Tag: Social Media Page 2 of 7

How Journalists Should Set Up Google+ Profiles

On April 5, 2012

A properly set-up profile is what makes Google+ effective for an individual journalist looking to establish a brand online or cement their brand in a Google search. You need to have the right info on display to ensure people can find you in a Google search by looking for your name or some keywords like what you cover or where you work.

Looking for how to set up a Google+ Page for a news brand?

First, signing up. To do this, go to plus.google.com. If you have a Gmail, YouTube or Picasa account already, you can sign in with that Google login info here and be on your way. If not, click on “Create an account” and it’ll walk you through the steps.

Should you sign up for a work-only Google+ account separate from your personal account? That’s up to you — and your employer’s social media policy. If your employer says they own your social media accounts and followers, you’ll definitely want to set up a separate account. For Digital First Media employees, this isn’t an issue. One downside to setting up a different account is that you’ll need to toggle between both accounts when you use any Google tool, which can be a pain.

Setting Up Your Profile

1. Set up your name and profile image: Be sure to use your real name and a photo of yourself. You’re a journalist and you want to be found, right?

2. Write your Introduction, Occupation and Work History with search in mind. Your account will show up apart from your profile in Google searches, like so:

Your occupation and first listed employer will show up right after your name in searches, so make sure your occupation is descriptive (say Business Reporter, Tech Reporter, Crime & Court Reporter, for instance, if you have a set beat) and your employers are in the right order.

The beginning of your introduction also shows up in search, so keep that in mind. In your introduction, you can be as personal and descriptive as you want to be. I’d recommend describing what you do, what subjects you cover and what geographic areas your work covers – at the very least.

As for where you’ve lived and work history – you don’t have to get detailed if you aren’t comfortable doing so. Keep in mind, however, that it might help a past source or reader know you’re that same guy they knew back at your old employer if they find you here.

3. Set and verify your work email account: This seems trivial, but could be huge. On your profile setup, it will list your Gmail account, but it also has an option for a work account. This is where you need to add the same email address that is linked to your byline on your website, which should help to link your story and G+ profile in search, like so:

Once you’ve entered and saved your work address, a link should show up to the right of it asking you to verify the email. (This might not show up right away, so check back later if it isn’t there right off.) Click it and it will send you an email to verify the setting. A checkbox will show up next to the email address if it has been verified.

Update 7/5/12: Google+ now has one easy spot to verify your professional authorship.

4. Set your privacy settings: You can set the visibility of each area of your profile separately. You’ll want to make sure your Introduction, Occupation and Work History are public for search. Make sure you’ve checked the box at the bottom for “Help others discover my profile in search results.” The rest is up to you. (See it)

5. Link your other online accounts: On the right side of your About page, you can and should add link to your other social media, blogging, curation and writing accounts. What you might consider adding here: Twitter, Facebook (if it’s got a public element), your personal website (if you have one), any blogs you write and your Delicious/Diigo account/public Google Reader shares, etc. (See It)

Below this is “Contributor To”, where you can connect to all the places where your work is displayed online. If you have a reporter/author page on your news outlet’s website, add it here. If not, add a link to an on-site search for your byline.

Recommended Links is where you can add any other links you might want to highlight, like information resources relating to your work, go-to sources for your reporting, favorite sites, etc.

And with that, you’re all set. Now, let’s get to posting updates and creating Circles.

How news brands can get started on Facebook Timeline

By Mandy

On February 29, 2012

In Facebook, Social Media

On Wednesday, Facebook debuted Timeline for pages. This new design and setup has been available on profiles for awhile and now it is coming to your news account pages. While this is an optional changeover for now, all pages will convert to this new design on March 30, so it gives you a little bit of time to get your pages ready for primetime.

What does Timeline change?

Timeline brings a whole new look and feel to your Facebook page on the front and back ends. The biggest change in appearance is the addition of the cover photo – an 851 x 315 pixel banner image across the top of the page. Converting to this new design will also rearrange your page in a timeline format, with all status updates and important milestones ordered in a tree fashion by date.

There are changes on the admin side of these pages as well. In the top right of your screen, you’ll see a button that says “Admin Panel” – click it to find your analytics and page controls. You’ll also have a few new options on this admin panel, including an ability to see banned users from your page, a log of user and admin activity on your page and (finally!) a place to send and receive private messages from your users.

What you need to do now

Ivan Lajara, a community engagement editor at Digital First Media and Life Editor at the Daily Freeman in Kingston, N.Y., offered a great deal of the following steps and tips for local news outlets to get started on Timeline.

1. Select a cover image

With an image this big (dimensions are 851 x 315 pixels), you have a lot of options. You might opt to include an insider photo of your newsroom or employees, as the New York Times did (above). This might also be a good spot to highlight an excellent local photo from your staff photographers or a historic image from your archives.

You might also opt to ask your fans what they’d like to see in that space — or even ask them to submit photos to feature there, as the Daily Freeman has on their Facebook page.

Note: This image isn’t set in stone, so you can change it as often as you’d like. One thing you shouldn’t do is use your brand’s logo or masthead here – that’s what the square profile photo (which will still show up as your image around Facebook) is there for. Also, Facebook’s TOS prohibits using this place for advertising or to shill for Likes, not that you’d do that anyway.

2. Write a good description for your page

Your description is a bit more prominently featured now, so be sure to write a snappy bit about your publication here. Edit this space by clicking on About.

3. Arrange your apps to highlight the most important ones

Your photos, likes, videos and any apps/contests you had are now displayed as images below your cover photo. You have the ability to feature 10 apps in total, but only four are displayed above the fold. In this space, you should highlight Photos, Likes and two apps.

You can move these featured apps around by hitting the arrow hovering near them on the right. Hover over the app you want to move and click the pencil button that shows up in the top right corner. From here, you can select what app you want to swap in.

Note to Digital First newsrooms: Ivan suggests you highlight SeeClickFix, Obituaries (Legacy has built-in app) Ustream/Livestream, etc.

4. Add a milestone or two to your Timeline

You can do this by going to the status update box (now on the left instead of the top) and clicking Milestone. An obvious one to start with might be when your publication began. Fill in the date and any info you’d like, along with an image if you have it. You might also add in some big events that occurred in your area in the past, such when you launched your website or notable local happenings just to get started. Upload an image of your publication’s old front pages or a historic photo to mark the occasion.

You can highlight photos or stories from the page or fans by making them fill both sides of the timeline. Do this by hitting the Star button on any post. This looks great with photos!

Ivan’s tip: Go back and add dates to the images you’ve already posted to the page by clicking the pencil icon on the image. You can’t tag a current image with a date older than when the Facebook page was created. At least not from the photo. You have to go to the Timeline date, add and event and THEN tag a photo (or cover or front page) to it.

5. Pin a top post

You can pin any of your postings to the top of the page by clicking on the top right of the post on the pencil icon and hitting ‘pin to top’.

Ivan’s tip: This is a great way to highlight stories that haven’t gotten as much attention as you’d like or to bring attention to the biggest item of the day.

6. Hide embarrassing, outdated, or negative posts by you and your fans

One major upside/downside of Timeline is that is makes it easier to find past posts by you and your fans. Check over your timeline for past posts you might want to hide from view for any number of reasons. To hide one from view, click on the pencil icon and select “hide from timeline”.

Right now, page administrators can hit Preview (on the top of your page) to make all these changes without anyone seeing them. If you are a page admin, you’ll see the new page, but you can see how everyone else sees it by clicking into “Until you publish your Page, you can see your old design any time” at the top of the preview screen (below).

Publish your changes along the top of the page when you’ve completed the basic steps. Have fun!

For more info on Facebook Timeline for Pages, check out this helpful post from TechCrunch.

I’m more than a Twitter Monkey

By Mandy

On February 3, 2012

In Rants, Social Media

So can I level with you guys? I’m relieved that I’m not going to be doing this same social media jam forever.

Not because I don’t like it – actually, I still really love it. I live to send out a tweet and see a flood of reaction come in as mentions and retweets. It warms my heart to see a Facebook entry with 100+ likes and a flood of often argumentative comments. And I’m not going to lie, I was bursting with pride at my part in making Huffington Post Politics the most-trafficked politics site on the web last fall. It feels good to help drive 1.6 million social referrals in a month (December 2011).

No, I’m relieved because I’ve been worrying about my future and the future of the social media role at news organizations, for lots of reasons.

The Twitter Machine is a Cruel Mistress

At some news organizations, the social media editor role is one based largely in strategy, product development, evangelization and training. In other cases, the “social media editor” is manually running a newsroom’s branded social media accounts alone or as part of a small team, in a role I fondly refer to as “The Twitter Monkey”.

In theory, many social media jobs are intended to include both types of roles – but that doesn’t always work in practice (and I’m living proof). When you’re the/a voice behind a brand account that’s serious about breaking news – that is your life, end of story.

Watching and curating streams, responding to mentions, keeping an eye out for breaking news, promoting reporters’ work – it takes up so much time and mental energy that it’s difficult to do much else very effectively (and that includes being a spouse, friend, parent, pet owner, etc.).

The truth is, I’ve rarely had time in the past four years to actually step back and look at the big picture of what I’ve been doing. You have to be able to study, research and read to be able to create and evolve social strategy. You need to have time to experiment with new tools and practices and to work on new products to engage readers. You have to be available to help others with their own social media dilemmas. All of that is very difficult to do when you’re shoveling coal to power the Twitter Machine 24/7.

While that was fun, I wasn’t honing the sort of skills I feel would ultimately keep me employable in digital media, which brings me to Crippling Fear #2.

Joining the Twitter Monkey Seniors Tour

When I started running social media for The Cincinnati Enquirer in early 2008, there weren’t many social media editors out there. Most of us were former reporters, producers or editors who’d caught the Twitter bug and wanted to share it. We were part of the newsroom power structure from our former jobs, which helped move our practices into the rest of the operation.

These days, I’ve noted the social media specialist roles are increasingly filled by young, entry-level employees – and it isn’t surprising, social media has given many young journalists (myself included) a ticket straight into some of the largest media organizations.

Maybe this role has gotten younger because newsroom managers assume people in their 20s are naturally good at social media. Or maybe it’s because the role isn’t considered as much of a skill position as it was just a few years ago. Or maybe it’s because newsrooms don’t want to pay a social media specialist a salary befitting a few more years experience.

Whatever the reason, I feared (perhaps needlessly) that I’d soon be in a place where I wouldn’t be hirable as a social media editor anymore. I’d have to move on – and I was doubly worried I’d have nowhere to go.

It used to be you could start as a copyeditor, reporter or web producer and eventually (with good work) move up to be a mid-level editor, then an editor, then a director and so on. There was a system. The social media specialist, as a fairly new role, often isn’t in that system (from my anecdotal evidence-gathering). Their skills, while useful for their purposes, may not be likely to translate into larger digital roles in the minds of top level managers.

I can’t tell you how many times in my career I’ve expresses interest in jobs outside of social media – in content editing, digital management, news editor-type jobs, and been rebuffed with “but your experience seems to be in social media”. Lucky for me, I had a career before social media – and I’ve managed to do enough outside of my Twitter monkeying to keep those skills sharp.

Long story short, I was afraid I would be forever branded a “Social Media Person” – and then wouldn’t even be able to be hired for those existing social media positions, anyway.

Social Media =The Mafia

Maybe my fears are silly, I do come from a long line of worriers. I just can’t help but wonder what will become of my generation of social editors. Will those who want to move on be given the chance, as I have? Will the Twitter Monkeys be able to throw off their chains and join the editor meetings a bit more often?

I said in 2008 – and I still believe – that if we as the designated social media types were doing our jobs well, we wouldn’t be necessary because everyone in the newsroom would be proficient at social media. That’s the best possible future I can imagine for the role of social media in our industry.

As for me, I know I may be leaving the ranks of the Twitter Monkeys, but I’m not out of social media by any means. I’ll still be wearing a hardhat, I just won’t be driving the forklift anymore. Perhaps I can do all of that fun strategizing, teaching and big picture thinking I’ve heard so much about. I’ll get to spend more time on my own accounts, for once, and I’ll be helping others achieve their own goals. Man, I can’t wait.

Eds note: This is sort of stream of consciousness. Forgive my errors and future edits, I was on a roll.

Moving into the terrifying new something

By Mandy

On February 2, 2012

In About This Site, My Work

It’s been my experience that every now and then, you have to be terrified to really feel like you’re challenging yourself professionally. I haven’t felt terrified in a long time – until today.

I’m leaving the Huffington Post – my home for the last 10 months – to take on a challenge that’s so different from anything I’ve ever done, I want to start breathing into a paper bag just thinking about it.

I’ll be rejoining my old bosses from TBD – Jim Brady and Steve Buttry – at Digital First Media as a player-to-be-titled later. I’m excited to be “getting the band back together” – I felt that TBD had an excellent group of journalists that just never got the time to finish what we started. Maybe this is my chance to do complete some of those goals.

If you aren’t familiar with Digital First, it’s an exciting new company joining together Journal Register and Media News properties. The company includes papers from the likes of the Denver Post and Los Angeles Daily News to the Trentonian (in New Jersey) the (Lorain, OH) Morning Journal and tons of small dailies and weeklies all over the place.

I’m getting out of the business of running social media accounts and getting back to my local journalism roots. I’ll be working with local journalists all over DFM’s many daily and weekly papers to help them learn new digital practices and social media skills. I’ll also get the chance to be a part of local news again by working on special projects, digital strategy and breaking news at local properties and company-wide. It’s a change that’s a long time coming – and one I hope can get me back into learning as much as I’m teaching.

I also plan to still be writing here (hopefully more often) about what I’m learning, what’s going on in social/digital media and the occasional rant about Things on the Internet.

It isn’t a glamour move – I’m sure all of my Facebook subscribers will no longer find me exciting when I leave HuffPost – but I know I can’t stand still. I’m scared to death but also kind of relieved to get out of the social media editor game (more on that later). I still need to grow as a journalist – and the only way to learn to swim is jump right in. I hope you guys will be there to learn with me.

Holy engagement, Batman! How HuffPost blew up the State of the Union on Facebook

By Mandy

On January 25, 2012

In Community Engagement, Facebook, Social Media

How did The Huffington Post get 32,694 Likes, 2,525 comments and 4,268 shares on Facebook for Obama’s State of the Union address? I mean, every news outlet in the U.S. and beyond has posted something about it, so how did one outlet get so much engagement?

How about a sort of Facebook take on live-tweeting? It was an experiment, to be sure, but it seemed to work out well.

Disclosure: Although I work on HuffPost’s social team, I had nothing to do with this. I’m just passing it on as an example.

Here’s a look at the posts and how much engagement each post received (as of today at about noon).

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What does this show (besides a lot of reaction)? It shows experimentation can be worth it. I’m not suggesting this would work for every big live event or for every brand, but it was well worth the adventure.

On what other occasions do you think this could work? What other experiments have you seen to increase engagement on Facebook?

How to Maintain a Safe, Positive and Public Facebook Life

By Mandy

On November 16, 2011

In Facebook, Social Media

So you’ve turned on Facebook Subscribe. Now what? Here’s some suggestions from someone who’s been doing it awhile. What would you add? Leave suggestions in the comments.

Set up friends lists to help direct posts.

Click on ‘Friends’ on the left side of your profile. Here you can sort, search and assign friends into lists of your choosing. Take the time to create lists based on the sort of things you share. Maybe you have a list for family and friends to show off photos of your kids/pets/self. Maybe you have one just for coworkers or work-related purposes.

Be selective about who you share with.

You can direct individual status updates, photos, videos, notes and galleries to very granular groups (based on those friends lists you made). Your subscribers likely don’t care about your dinner plans with friends, so maybe those sort of updates should be directed to friends only. Also take the time consider the privacy of those you tag or feature in posts or images, they may not want to be exposed to your public audience.

Be smart.Don’t share where you live or details about your schedule on public posts. And ladies, consider what your public posts say to the sexual harassers, stalkers and all-around creeps who hang out on Facebook. I’ve encountered some real weirdos who’ll respond in an uncomfortable fashion to just about any post – I try not to encourage them.

Manage your comments.If you have comments turned on for subscribers, keep an eye on them. People will sometimes spam you, say horrible things or pop into a conversation thread like a bull in a china shop with a “So hottt. C me in Turkiye”. You need to delete stuff sometimes, your friends and subscribers are depending on you to keep the comments cleared. Do this by hovering over the right side of their comment until you see an X. Click to delete the comment.

Don’t be afraid to block people.

If someone is spamming you or being abusive to you or your commenters, don’t hesitate to block them from your page. Do this by first deleting the comment, then you’ll get an option to block the user.

What else would you add?

How To Set Up Facebook Subscribe For Journalists

By Mandy

On November 14, 2011

In Facebook, Social Media

When Facebook launched its Subscribe feature in mid-September, quite a few journalists sighed in relief. This, we thought, is what we needed: A way to communicate with a larger audience of readers while maintaining a somewhat private personal life behind a friend wall. I’m sure it’s a great option to other professionals, celebrities and wannabe celebrities as well.

I enabled subscriptions the day they launched, mostly to test it out. After all, who would be interested in reading the occasionally inane updates of a non-famous non-reporter? More than 9,000 subscribers later, I found out.

In the six weeks since, I’ve found some things I like and dislike about the feature. This ongoing experiment has helped me to formulate a few tips that may help anyone who wants to use this feature.

Getting It Set Up

1. Customize your profile information.

Your profile will be open to the public when you turn on Subscribe, so this is the place to lure people in (and possibly turn others away). Click on “Edit Profile” on the top right of your profile page. Use the ‘about me’ space to describe who you and and what you do.

For the sake of transparency, you should identify yourself as a journalist, including your job title (or description of what you do) and the name of your publication. I’d suggst you do this even if you don’t plan to use your profile for work.

This is also a good space to lay out what subscribers can expect from you. Do you frequently share links or start discussions on sports or politics? Say so. Will you talk about your personal life? What is your policy on friending?

I also use this are to put down a couple of ground rules, particularly “Don’t be a creep.” (More on that later)

2. Adjust the privacy settings on all aspects of your profile.

If you adjust nothing here, it could very well be visible to the entire Internet. You can adjust whether areas such as your location, connections, contact info and interests should be publicly visible or shown only to friends (or certain groups of friends).

Keep in mind, while you might consider your life to be an open book, your friends and family may not be as comfortable. Think about their privacy when adjusting the ‘Friends and Family’ settings and remember whoever finds you will be able to find them.

3. Decide what to do about those past posts.

In your privacy settings, there is an option to limit the visibility of past posts. If you have any doubt about the updates, photos and other stuff you’ve shared on Facebook in the past (including those crazy college photos), you might want to check this so new subscribers can’t dig back through your possibly sordid history.

You may also want to look at your photos page and set individually which past albums and images can be seen by the public.

4. Set how people can find and contact you.

If you want to be easily found on Facebook (and why would you turn on Subscribe if you didn’t?), you need to be sure you’ll come up in searches. In your privacy settings, select ‘How You Connect’. Here is where you can set how strangers will find and contact you. If you’re actively looking to reduce friend requests, you should limit those who can send them to at least ‘Friends of Friends’.

5. Turn on Subscribe.

Do this with the button on the top right of your profile page. This is also where you want to decide if those who subscribe to you can post comments on your posts. Your comment numbers will go up – and they will require work (see below), but consider this: Why would you read something you can’t comment on? Weigh this option carefully.

6. Take a look at how the public sees your page.

At the top right of your page, click “View As”. Click “public” to see what subscribers will see or check how certain friends see your page by entering their name.

More: Tips for maintaining a safe, positive and public Facebook life.

B.S. Detection for Journalists

By Mandy

On September 23, 2011

In Industry News & Notes, Presentations, Social Media

Eds Note 10/5: It was brought to my attention that the links in this slideshow are not clickable in the embed here. I included them all below this post.

Ever see a tip that’s too good to be true (it probably is) or a photo so amazing you just can’t believe it (don’t)? Sometimes you can’t just follow your nose to know what’s good and what’s bad on the social web – so you have to be extra careful in the verification and vetting process.

Following is the presentation I gave along with Craig Silverman of Regret the Error at the Online News Association Conference on Friday, September 23.

Our presentation went over how to verify tips, facts and images gathered via social media and the web. It also has a few case studies that demonstrate why this is so important.

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Links included:

Check how long someone has been tweeting
See if you can find other accounts online with the info you have from the tipster. Search the username, or use Identify in Firefox, HoverMe in Chrome.
For web info: Do a Whois lookup on the domain or check the site’s PageRank.
For images: Check exif info or check for edits to photos

Additional Reading:

What if we’d had today’s social media on 9/11?

By Mandy

On September 7, 2011

In Social Media

At the Knight-Batten Symposium at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, keynote speaker and Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth made a provocative statement. I’m paraphrasing here, but it was something like, “Thank goodness social media wasn’t invented yet on September 11.”

Eds Note: Jeff Sonderman has the full quote at Poynter, along with additional analysis of the eyebrow-raising speech.

She noted how horrific it would be to read the final tweets or Facebook updates of those destined to die in the Twin Towers or watch YouTube videos from inside the burning buildings as people are jumping out. And she’s right, it would be horrific….but I don’t say “thank goodness” to that lack of social media. I imagine, “What if?”

I say, if today’s social media had been around, those who perished on September 11, 2001 could have been the storytellers of their own history.. When I put this wondering onto my Facebook page and Google+, it prompted a great discussion with other journalists and social media users.

Cory Bergman of BreakingNews.com disagreed with Weymouth’s premise, “That’s like saying, thank goodness there was no live TV — we didn’t need to see the towers collapse.”

Angel Brownawell agreed with Bergman, saying, “We would’ve all had A LOT of information to consume and sift through, but it wouldn’t have been any more distressing than hearing about the last voice mails, answering machine messages or the live TV images.”

Which journalists wouldn’t look, albeit squeamishly, for the last words and moments of fellow Americans, intentionally left behind for history and final goodbyes? We would have been able to sift through the mounds of social media data to piece together the story in a way we still haven’t been able to manage. We’d know who was there, how they died and exactly what happened to them. We’d have known went through the minds of those who chose to jump from the Towers. We’d have known exactly how a plane went down in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

On my Facebook page, Jeremy Binckes of TBD extolled the value of those first-hand reports,”The one thing about the attacks we’ll never know and will never be CERTAIN of is,”What was it really like? … It’s the one angle of the story we’ll never really know firsthand.”

My former soccer coach, Jim Boyd, noted on Facebook, “Perhaps having social media would have changed the events on the planes in a positive way.”

Law enforcement would have benefitted from social media, too. It would have helped to know who was in the Twin Towers or the Pentagon and who was just missing after the confusion. Recounting and videos of emergency rescues from these scenes could have helped inform safety procedures for future events.

Even aside from its use for journalists, law enforcement and historians, I think social media would have been a vital way for the nation to come together with friends, family, and strangers for comfort. Remember what it was like the night Osama Bin Laden was killed? Nobody could have felt alone with such a networked world out there.

Bruce Warren noted there was a bit of social media in use at the time that brought he and his friends together.

That morning I was on a public message board with people I had met through a band. Many lived in NYC and were posting updates all morning. Also helped to make sure everyone was accounted for that we could think of on there. Was not uncommon that day to read an update, then hear it via the media.

Brownawell and my friend Lauren Worley noted the importance of AOL Instant Messenger on 9/11.

“I was living in Washington, D.C. at the time, and it was the only way I could communicate with my family to let them know my coworkers and I were ok where we were, ” Worley commented on Facebook.

Brownawell had a similar story.

“I remember hoping into an AIM chatroom that day and night, and talking to about 30 or so people for dozens of hours about what had happened. Not Facebook, not Twitter. But still online social interactions. Perhaps if Twitter had been around, I would still be in touch with those people today.”

Facebook comments can’t guarantee a lack of anonymity

By Mandy

On August 19, 2011

In Community Engagement, Facebook, Industry News & Notes

There’s a conventional wisdom out there in the online journalism world that: 1.) News site comments will automatically be better if people have to use real names, and 2.) Using Facebook for your comments will accomplish this.

I’ve said many times before that I don’t think anonymity is the problem. My campaign on that seems to be a lost cause so far. As a former comment moderator and current manager of social media accounts, I know for a fact that people have absolutely no problem spouting hateful views and violent rhetoric under their real name. I see it every day.

Aside from that, there’s also all kinds of evidence that Facebook comments aren’t the end-all, be-all answer on this front.

As my friend Jeff Sonderman recently wrote at Poynter, Facebook comments can be a boon to news sites in lots of ways: Increased Facebook traffic referrals, fast page load times, an easy out-of-the-box comment solution.

One thing Facebook doesn’t do, however, is prevent anonymity (as the same article and several others insist).

While there is a rule on Facebook that one has to use their real name, it’s not always followed. I have several Facebook friends who use false names for various personal reasons – and they are all, essentially, anonymous. That said, they are still identifiable to their friends, which still keeps some people in check with their online comments. (Though this certainly doesn’t apply to everyone.)

The biggest threat to the alleged transparency and decency of Facebook-powered commenting lies in the same tool many news organizations use to communicate with readers: Facebook Pages.

Just speaking anecdotally here (if you have stats to back me up, please help), I’ve seen an uptick of abusive posts and trolling on Facebook ever since it rolled out its new pages in February. That rollout included the new ability to use Facebook as a page.

This change made it possible for just anyone to set up a fake character on Facebook – and then use Facebook as that character. On The Huffington Posts’s pages (on which I am an administrator) and the pages of other groups and news organizations, I’ve seen these fake accounts spreading spam, trolling the page’s regular users and making hateful statements under the guise of a made-up character.

Here’s a view examples of some alias accounts I found on news pages (or skip below if you want):

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Even before this change, there was a history of false profiles spamming and trolling Facebook, the addition of Use-As-Page to the toolbox only gave trolls a new way to stay in business. Facebook has staff that deals with those accounts when they are found or reported, but it certainly can’t be easy for them to keep up with people who are dead set on being trolly.

(Related aside: When I worked as a comment moderator for the Cincinnati Enquirer, a troublesome site user with many usernames emailed me to say, “I’m retired and have nothing else to do but create new accounts every time you block me. I can make your live miserable.” This is just a sampling of the mentality of trolls, folks. Here’s another.)

Now, I’ve got no doubt that some news sites have seen higher quality discussion after installing Facebook commenting; it’s definitely better than many of in-house or other out-of-the-box solutions I’ve seen on news websites. It likely is the best option for those sites that don’t have the technical expertise and manpower to host and manage a heavy flow of onsite comments day in and day out – so long as they don’t mind handing a big part of their community to Facebook.

I’m just warning that news sites shouldn’t assume that Facebook on its own will solve their commenting problems. Users can and will still be anonymous (or even identifiable) hateful trolls. To make it work, you still need a daily moderation workflow and a newsroom-wide commitment to not only reading story/blog comments, but responding to them.

The Bin Laden story and real-time engagement

By Mandy

On May 2, 2011

In Industry News & Notes, Social Media

Please allow me to think aloud on the past 15 hours.

We all acknowledge that the news of Osama bin Laden’s death broke on social media. We’ve all got stories about Twitter’s impact, roundups of Twitter reactions, tweet timelines and Storification galore – but did anyone in the heat of the developing news last night start engaging readers on the spot? (This is not a rhetorical question, I actually want to know.)

I’m seeing a lot of the same curation sets of the same tweets or calls out for “tell us where you were or how you found out” second-day stories. These seem to be late reactions or pallid imitations of the wonderful, shared experience many Americans had in real-time on social media channels last night. What could we do better?

The story – and most initial reactions to it – were played out in the Twitter timeline before any major news outlets even confirmed the rumor. At this point, I’d speculate a lot of the on-the-spot reaction had passed. At that time, reporters and editors were busy working sources, heading to in-person meeting places and writing headlines (as they should be), but how many jumped into the social media fray in real time?

Who led or hosted a conversation about the night’s events on Twitter, Facebook, on-site comments or live chats? (As opposed to curating what was already occurring out there.)

If you didn’t – why not? Was there not enough staff to juggle hosting a full-time talk? Did nobody think to do it in time to get initial reactions? Was technology an issue? Was your audience not as plugged in to the social sphere?

This story – and the outpouring of reaction and conversation amongst strangers on social media – could serve as a lesson to newsrooms on how to develop a breaking news workflow that includes an element of community engagement when (or even before) the news breaks. We all saw it happen, we reacted and engaged as we best know how – now, what could we have done better?

Tag: Social Media Page 2 of 7

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