience than just your followers?

Use #hashtags in your tweets.

Live tweets from an event are a great way to catch people’s attention and build a following. Especially if they’re done right.

I’ve live tweeted several events, most notably Barack Obama’s Inauguration in D.C. for my student newspaper and the Chicago Sun-Times. I walked into those experiences learning on the fly, and there’s a lot I wish I knew then that I know now. So here’s a collection of tips.

Tonight I had the chance to meet Rick Murray, president of Edelman Digital, a division of Edelman that specializes in digital communication and social media outreach. He says there’s a new 24-hour news cycle and media companies must adapt.

“Today news is broken on Twitter, guaranteed. Then it goes to the Web site, and then the newspaper,” he said. “You have to know this because this is where things are going.”

The longer you’re on Twitter, the more spam and power user accounts will start following you. While it’s tempting to follow back out of courtesy, be careful not to follow too many and clutter your Twitter stream. Before you follow anyone, you should ask yourself – are this person’s tweets of interest to me?

At the same time, if you are tweeting from an official news account, you may want to follow everyone back in case someone would like to privately pass on a tip through a direct message.

The following tip is from Nathaniel Miller (@journalistnate), Online Content Editor at The Sacramento Bee:

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   journalistnate Tip for media pros new to twitter: Make sure to respond to @ replys. It helps you gain Twitter karma and builds your brand. 22 Jun 2009 from TweetDeck

He added that journalists should respond to replies for another reason too: “It may be the first time the other user has ever spoken to a journalist. They’ll get giddy over the back and forth.”

New to Twitter? It can be awfully intimidating at first, but don’t fret. Here are some tips to help you out.