A presentation on self-branding, curation, blogging, crowdsourcing and community engagement for journalists originally given at the International Center for Journalists on March 1, 2012

1. Social Media and
Thought Leadership

2. What's a Thought Leader?
An individual whose passion, creativity
and innovative ideas lends them
expertise in a subject area where they
can drive conversation and lead by
example.

3. Before Everything: Audience
● Who is my audience?
● What do they want?
● When is my audience online and how
can I best reach them?

4. On Being a Social Journalist

5. 8 Simple Rules of Social Interaction
1. Respond to replies, comments and
questions (especially questions) everywhere
2. Be transparent in all you do
3. Ask for help when you need it
4. Be thankful

6. 8 Simple Rules of Social Interaction
5. Make corrections quickly and publicly
6. Address criticism without spats
7. Be consistent
8. Don't just push your content out

7. Twitter for Journalists

8. Powered by followers
You They
follow follow

9. Who you should follow
● Your competitors (& other bloggers too)
● People in your field of interest/beat
● Popular people in your local/topical
Twittersphere
● Those who reply to you
● Those who re-tweet, share your links

10. Finding who to follow
● By subject/location: Twellow.com,
Wefollow.com
● Muckrack.com (for finding journalists)
● Look at others’ follows/followers
● Spy on Twitter lists
● Listorious.com

11. Search for Follows & Content
● Search by keywords, location, time
● Reach out for more info
● Follow who you reach out to

12. Acts to Follow

13. Questions to ask yourself
● When and what do I retweet? What does a
retweet mean from me?
● When will I use hashtags?
● How conversational will I be?

14. Making Time
● Check in, don't stay on all day
● Use live tweets as notes
● Get alerts about your mentions and
watched keywords
■ SocialMention.com
■ TweetBeep

15. Facebook
Beyond 'Just Friends'

16. Facebook Subscribe
● Largely made for
journalists
● Share with people
who aren't friends
● Follow updates of
those you aren't
connected to

17. Optimizing your profile/page
● Publicly identify yourself, where you work and
what you do
● Be easy to find, set up a vanity url at
facebook.com/username
● Tweak all privacy settings to your liking

18. Target updates

19. Public Updates
● Crowdsource your stories
● Share behind the scenes photos and insights with
readers
● Ask questions/solicit feedback
● Post your stories and those you're reading to
generate discussion
Be yourself!

20. Wording Matters
● Posed Questions +64%
● Call to read or take a closer look +37%
● Personal reflections +25%
● Clever, catchy tone +18%
% more feedback over average
Source: Facebook

21. Images Matter

22. Timing Matters
● Post late in the week and on weekends
● Post throughout the day
● Test and see what works

23. Act to Follow: Nick Kristof

24. Google Profiles
If you have a Gmail account, you have
a profile. Make it sparkle.

25. Build Your Niche

26. Your Blog is a Showcase

27. Keys to Good Blogging: Voice
“Blogging is not a graduation
speech, it’s a conversation with
someone at the grad party.”
- Roxanne Hack

28. Keys to Good Blogging: Frequency
Keep your name out there by
blogging often - daily if possible.

29. Keys to Good Blogging: Media
● Video/Audio
● Photos/Slideshows
● Graphics
● Embedded social elements
● Source documents
● Maps
● Data

30. Cultivating community
● Engage in your comments
● Pose questions in your posts, maybe end
posts with a question
● Crowdsource in your posts - ask for
information for future posts from your
readers

31. Growing Your Blog's Readership
● Link to related blogs & comment there
● Use proper SEO
● Promote using social media - multiple
times
● Make sure it is shareable

32. Curate Your Expertise

33. What to Curate
● What you're reading to inform your work
● Tweets, Facebook posts and other content
from other sources and your readers
● Items you may want to blog about
● Stuff to read later

34. Social Bookmarking

35. Storify

36. Using Your Social Streams

37. Crowdsourcing Tools

38. Google Docs
● Gathering info using
Forms
● Get results
● Free word
processor/Excel/Powerp
oint

39. Crowdsourced map: Google Maps

40. Crowdmapping
Free, fast and reader-friendly

41. All Our Ideas
Feature Example - TBD
News Example - HuffPost

42. How Do You Measure Success?
Blog: Traffic, link-ins, comments
Twitter: Followers is part of it - Twittercounter.com
Retweets and mentions - Tweetreach.com
Facebook: Shares, comments, subscribers and
likes (in that order)
Klout is but one measure

43. Reputation Management
Find out what people are saying
and address it head-on

44. Set Up Google Alerts
google.com/alerts
Eliminate results from your company site:
"first last" -yoursiteurl.com

45. More alerts
Video alerts
RSS feed alerts
Social mention reports

46. Put Yourself Out There

47. Live Chats

48. Twitter Chats
● Pick a topic and hashtag
● Advertise in advance
● Join in on and learn from other chats
● I recommend Tweetchat, but you can use
your own client too

49. Public Speaking
● Pitch a panel or talk at conferences in
your subject area or for journalists
● Talk to local organizations or
organizations in your subject area
● Make videos
● Get on TV

50. Engage in Real Life
● Go to meetups and conferences in your
subject area
● Host your own meetups
● Hold office hours

51. Mandy Jenkins
Twitter: @mjenkins
ZombieJournalism.com
Find these slides at:
slideshare.net/mandyjenkins