Using social media updates to build a news story

1. Creating News Story
Using Citizen Media Updates
Prepared by Tarek Amr
@gr33ndata

2. It’s an Easy Recipe
• First of all, pick your
topic.
• Exactly like cooking, the
first thing you do next is
to get the ingredients
• The Ingredients here are
tweets, blogs and status
updates on social media
websites Recipe
• Just like ingredients you
need to find a way to
store them in cool place
for them not to go bad

3. Shopping
• Shopping takes place in
social websites like blogs,
twitter, tumblr,
Facebook, Flickr,
Pinterest, YouTube and
many others.
• As long as goods are free,
make sure to buy slightly
more than your needs so
that you have the luxury
of choosing the most Just like cooking, a good story
suitable ones while relies on good ingredients
writing your story.

4. Storage and Cooling
• Since social websites are updated very
frequently, there should be a way to story
your findings, especially if you are going to
write your story after a while.
• Also searching for a tweet - one or two weeks
later - is not an easy task.
• Exactly like in food, each has its appropriate
method of storage.

5. Twitter Favorites
• One of the features many
users overlook in twitter is the
favorites; that yellow star icon
there.
• No need for external websites
or tools to save the tweets.
• Can be used anywhere, even
on twitter on your mobile Twitter search results are
phone. limited to just few days ago
• But there is no way to tag,
categorize, or re-order your
favorites 

6. Other Places for Storage
• Delicious.com
• Diigo.com
• Kippt.com
• stumbleupon.com
• Storify.com
To be able to store blog posts, vides, photos,
tweets or anything using tags for easy retrieval

7. Or use a notepad
• The notepad on your PC or even cloud-based
tools such as Evernote and Google Docs can be
useful too.
• You can add notes next to the links.
• Can reorder the links you collect easily.
• Can write the starting paragraph and ending one
there.
• But might not be with you all the time 
• Some might wonder, why use a notepad while you can
keep the info in your bogging system or newspaper's
CMS?

8. Salad
• Tweets are too short to add
background to news being sent
there.
• Normally topics have been
discussed there all day long, so
tweeps assume readers are aware
of their context.
• That's why you should make sure
to start your story by giving the
readers the needed background,
and add the needed context
throughout your post.
o Make sure to start your post with an
What's the importance of this? attractive introduction
o Why are they discussing that now?
o Who are those people?
o Will international audience
understand this local joke?

9. Setting the Ingredients
• Normally the case with blogs is
different than it in twitter.
• Bloggers might write more
details in their posts, most of
them are either personal or
only important to their own
audience.
• So, you better be able to pick
the most useful and attractive
parts for your readers. Remove seeds before using
• Many small chucks from many
different blogs is usually more
diverse than bigger chunks of
less blog posts

10. Preparation method
• After the intro, the story has to come in
layers, just like this sandwich
• Order it the way the most attractive to
the readers, but like moves or stories
one part should lead to the other.
• You better bind the unrelated tweets or
posts together with phrases of your
own to make them belonging to each
other. Like the cheese and pickle here.
• You better discuss the different points
of view and opposite opinions.
• Don’t forget the spices; i.e. photos,
videos, quotes, questions, etc.

11. The Dessert
• You are free to end your story
with:
o A Question
o A paragraph that summarizes it
o Your own point of view
o Or whatever you want
• Either by words of your own,
by quoting someone, or even
with a picture if you want.

12. This is mainly what we usually do in Global
Voices Online
In this link you can find different ways to
participate with us
http://globalvoicesonline.org/for-bloggers/
Or you can contact me for help if you want
http://www.tarekamr.com/
@gr33ndata

13. All photos used here are published under creative commons
license, and here are links to them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshua/247290826/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjaminkrause/2416894449/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/67408669/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yarwood/2385752458/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesswebb/3569002360/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/preppybyday/5076899310/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/criminalintent/5813962328/