Sree Sreenivasan spends up to six minutes composing every tweet he sends.

“It shocks people when I tell them how much thought I put into each post,” said Sreenivasan, Chief Digital Officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “I write every post like it’s the last thing I will ever write. I might be fired, a bus might hit me. You never know. I feel I have to really take and use this opportunity to do this as right as I can.”

Sreenivasan will be the featured speaker at #Burgh @ Point Park, a social media strategy workshop presented by the Point Park News Service. It will be held in Point Park University’s third-floor ballroom in Lawrence Hall at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 24. The event is free, but seating is limited (Registration: http://ppne.ws/BurghEvent). 

“Everyone is talking about social media these days and wondering about how to get the most out of their limited resources,” said Andrew Conte, Point Park News Service Director and an investigative journalist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “We felt like it would be a great time to bring in a leading expert on digital content to talk about what works and how to best use it.”

Heather Starr Fiedler, associate professor and Director of Wood Street Communications at Point Park, said she feels excited to have a prominent digital innovator coming to campus.

“The opportunity to have someone on a national scale here at Point Park is great,” Starr Fiedler said. “It shows a broader picture of what is happening in the social media sphere in New York and nationally. That is really a treat. I hope people take the time to hear what [Sreenivasan] has to say.”

When it comes to social media, Sreenivasan said he’s more interested in quality than quantity.

“I always tell people on social media it’s not about how many people follow you,” he said. “It’s who follows that matters. You should be trying to get influential people to follow you rather than worrying about your overall number of followers.”

Sreenivasan said he plans to talk about how to not get fired, divorced or lose your sanity on social media.

The event also will feature panel discussion with social media innovators from Pittsburgh. Speakers include Steelers quarterback Charlie Batch, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Rob Rossi and WESA-FM’s Josh Raulerson, as well as experts from Smith Bros. Agency, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and the Black-n-Gold Girls sports fan club.

“By bringing in a panel of experts to appear with Sree, we’re going to take the event even further,” Conte said. “We hope to have a lively discussion about what works — and what should be avoided.”

Sreenivasan will join the panel, but says he always tries to learn something himself from events like this.

“There are so many interesting panelists,” Sreenivasan said. “I go to these events around the country, and I always learn more than I ever teach.”

Sreenivasan was a full-time professor at the Columbia Journalism School for more than 20 years before joining the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As chief digital officer at the Met, he leads a staff of 70 people.

“My job with the Met is to tell a million-plus stories, about a million-plus pieces of art, to a billion-plus people,” said Sreenivasan. “That means reaching out with our digital tools to teach what the museum does and tell our story. Our curators take the art and put together a beautiful exhibition. Our job is to get people to understand the art, and come see it and participate.”

The career switch was a happy ending to a long love story.

“I had grown up four blocks from the Met, and I went to school one block from the Met,” Sreenivasan said. “I had developed what I called a 30-year, one-way love affair with the Met. If you love someone for 30 years, and they call you, you have to take the call. Then with your wife’s permission, move forward.”

Conte, who studied online journalism under Sreenivasan at Columbia, said the switch to the Met created awareness for digital media.

“Sree generated a lot of interest in digital content when he moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Conte said. “A lot of people were wondering why the museum would invest so heavily in technology, but he and others are proving that social media plays a very important role for many traditional institutions. The lessons he has learned there should be relevant to journalists, marketing professionals and anyone seeking to share their story online.”

Social media has become a key part of many industries, and especially journalism, Starr Fiedler said

“Journalists are using social media to share the story, but they also use it to get the story,” she said. “They hear about events on social media before they are even happening. Social media is really changing how we consume media, so journalists need to change how they do their jobs.”

In an ever-changing world, Sreenivasan said he focuses on what it means to be a journalist.

“In journalism, we have to understand these forces and adjust to them and capitalize on interests,” he said. “We continue to play the leading role that journalists have played for over 100 years — being the people that tell the stories that matter to the public. If we continue to do that, journalism will continue to be strong.”