This handout by Sona Patel accompanies slides -- Using social media for reporting -- presented by Julie Patel Liss and Seth Liss at Fresno NewsTrain. Sona Patel is director of community at The New York Times. For more information about the News Leaders Association's NewsTrain, please see https://www.newsleaders.org/newstrain.
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Social-media reporting tools
Sona Patel | @sona
Tools for compiling social media dossiers
● Evernote: Capture, organize and share what you collect across all your devices. evernote.com
● DocumentCloud: Analyze, annotate and publish documents. documentcloud.org
● Snagit: “Take a screenshot or capture a video of what you see on your computer screen.”
techsmith.com/screen-capture.html
● All My Tweets: View all tweets from one Twitter user on one page: allmytweets.net
● Twitonomy: “Backup/export tweets, retweets, mentions and reports to Excel & PDF in just
one click.” twitonomy.com/
● Search is Back!: Search Facebook by location, job and relationships. searchisback.com
● Facebook Graph.Tips: An “experimental Facebook Graph Search Engine made by Henk van
Ess.” graph.tips
Twitter search
See the full list of search operators here: https://twitter.com/search-home#
Twitter Advanced Search: http://twitter.com/search-advanced
● “How to use advanced search” on Twitter, by Twitter: bit.ly/advsearchTwitter
Using search terms “me,” “my” and “I” to find sources in breaking news:
http://bit.ly/victoroneword
Search for Twitter lists by typing into Google search:
● site:twitter.com inurl:lists keyword or “phrase”
● For example: site:twitter.com inurl:lists “climate change”
Twitter List Copy: “Copy any Twitter list to one of your own.” bit.ly/twlistcopy
Foller.me: Gathers “near real-time data about topics, mentions, hashtags, followers, location” for
any public Twitter profile. foller.me
Tools to monitor social media for stories
Twitter: “How to find breaking news on Twitter,” search terms to use from First Draft News:
bit.ly/findbreaknews
CrowdTangle: Shows which of your competitors’ Facebook posts are doing the best
http://www.crowdtangle.com/ CrowdTangle also partnered with Reddit: http://bit.ly/CTReddit
How to make Twitter lists: http://bit.ly/makeTwitterlists
To find pre-made Twitter lists, Google search “[keyword] site:twitter.com/*/lists”
To copy someone else’s list to one of your own: bit.ly/twlistcopy
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TweetDeck: https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/
TweetDeck just made searching for tweets by date and location a lot easier:
http://bit.ly/tweetdecksearch
Storyful, a good source for vetted social content and pre-made lists: http://www.storyful.com
How to use private Twitter lists to cover companies: http://bit.ly/privateTwitterlists
5 tips for spotting hoax Twitter accounts during breaking news: http://bit.ly/spothoax
How to find local Twitter reaction to a national event: http://bit.ly/localTwitterreaction
How to message someone on YouTube: http://bit.ly/messageYouTube
Reported.ly’s favorite tools for reporting using social media: http://bit.ly/reportedlytools
LinkedIn
LinkedIn group for journalists: Join the group, attend a 45-minute webinar and get free
premium service: bit.ly/lijournos
Callouts and crowdsourcing
Google Forms: https://www.google.com/forms/about/
Putting locations in Google Forms into a map: https://mapalist.com/
David Fahrenthold tells the behind-the-scenes story of his year covering Trump:
http://bit.ly/fahrentholdtrump with examples of his callouts on Twitter
Building trust with social media
Interaction on Twitter enhances journalists’ credibility: http://bit.ly/Twitterinteraction
Effective Facebook posts for engaging with consumers and building trust:
https://trustingnews.org/editor/steal-this-idea/