Zombie Journalism

Dispatches from the living amongst journalism's walking dead

Month: March 2011

Interacting with the audience as a news brand

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On March 30, 2011

In Social Media, Twitter

Last week I went over a few tips for setting a social media strategy and persona for your news org’s branded account(s) and tips for using those accounts as a brand. Today, let’s get into audience engagement on social media tools. These tips have served me well as both a brand and as an individual, helping me to establish great relationships on the old internets.

Audience Interaction in the Social Sphere

Responding: I’d suggest you try to always respond to those who reach out to the brand on Twitter or Facebook with questions, criticism and tips. You can respond via private direct message (if they follow you) or outward replies. If you’re squeamish about public replies, remember: Unless a Twitter user is following both parties, they will not see this interaction in their streams. If the reply is something you think other followers may be interested in, you might want to re-tweet the question/comment and answer it outright.

Note: After you DM a user, you will need to follow them from the brand’s account if you want a reply via direct message. People cannot direct message you unless you are following them.

News Tips: If someone sends a good news tip via Twitter, Facebook or by email, ask them follow-up questions (if necessary) and be sure to publicly acknowledge their contribution. You may want to re-tweet the tip once you have verified it.

Ask for help: If you want a photo or info from the scene of a story, ask for it from your followers.

Be thankful: Treat those supplying you with information as a respected friend – and they just might end up becoming regular tipsters and brand evangelists. If you get a news tip, photo or other info you’d like to use from your followers, be sure to thank and/or credit the user by name in social media messages and the story itself. Credit them on Twitter with (h/t @theirname) or similar when the link is shared. If you use a photo, make sure they are credited in the cutline.

Questions: If someone asks the branded account a question, answer it as soon as you have time (or ask someone else to do so). If you don’t know the answer, tell them you’ll find out and get back to them.

Criticism: If someone offers criticism, address it, even if only to say you’ll pass it to the right person internally. Try to avoid an extended back-and-forth with Twitter users and don’t get into embarrassing Twitter arguments. Once it seems to be approaching a point of no end, take the conversation offline.

Corrections: If you made a mistake, like a misspelled name, wrong link or factual error, it’s best to correct it in a follow-up tweet. Do not erase the first tweet unless you absolutely feel you must – and not without some acknowledgement of the mistake.

Start the conversation: Instead of always offering up a headline and link, add a question element when appropriate. Like, “What’s your favorite”, “do you agree” or whatever. If you want this to be an ongoing topic for the day, you may want to start a hashtag to accompany it.

Responses: If someone gives you a particularly good response, RT it with a link back or some notation as to what it’s about. Example: RT @someguy I think it’s a bad idea. // What do you think of Md’s new traffic law? http://bit.ly/ghgkg

Note: This is an especially good way to keep an ongoing topic going throughout the day. Use this to keep a hashtag going instead of tweeting out a boring old headline on the same thing again.

Farewell, TBD: It was good while it lasted

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On March 25, 2011

In TBD

Today is my last day at TBD – so you’ll have to forgive a little bit of sappiness. I’m one of the last eliminated employees to depart and sticking around to watch everyone leave has been something of an emotional roller coaster.

The early days here, around when TBD launched, will always be a treasured bright spot in my professional life. The group of people assembled for that original staff was one of the brightest, most energetic and creative collections of journalists I think I’ll ever meet. Each person, from the reporters to the community engagement team to the editors, seemed to have been searching for a place that would set them free. For a little while, they had it.

Technically, TBD still exists, but it won’t ever be the TBD it was meant to be without those staffers who created it. It was an honor and a privilege to work with these people. I hope to someday look back at this list of names and, upon seeing all these people have accomplished, be amazed we managed to once work under one roof. Maybe we were meant to be sort of a new media version of “Freaks & Geeks” – promising, well-cast and sadly short-lived.

I owe a big thank you for the career boost TBD has given me – and it wouldn’t have ever happened without Jim Brady and Steve Buttry. I don’t know how I can ever repay them.

I’m going to miss my almost-daily interactions with some particular TBD Twitter followers and the great members of TBD’s Community Blog Network. I hope we’ll still be friends on the interwebs.

Thank you to the tireless TBD editors: Erik Wemple, Andrew Beaujon, Sommer Mathis and Julie Westfall.

And the creative, wonderful reporters: Sarah Godfrey, Maura Judkis, Ryan Kearney, Ally Schweitzer, Sarah Larimer, Kevin Robillard, Jenny Rogers, Sam Chamberlain, Mike Jones, Amanda Hess, Rebecca A. Cooper, Elahe Izadi, Dave Jamieson, John Metcalfe and photographer Jay Westcott.

Also,thank yous go out to the TV folks who managed to teach me a thing or two: Steve Chaggaris, Melissa Reyes, Katherine Amenta and Morris Jones (aka Mojo).

Hail to the unsung heroes that made TBD tick: Bageshri Ghate, Mitch Schuler, Carol Touhey, Jen Dreyer, Ryan Mannion (& co.), Nicole Young, Maya Carpenter, Justin Karp, Allene Bryant, Markham Evans and Heather Farrell.

And finally, the community engagement team:

 

TBD's Community Engagement Team. Photo/Dan Victor

TBD's Community Engagement Team (R-L): Lisa Rowan, Jeff Sonderman, Nathasha Lim, Steve Buttry, Dan Victor, Eliot Kort and me. (Photo courtesy Dan Victor)

Channeling the news brand on Twitter and Facebook

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On March 24, 2011

In Social Media

The other day, I mentioned that I’ve been transitioning TBD’s social media channels to a new team and doing some basic training in how to communicate as a news brand. I got into how news brands need to have a planned persona and strategy in place to effectively manage a presence in social media. Today, I’ll pass on the tips I’ve been giving to the new brand managers for you to try out in your newsroom.

These tips assume that you don’t want a stiff headline feed for your news accounts and you will be devoting some manpower – either a set staffer or a group sharing duties – to maintaining a personalized social media presence.

Tweeting as the News Brand

1. Think curation instead of broadcasting. Your goal is to find the most immediate, informative, interesting, re-tweetable news in as conversational a manner as is possible/appropriate.

2. Use your best news judgment when you decide to tweet. Some stories that come across your desk may not be ideal for the brand’s Twitter account. If you have a set strategy for your coverage area and topics (and you’d better, son), things like link roundups, uber-niche coverage, out-of-coverage-area stories or, frankly, old news, won’t be very useful to your followers.

2.5 If you do want/need to tweet a roundup post, highlighting an individual segment works well for Twitter interest.It’s way better than saying “Today’s news in X” or, god forbid, “link roundup on X”.

3. Timing is everything. I found over time that the best times for TBD to tweet are generally in the morning, over lunchtime and in the late evening. It may be different for your brand. You can find this out by checking the incoming traffic to your site from Twitter – or by tracking how often you get replies at certain times of the day (many analytics tools do this). You may also opt to schedule some tweets to hit spike times that are not staffed.

3.5 Space non-breaking tweets out to avoid flooding people’s streams too much. And remember, silence is OK. You don’t have to tweet for the sake of tweeting.

4. Tweeting something more than once is OK. Besides, rewording an old tweet makes it sound new.

5. Sometimes the headline on the story just isn’t right as a tweet. Turn on your best inner copyeditor to write a tweet that’s informative, descriptive and short enough to be re-tweeted.

6. Be selective when re-tweeting. Re-tweet good information, breaking news alerts, news tips, reactions, but be sure to stay relevant. Also, make sure it’s easily understood if the information is verified or not.

7. Stick to your strategy. Remember the mission, intended audience, scope and topic area for your Twitter account. You DO have a strategy, right?

 

Special notes for breaking news

  • If news is breaking fast, don’t wait for a link to tweet.
  • BUT Linking is a priority: If you have info to send a lengthy tweet, we have info to quickly copy and paste into a very short post to update later. Missing a link is missing page view opportunities as the news is retweeted. Perhaps more importantly, it also makes it harder for the follower to get more information on the story if they see it on a re-tweet later in the tweetcycle.
  • Updates: When a breaking news post is updated with notable info, tweet about it again with the new info and include the same link.
  • Exclusive news and scoops: If information is exclusive to your site, you may want to save the information for a quick blog post so a link can be tweeted with the breaking news. Why rush it to Twitter if you can have more information out there from the get-go?

 

Facebook is not the same as Twitter

Facebook should generally be updated far less frequently and with a different kind of story than Twitter. You don’t want your brand to be the friend that updates too often.

Story choice: Think about which kind of stories you’d share with friends on Facebook. Consider if this is something that could start a conversation.

Timing: For TBD, Facebook activity is heaviest in the morning, around and just after lunch and in the evening after 7 pm. Check the analytics on your Facebook page to see when your busy times are. You might want to start out by sharing a link in the morning, one or two over the course of the day and one or two in the evenings. Think about when people actually use Facebook, and post when they’re on. (Don’t forget weekends!)

Cross-posting with Twitter: If you do want to share updates between Twitter and Facebook, do not set it up to function automatically from one to the other. They aren’t built similarly and it shows when news orgs try to do both at once. Facebook users shouldn’t be seeing Twitter names and hashtags – and Twitter readers shouldn’t be seeing tweets that are too long coming from a Facebook stream. Use a service like Tweetdeck, Seesmic or Hootsuite to cross-post to make it easier and faster.

 

Coming soon: News brand guidelines for audience interaction

The next steps….

By

On March 23, 2011

In Work Stuff & Projects

It’s been just shy of a year since I posted about my decision to come to TBD. It was such an exciting time and such a great opportunity – I had no idea that less than a year later I’d be out the door and on to the next thing.

After I was laid off at TBD, I was prompted to really think about What I Wanted to Do Next. It was a hard question to answer, because what I wanted to do next was continue working at the TBD I knew. I guess I’ll take the something close, somewhere that’d still let my fly my social media freak flag.

That’s why I’m happy to say I’ll soon be heading up social media for Huffington Post Politics here in D.C. No details yet, but I’m excited to be staying in D.C., still working for an innovative social media shop and getting into the three-ring circus of politics.

It was a tough choice to pick a next path that I struggled with all week, but I think it’s going to be a ton of fun.

Channeling the news brand: Persona and strategy

By

On March 22, 2011

In Social Media

In preparing for my exit from TBD (more on that later), I’ve been training those who will be taking over my duties in communicating as the brand. I thought it might be useful to those who are learning this at their own news organizations to include my training documentation and thoughts on the blog over the next few days.

Note: I’m no social media guru or anything (they don’t exist anyway), but I have quite a bit of experience at setting social media strategy, establishing a brand identity and  communicating as a news brand from my time at the Cincinnati Enquirer and TBD.

Most of the individuals I’ve been training for this are fairly experienced Twitter and Facebook users, but they have no experience in using social media as entities other than themselves. It makes quite a difference. When communicating as The Voice of the Organization (cue dramatic music), one has to essentially channel the persona of the brand and speak in its voice.

While it really isn’t possible to keep the exact same voice when several people are communicating as the brand, a steady brand persona can be maintained if you have a plan in place. So let’s get into all that first.

#1: Know Who You Are

The key to communicating as a news brand – especially when many people are behind the curtain – is to have a set persona in mind. If the brand were a person, who would they be? What are their interests? How would they talk? What would their priorities be?

For TBD, for instance, the brand persona is that of a conversational, young, urban-dweller who is in the know but isn’t a know-it-all. The tone is casual, straight-forward, occasionally snarky or sarcastic, but only in the context of funny or feature news. He/she is sort of geeky, curious and enthusiastic to receive and share info.

Some brand managers will establish full identities for the brand, specifying how old he/she would be, where they’d live, economic status, etc. In the case of Colonel Tribune, for instance, a whole identity and background was set up to serve as the account persona. While you don’t have to go into nearly as much detail, it’s good to have answers in mind for the following:

  • How conversational should the tone be?
  • Who is my audience and what tone will they expect?
  • What sort of tone is right for my content?
  • Am I a friend, a voice of authority or somewhere in-between?
  • How much two-way communication am I doing?

 

#2: Set a strategy

There’s nothing worse that following the Twitter feed of a news organization without a strategy. It’s plainly obvious to anyone thats following (especially if they happen to be the competition) if you’re flying blind: Tweeting local news on a national account, sending out misleading links to stories that are out of your area (or off your website), re-tweeting whoever and whatever strikes your fancy, etc.

A strategy for communicating as the brand can be as detailed or simple as you need it to be, but consider these questions when laying it all out:

  • Is this intended to be general interest or niche?
  • Is this for breaking news, or more finished stories?
  • What is the expected coverage area for this account?
  • If you have multiple branded accounts: How do they work together? Does the same info go out on both at any time?
  • Who is my audience? What do they want? (You know, a survey never hurts….)
  • When is my audience online and most able to use this information? (see analytics)
  • Who is my competition? What do I like or dislike about their brand presence?
  • Do I re-tweet? Who do I re-tweet – and why?

Once you’ve stablished the kind of news and reader the account is for, set a strategy for what you’ll send out and stick to it.

 

Other brand managers, what would you suggest to help set a tone or strategy?

 

More info: Tips for Tweeting/Facebooking as the Brand, Guidelines for Audience Interaction as the Brand

Training: Intro to mobile journalism tools

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On March 21, 2011

In New Technology, Presentations, Twitter

Last week, I taught a mobile journalism workshop as part of APME’s Newstrain seminar at the Newseum here in Washington, D.C. While I’m not a mobile journalist per se, I am a journalist that loves my smartphone. The class was aimed at those who are new to most mobile news gathering, reporting and publishing apps and practices – with and without smartphones.

We got into:

As part of the training, I gave out a handout of entry-level mobile tools for gathering media, reporting news, publishing and being productive on the go. I gathered these from my own experiences and those of other online savvy journos I know. Check it out (also after the jump) – and tell me what, if anything, you’d add. 

Read More

Four key things TBD did right

By

On March 2, 2011

In Industry News & Notes, TBD

There’s been all kinds of stories, analyses and blog posts written by journalism thinkers about “why TBD failed” or “things that went wrong at TBD”. While these have made some valuable notes for those who want to launch or work for startups in the future, they ignore a few critical points, the biggest of which is that TBD didn’t fail, per se.

Despite how it all ended, there are positive lessons to be gleaned from TBD’s build, launch and brief initial life. Here’s a few things TBD did that I hope other news orgs won’t shy away from trying in the future.

Threw out the org chart

It’s not to say TBD didn’t have an organizational chart of who reported to who, but it had very little bearing on our actual jobs. Being in a small shop of any kind means a lot more multitasking and a lot less adherence to job descriptions. Everyone edited someone else’s work at some point, everyone wrote headlines, took photos, sent tweets, assigned stories and had a hand in developing new products. While some took on one role more than another most of the time, you never, ever heard “that’s not my job” from a TBD staffer when something had to get done.

 

Wasn’t afraid to promote itself

While we caught flak from time to time about talking too much about ourselves or our policies as an organization, nobody can say it didn’t help.TBD had no formal advertising or marketing in the D.C. area (outside of our own properties) throughout its entire existence. Anything people knew about it, every story read, every site visit, every Twitter follower, came to us by word-of-mouth of one kind or another.

At the time of last week’s layoffs, TBD’s web traffic was growing, Twitter followers were at nearly 10,000 and (anecdotally) I’d actually have someone recognize the name of my employer more often. Baby steps, I know, but if we hadn’t talked up our work on-site and off, been transparent with our build-out process, held meetups, aggressively followed and interacted with local people on social media and appeared at meetings of all kinds – we’d never have even had that.

 

Let others in

With only a handful of reporters available to handle breaking news most days (not counting those who covered arts, entertainment and sports), TBD had to reach beyond the newsroom for information on a daily basis. Be it from social media or aggregation, the world outside our walls had a huge impact on what news we could provide.

Sometimes it woud mean highlighting the work of our blog network, who are routinely miles ahead of larger media. Other times, we’d have to (at least initially) link to the work of our competitors. On social media, we’d regularly ask for help when we needed info from a scene we couldn’t reach. We’d regularly (multiple times a day) receive news tips and photos of interest via email or Twitter that would serve as the basis for a breaking news post (pending verification, of course). We could utilize Twitter searches to find out info and eyewitnesses from fires, shootings and events – before ever sending a reporter.

 

Hired for mindset over pedigree

Despite what’s been said about the pedigree at the top, TBD had some of the most unconventional hiring practices that seemed to be more qualitative than what I’ve seen at most journalism organizations. TBD’s hiring editors evaluated recruits based on their personalities and approach to news as opposed to journalism’s typically myopic ideals of merit and value.

I’m sure even Erik Wemple, Jim Brady and Julie Westfall couldn’t really put into words what they were looking for, but they knew it when they saw it. And they saw a LOT of people. I’d estimate about 20 percent of the hundreds who applied to TBD were interviewed in house.

This meant an exhausting cavalcade of interviews with editors and a 30 minute writing test for every position (not just reporters) in which the applicant could write anything they wanted. What people chose to do during this time, I’m sure, revealed a lot about them. Some froze without direction and wrote next to nothing. Some wrote personal essays. Others picked up the phone and reported stories. Somewhere in all of that they revealed something that made them right for TBD.

I didn’t see it when I first started, but as the staff was hired and gelled over time, it was easy to see we all had something in common in our views of the world and how we do our work. We came from a wide variety of places, academic backgrounds and work histories – but we all had something in common that I could never put my finger on. Whatever it was, it made it very easy to collaborate on stories and share ideas.

Nobody was hired because of where they’d worked or gone to school and nobody was automatically shut out for being from out of market. From a lot of past hiring experiences (on both sides of the table), I know that happens at a lot of news outlets – and it pops up in newsroom divisions and ridiculous office politics all over the industry.

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