Engaging the Online Reader through Social Media

Engaging the Online Reader
through Social Media
Logan H. Aimone, executive director
National Scholastic Press Association
Online: slideshare.net/loganaimone

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

What is social media?
It’s the use of Web-based
and mobile technologies
to turn communication
into interactive dialogue.



How journalists use
social media
Distribution: Sharing / referring content
Crowdsourcing
Searching for sources or subjects
Interviewing
Monitoring
Story ideas
User feedback / engagement


Primary social media
journalists use:
Facebook / LinkedIn
Google+
Twitter
Vimeo / YouTube / Flickr
Geolocating: Foursquare, Google Latitude/Maps,
Gowalla, etc.



FACEBOOK: Deﬁnition and statistics
Among world’s largest social media websites with more
than 750 million monthly active users who create a
network of friends
250 million mobile users
Average user has 130 friends
50% of users return daily to the site
Photos are most popular shared and viewed item
280 million photos uploaded per day

Source: Facebook + Journalists, July 2011 Engaging the Online Reader


FACEBOOK: Impact
“If searching for the news was the most important
development of the last decade, sharing the news may
be among the most important of the next.”
— “Navigating News Online, Pew Research Center’s
Project for Excellence in Journalism, May 2011
Facebook drove 3% of traffic to 21 of 25 news sites in
study, and 8% of traffic to Huffington Post.
Headlines have been organized by editors. Now they
are organized by friends.



FACEBOOK: Statistics
Users are 3-4 times more likely to click “Like” for a
story if they see a friend’s face as someone who “liked”
the story.
Journalists who post content on a page or proﬁle are
likely to get more trafﬁc if they…
Use a 4- or 5-line post
Ask a question
Include a thumbnail or photo



FACEBOOK: Profiles & Pages
A Facebook Profile is the standard user experience.
An individual develops a personal network of friends
(up to 5,000) and can share status updates, photos,
links and videos.
A Facebook Page is a more professional site where a
journalist can share and interact while maintaining the
traditional separation from sources and avoiding
conflicts of interest. You can distribute, engage and
have a public presence — and no limit to connections.



FACEBOOK: Pages
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times uses Facebook
to tell microstories. He says a good story is a good
story on Facebook.



FACEBOOK: Pages
During breaking news, post often. Readers expect it.
Engagement increases.
Be transparent about who’s posting. Tag the person
posting, or indicate in the text.
Pages allow targeted distribution based on gender,
age, location, language, etc.
Provide a behind-the-scenes look



FACEBOOK: Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is using the “crowd” to provide ideas,
sources, information and leads.
Submitted content
Enlisting readers in the process
Story ideas
Direct access to the source (source available to
respond to questions via Facebook, etc.)
Using Questions feature for high engagement
Let viewers decide content



FACEBOOK: Other items
Feeds don’t work. They’re impersonal and automated.
Readers engage when they know a person is behind
the post.
Find sources with Search.
Search public updates.
Search administrators of Groups.
Videocalling (soon with Skype) for interviews
facebook.com/journalists



GOOGLE+: Deﬁnition and statistics
Similar to Twitter, Google+ allows a Google user to both
follow and be followed online.
One signiﬁcant difference is the ability to group
followers in “circles” and to determine what pieces of
information are shared with which circle. People are not
told the circle in which they are grouped.
Additional features include the ability to save items to
read later (compared to a linear stream of information),
video chat in “hangouts,” and integration with other
Google products like Gmail, Google Docs or YouTube.



GOOGLE+: Deﬁnition and statistics
The service launched June 28, 2011. In the ﬁrst two
weeks, it grew to 10 million users and within four
weeks over 25 million users.
Interestingly, only about 12.5% of users are women.
The most popularly followed people on Google+ are
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg, Google founders
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Mashable CEO Pete
Cashmore.
Oh, and Google hasn’t made an application
programming interface (API), so there are no third-party
programs. That means no FarmVille!



GOOGLE+: Uses
Because of the selective sharing options with “Circles”
in Google+, a journalist could share some information
publicly while some only with close friends. This avoids
having people create two proﬁles — one public and
one private — to share with different audiences.
“Hangouts” could become the next focus group, group
interview or way to interact with reporters or sources.
“Sparks” allows a user to identify interest areas, and
Google will suggest items — like a pre-search.
The +1 button allows users to recommend items.
Content can be downloaded.


GOOGLE+: Big questions
Will it replace Facebook? Maybe — if users can
migrate content from an established social network and
if Facebook doesn’t develop selective sharing. (Skype
chat is coming soon in Facebook.)
Will it be more like Google Buzz or Wave? Those
services never really caught on as expected. Maybe the
expectations were too high? Or was the product not
innovative?
What is the impact of friends discovering in which
“circles” they have been placed?



TWITTER: Deﬁnition and statistics
Twitter is a microblogging website with mobile apps
that provides 140-character updates. Users can have
followers, follow others and be part of lists. Non-users
can search or see public tweets.
200 million users and 350 billion tweets per day
A hashtag is a term used to tag a post for search. It
includes the # sign and a word, phrase or abbreviation.
According to the Pew study, Twitter drove about 1% of
referrals to news sites (and 3% for the Los Angeles
Times).



TWITTER: Uses
The main uses for Twitter are distribution, engagement
and monitoring.
Build a network of relevant followers (and people to
follow). Interact with them in the ways below.
Use Twitter to share content or refer users to content.
Use Twitter to engage with users: ask/answer
questions, clarify, respond to criticism, get ideas.
Use Twitter to monitor what others are tweeting about
to get leads, ideas and sources.
Curate tweets as basis for a sidebar in print or online.


TWITTER: More uses
Go to http://media.twitter.com/newsrooms
#TfN
Report: Search, sources and mobile apps
Engage: Effective writing, promotion and branding
Publish: Tools and display guidelines
Extras: Blogs, copyright and troubleshooting



VIMEO / YOUTUBE / FLICKR: Deﬁnition and statistics
Vimeo and YouTube are video-sharing websites.
Flickr is a photo/image-sharing site.



VIMEO / YOUTUBE / FLICKR: Uses
Vimeo and YouTube channels can be utilized for
sharing extra video from a news story; a behind-the-
scenes look at the journalist’s job; or to interact with
users, like responding to queries.
Flickr can be used in some of the same ways but with
still images.
All can also be used to search for sources or monitor
what people are talking about or ﬁnd interesting.



GEOLOCATION APPS: Deﬁnition and statistics
Typically, geolocation apps do two things:
They report your location to other users.
They associate real-world locations (such as
restaurants and events) to your location.
These apps use the GPS chip in a phone or mobile
device to determine location.
Apps like Foursquare allow users to “check in” at a
location. Sometimes businesses will offer deals for
checking in.



GEOLOCATION: Uses
Journalists can use geolocation apps to see who has
checked in at a location or event.
Use the apps to monitor buzz or develop story ideas.
Some mobile apps like Yelp! allow users to post
reviews of businesses.
Combine geolocation with other mobile device-based
tools such as QR codes or Groupons.



Other digital media tools
Delicious: Social bookmarking
Tumblr: A place to post anything and everything
Storify: A website that allows curation and combination
of multiple elements from social media (like tweets,
Facebook status updates, etc.)
Instagr.am: Mobile photo sharing
Evernote: Keep track of many bits of information from
multiple formats


How will you utilize these
powerful new tools?
They are evolving rapidly.
Research data are becoming available, which will prove
valuable to how journalists use the tools effectively.



Questions?
Find this presentation at slideshare.net/loganaimone
Email me at logan@studentpress.org



Engaging the Online Reader through Social Media

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