A lesson for journalists in curation, crowdsourcing, storytelling and covering breaking news using social media tools.

1. Telling Stories
With Social Media
Mandy Jenkins @mjenkins
mjenkins@digitalfirstmedia.com
LANG Extravaganza, March 2012

2. Breaking News

4. Trendsmap.com

5. Local Twitter Trends
trendsmap.com/local/us/cityname

6. Breaking News 101
● Consult with your staff to develop a hashtag (if
there isn't one)
● If your staff is tweeting, pull in their tweets to
your site
● Watch keywords, RT important tidbits (even
from competitors)

7. Live Tweeting
● Don’t transcribe; observe, report and give
context
● Pass on quotes, who is there, add in
photos
● Use tweets as your notes
● Note significant pauses and stops
● Check facts before you hit “tweet”

8. Say what you don’t know

9. Link to fresh content

10. Link to fresh content

11. CoveritLive

12. QIK (Mobile LIVE video)

13. Search.Twitter.
Com/advanced
Search by keywords, location, time
Search quickly - before the stream is taken
over by reaction

14. When You Find Leads
● Connect with eyewitnesses, get
contact info
● Have them wait for a reporter on
scene
● Verify!

15. Ask permission

16. ●“Mayor” is great source about a
business or venue (employee or
customer)
●See who has checked in for breaking
news story

17. Crowdsourcing...
●Finds sources fast
●Saves you time
●Engages your community
●Brings more (and new) voices to your
news reports

18. Before Crowdsourcing
●Build engaged community (follow
people, converse with them)
Use multiple platforms (Twitter,
●
Facebook, website, newspaper, IRL)

19. Find Sources Fast

20. Ask for What You Want

21. When Crowdsourcing
●Say what you know
●Say what you don’t know
●Say what you want/need to know
●Don’t spread rumors
●Vet sources & information
●Ask questions as you gather info
●RT with context, note if it's verified

22. Authenticate & attribute
●Ask: “How do you know that?”
●Check links, tweets & background
information on sources
●Contact sources directly (IRL, phone)
●Link to original source & attribute
●Corroborate with other info

23. Google Docs
● Gathering info
using Forms
● Get results
● Results
flow into a
shareable
spreadsheet

24. Crowdsourced map: Google Maps

25. Crowdmapping
Free, fast and reader-friendly

26. All Our Ideas
Feature Example - TBD
News Example - HuffPost

27. Storytelling

28. Telling A Story Through Tweets
● Tell anecdotes and reported observances
in multiple updates
● Make it a narrative
● When promoting a long story: Tweet
highlights with a link

31. Storytelling on Facebook
● Add milestones to your timeline for notable
dates
● Include photos if you can, highlight them
● Create Facebook Pages for specific
projects to use the Timeline
● Add videos

32. Tell Your Story Here
● Write short stories and updates apart from
your stories or blog right on Facebook
● You have a lot of space, so go for it!
● Tag those involved

33. Tell Your Story Here

34. Mix it Up

35. What is curation?
Museum curator: Journalism curator:
●Studies topic ●Studies topic
●Chooses relevant ●Chooses relevant
content (other content (social
sources & museum media, blogs, staff)
collection) ●Authenticates
●Authenticates ●Groups related
●Groups related items
items ●Provides context
●Provides context ●Presents collected
●Presents exhibit content

36. What to Curate
● What you're reading to inform your work
● Tweets, Facebook posts, videos and other
content from other sources and your readers
● Items you may want to blog about
● Stuff to read later

37. How to find it
● Keep open searches on search.Twitter.
com for local keywords
● Establish a hashtag for readers to send
you info/photos
● Make keyword alerts for content:
Google.com/alerts

38. Curate Via Your Social Feeds
● Share relevant info and links from
you and others
● RT others' tweets on the subject
(pending verification)

39. Social Bookmarking

40. Publish from Curation
Storify.com

41. Storify
● Can pull in tweets, public Facebook
comments, photos from Flickr &
Instragram
● Pulls in video from Youtube or via some
embeds
● Embeds story previews with links
● Can import other Storifys (or parts of
them)

42. Use the Storify Plugin
● Easiest way to save specific tweets
and Facebook updates
● Save stuff for later, for research
● All things saved go to your Storypad

43. Your Storypad
● Easiest way to save specific tweets
and Facebook updates
● Save stuff for later, for research
● All things saved go to your Storypad

44. Other curation tools
●Twitter's Tweet embed feature
●Chirpstory
●QuoteURL.com

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