This document provides tips for journalists on using social media and branding. It discusses defining your personal brand, using Twitter effectively for journalism, and using Facebook and Pinterest to engage audiences. Key recommendations include responding quickly online, monitoring your coverage areas on social media, and tracking metrics like shares, clicks and new followers over time to measure success.

1. Journalism, Branding
& Social Media
Mandy Jenkins @mjenkins

2. Crafting Your Brand
• Define yourself before others do
• Show off your best work
• Make yourself easy to contact
• Market yourself

3. Don't Be This Guy

4. 8 Rules of Social Journalism
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

5. 8 Rules of Social Journalism
5. Make corrections quickly and publicly
6. Address criticism without spats
7. Be consistent
8. Don't just push your content out,
share other links too

6. Twitter for
Journalists

7. Tweeting with Meaning
• Post links w/ comment or question, not
headline
• Monitor the people you cover
• Crowdsource stories by asking for info
• Quickly find witnesses, info with search
• Live report from the scene of a news
event
• Show off your work

8. Search Tweeps & Content
• Search by keywords, location, time
• Search before the stream is
overtaken by reaction

9. Ask For Tips

10. Target & mention big names

11. Hold Twitter Chats

12. Build Twitter Lists
Make sense of incoming tweets
Lists to build:
• Sources
• Others reporting on your
beat
• Coworkers
• Friends

13. It's All About Who You Follow

14. Who you should follow
• Your competitors
• 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

15. 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

16. Why You Don’t Automate

17. Brands Behaving Badly

18. Journalists on Facebook

19. Profiles Pages
• One place to manage • Completely separate
everything presence from profile
• Control your privacy • Completely public
• Timeline design with • Timeline design with
large image large image
• Could mix personal/ • Detailed analytics to
professional see who visits

20. Going Public On Facebook
• Turn on Subscriptions: Anyone can read
your public posts
• Set up a vanity url at facebook.com/
username
• Add your job history and a snappy bio to
About section (and make it public)

21. Build Friends Lists
facebook.com/bookmarks/lists

22. Build Interests Lists
facebook.com/bookmarks/lists

23. Target updates

24. Custom Privacy Settings

25. Customize Who Sees Photos

26. Everyone Sees It Differently

27. Whatever You 'Like'
• What would you share on Facebook?
• Ask questions, feature the responses in
stories
• During news, you can't overpost
• Photos and videos work well

28. Tell Your Story Here

29. 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

30. Images Matter

31. About Google+
• Not as much engagement as others
• Major effect on search, so set up
Google Authorship

32. News orgs &
• Pinterest is #3 after Facebook and
Twitter in users
• Fastest growing website in the U.S.
• Largely female user base – a group
we want to better reach
• Can repin readers’ submissions,
collaborate on boards

33. Monitoring Success

34. Track Your Followers Over Time
Twittercounter.com

35. Track Your Performance
Klout.com

36. Tweet at the Right Time
Crowdbooster.com

37. Bitly: Measure Click-Thrus

38. How are readers finding it?

39. Metrics That Matter
• How many story ideas were inspired by
what you read on social media?
• How many sources did you find on
social media?
• How many times did people share or
retweet your message?
• How many sites/blogs linked to you?

40. Set up your alerts
google.com/alerts
Eliminate results from your company site:
"first last" -yoursiteurl.com

41. THANKS!
Mandy Jenkins
mjenkins@digitalfirstmedia.com
@mjenkins
Blog: Zombiejournalism.com
These slides & more at
slideshare.net/mandyjenkins

42. Presentation Element Credits
• Deborah Petersen, @deborapetersen
• Kevin Sablan, @ksablan