Social Media U

Social Media U Using social tools as a college journalist, as a social citizen. For ACP July 24, 2009

Where did this stuff come from?
2002: Friendster, an early social network.
2003: MySpace launched. Sold to Rupert Murdoch in 2005 for $580 million.
2004: Facebook created my Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard student.
2004: Photo-sharing site Flickr created as part of a massively popular multiplayer online game. Sold to Yahoo in March 2005.
2005: YouTube created by 3 former PayPal employees. Sold to Google in November 2006 for $1.65 billion.
2006: Twitter launched by Evan Williams and Biz Stone, two former Google employees.

Source: Matt McDonald, BrandFlakesforBreakfast.com

Will social media kill journalism?

The good old days of journalism
We wrote, they listened.
Sources returned our phone calls.
We controlled both the information and the publishing platform.

The new reality of journalism
We write: is anyone listening?
Sources still return our phone calls – when they’re not blogging.
Data is shared; publishing platforms are cheap and ubiquitous.
Thousands of citizen bloggers cover health and personal finance news and almost anything else you can think of (some are making money too).

So what do we use this stuff for?
Promoting content
Interviewing
News gathering and research
Crowdsourcing and building sources
Publishing with social tools
Blog and website integration
Building community and rich content
Personal brand!

For promoting, sharing content
Audience no longer coming to us – we have to reach out and come to them.
What about news org accounts? No, you do it!
Individual reporters’ SM accounts bring in more traffic than org account (in many cases) – personality!
Use as many SM channels as you can maintain with quality
The more you use, the more exposure you have on the Web.
Others don’t have to be everywhere, but you do.
Why? Traffic via search is declining:
“ For the 1st time ever, more people are finding my blog from Twitter and Facebook referrals than via Google. The total number of people coming to my blog is increasing. The percentage of people who find it via Google is declining.” --Mark Cuban
More revenue: Active companies increased revenue 18% in last 12 months, not active lost 6%.
Virality: Things spread very quickly through social networks. Why? Well, because they are social and content becomes visible very quickly.

May 2009: Social vs. Search
Facebook drew 82.9 million unique visitors in May, up from 68.5 million in January.
Twitter logged 19.7 million uniques.
Google May uniques: 144.4 million; Yahoo, 135.5 million; MSN, 97.5 million.
source: Compete Web analytics

Share, promote content
What?
You or your organization’s content: Embed URLs, audio, video, or post articles to share information you find new or useful.
Share stuff you like too, that your followers/readers would find interesting.
How?
Publicize new work by linking to it on Facebook (link or status), Twitter, LinkedIn, and your personal blog.
Don’t forget bookmarks: Digg, Reddit, Delicious, StumbleUpon
Good ol’ fashioned e-mails or Facebook messages to your friends are more personalized.
Remember: You’re helping your audience make sense of info
Use Tools: To minimize your hassle, link your social media sites on Friendfeed or with applications like:
TweetDeck (for Twitter and Facebook linking)
Seesmic (Facebook and Seesmic)
Most SM sites have their own widgets or apps to connect w/ other SM too.

Interviewing
Skype – Long distance, etc. - You can record the video and then embed it on your site:
http://www.suzanneyada.com/2009/02/22/improving-journalism-education-join-us-tonight/
tinyurl.com/5qrjpb
Google video chat.
Other chats not recommended but sometimes necessary: Google Talk, Facebook chat, Twitterview (via Twitter direct messages)

News gathering and research
Use Twitter #hashtags to track specific subjects:
#iranelection
#swineflu
#jakarta
Track hashtags at hashtag.org, other sites.
You can use tools that will pull hashtags and publish them to your site (more on that in a few).
Get real-time reports from sources, including other writers.
Be the first to break story: Or someone else will: Report at the scene from your iPhone or Crackberry (whoops).

Get story ideas
Follow/fan/friend people or institutions for story leads. (we’ll talk ethics in a few).
Use Twitter and Google trend tools to track what’s hot in real-time:
This includes, but is not limited to, using search on Twitter , FriendFeed (real-time cross-channel search capability), OneRiot , Tweetmeme (hottest links on Twitter), Scoopler , and SearchMerge , BingTweets.
Twist.flaptor.com
trends.google.com
BingTweets: (bing search w/ Twitter) http://bingtweets.com/
Muckrack – Journo’s tweets.

Find and cultivate sources
Tools to find sources on Twitter: localtweeps - zip, geofollow - location, many others
Use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, wikis, blogs to find sources, particularly individuals.
Use their social networks to find others.
Get help from journalists in source work: Reportingon.com
Get help from your network (Jay Rosen Example).
Thank sources publicly, so they’re more willing to feed you good stuff.
Respond to sources – be part of the community (not just selling info).
Reportingon.com – ask questions, get help from journos

Publishing with social tools
Most SM platforms host self publishing (FB notes, YouTube videos, WordPress blogs, flickr photos, etc.)
Most of these make it easy to publish from mobile phone.
Newsmixer.
Ning sites.
Posterous – e-blogging or e-publishing.
Facebook applications.

Posterous

Blog and website integration
Sharing and follow buttons – Tweetmeme, etc.
Twitter feeds as forums/instant reporting – using hashtags (plugins that pull RSS of search –juitter ex.)
BlogtalkRadio for livepodcasts
CoveritLive for live chats (twitter feeds too).
Qik for live video. Twitcame and Livestream.
Blogs: Columnists, other media personalities should have blogs.
Who is highering – blogs. Some “blogs get more visits than big daily newspapers. (Ex. Star Tribune vs. Mashable.com)
Allow users to connect to site via networks – commenting through Facebook, Twitter – integration allowed through Disqus commenting.
Great example: Mustang Daily: http://mustangdaily.net/

How?
Designate staff to manage accounts
Others should always be contributing too
Create a plan for your news org
Set goals (ex. Grow followers/fans to 1,000 by month’s end).
Sign up for tools that allow multiple users/accounts
CoTweet
Yammer
Get a smartphone!
Announce, promote (tell your readers what you’re doing, get feedback).

Share/follow buttons

Pulling from Twitter

CoveritLive

Comment via SM

Ethics
Be careful of broadcasting group affiliation.
Have co-worker follow you to keep tabs.
Political affiliations.
Confirm and verify. (False tweets, rumors – M.J. case and changing nature of Web reporting).
You never stop representing the organization you work for.

Personal Branding
You’re always in the job market or internship market.
Be personal: Share what you’re working on (be careful).
Self-publish via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs.
Be everywhere, but find an expertise. Get connected on WiredJournalists – Ning social network.
Give people a sense of who you are as a person with photos and personal news.
Don’t be a Twitter whore! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALbH63Ali9U )
Be a thought leader (w/ Twitter, don’t just RT, but provide some input.

Personal Branding: Portfolio
Build one via Wordpress.
Cheap, easy and takes very little time.
Showcase best work.
You will learn basic coding.
You will learn how to integrate Web tools.
Professional domain: http://lavrusik.com/

Personal Branding: Professionalism
Sources, future bosses check SM profiles – it reflects on your professionalism.
Why does it matter: Models like Ground Report.
Finish your profiles! Include photo, bio, name and location always.
Consistency in your bio across channels.
Custom Twitter backgrounds: Twitbacks, Tweetstyle, etc.

Experiment!!
There are new tools coming out each day. Find what fits your needs!
You never know what is going to be the next Facebook or Twitter. Be ahead of the trend – Jason DeRusha example.

Questions?
Find these slides at:
slideshare.com/lavrusik
Find me at:
[email_address]
Lavrusik.com
twitter.com/lavrusik
All other SM: vadimlavrusik.gizapage.com

Social Media U

by Columbia University

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