Facebook has been around since 2004, yet there still are journalists among us who keep the social networking tool at arm’s length, preferring to play with it around friends and family instead of incorporating it into reporting.

However, time and trial have proven that Facebook, in fact, is not limited to extending one’s ego trip; it also can extend journalists’ reach, their audience and consequently their effectiveness. In an age when having an online “brand” is essential, this burgeoning news site, perhaps more than any social tool available, builds and bolsters that brand and may soon be for journalists what TV and newspapers once were: one of the best places to publish timely information.

That means you should learn now about Facebook as a tool for journalism, instead of waiting much longer. At the least, a professional presence on Facebook could help forge contacts with other journalists on story ideas — or, for that matter,  job hunting.

At least three places online offer good information about Facebook’s advantages for journalists and how to get started using them. One is a post on the site Mashable from earlier this summer. Another is at the Nieman Journalism Lab. A third, called “Facebook Journalism 101,” resides on the document-sharing site Scribd. Some information among the three is duplicated, but all offer different tips and perspectives on getting the best out of Facebook for professional purposes.

Read these sources now. In this digitally driven society of ours, tomorrow is already too late.

David Sheets is a sports content editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com, and president of SPJ’s St. Louis Pro chapter. Reach him by e-mail at dsheets@post-dispatch.com, on Twitter at @DKSheets, or on Facebook and LinkedIn.

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Emily Sweeney is a staff reporter at The Boston Globe and author of Boston Organized Crime . Follow her on Twitter: @emilysweeney

In the widening world of electronic journalism, it’s not enough to report the news; reporters and editors are coming to the difficult realization that they must market it as well. This is due in large thanks to decreasing interest in static print media and the corresponding growth of the hit-driven culture that is online publishing, which unlike the print environment demands audiences be pinched and tweaked every waking minute to keep news stories fresh and memorable in their minds and to ensure they’ll click back to fresher stories later.

Add to this the rise of social media, a one-on-one engagement with information seekers and attention-getters, and the expansion of mobile computing through smart phones and tablet devices, and the effort to reach one’s community becomes a relentless task as news-gathering, more than ever, becomes a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, no-need-for-a-desk-or-office enterprise.

It’s tiring just to think about it.

But fear not, harried journalists; help is out there in the form of new and improving applications for iPhone, iPad and other portable devices that are replacing newsrooms as the central headquarters of reporting. This week, the site Social Media Examiner has published a list of 44 apps designed chiefly for Apple devices and intended to smooth the way toward easier information marketing. Some of the apps are personal in nature but the majority of the list constitutes a small library of easy, effective tools for information mavens of all kinds. Take a look and, if you haven’t heard of them already, feel free take a few out for a spin.

David Sheets is a sports content editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com, and president of SPJ’s St. Louis Pro chapter. Reach him by e-mail at dsheets@post-dispatch.com, on Twitter at @DKSheets, or on Facebook and LinkedIn.