Digital technology has changed every aspect of news production, including gathering, reporting, and distributing news. For gathering, journalists now leverage crowd-sourcing to access more sources and information. Reporting involves multi-media content and more involvement from consumers. Distribution is no longer at fixed times or places, allowing for on-demand access across multiple platforms. Writing for social media focuses on connecting with audiences by using their preferred platforms and writing in a way that is optimized for sharing. Search engine optimization involves using keywords, specific terms, and formatting content appropriately across different social media channels.

2. Week 3: WRITING NEWS FOR
SOCIAL MEDIA

3. Today’s Agenda
1. Producing news for social media
2. Review of basic good journalism
3. SEO
4. Practice

4. Producing news for social media:
Digital technology has changed every
stage of the news production cycle:
1. Gathering
2. Reporting
3. Distributing

5. GATHERING NEWS
• access of journalists to sources
• access of the public to
journalists

6. GATHERING NEWS
Crowd-sourcing!
• topics
• trends
• information
• more sources

7. GATHERING NEWS
• news gathering becoming more “communal”,
more conversational
• conversations are often public (ex: politicians
and reporters, companies and reporters, when
a search becomes an exchange, when an
exchange becomes forum)
More transparency?
More accountability?

8. GATHERING NEWS: summary
• access of journalists to sources
• access of the public to journalists
• Crowd-sourcing: information, topics, trends
• news gathering becoming more
“communal”, more conversational
• conversations are often public
• The conversation may become part of the
story

9. SOCIAL MEDIA RISKS
Accuracy risks:
• Breaking news too quickly
• Fact-checking happens when?

10. REPORTING NEWS
MULTI-MEDIA:
It’s no longer enough just to
produce text (or sound or video)

11. REPORTING NEWS
Expectation of enriched content
and background information
Ex:
• Video from the field. Ex: WSJ World Stream
• UGC. Ex: now acceptable for TV news broadcasts to use
shaky cell phone video footage
• twitter feeds integrated into a story
• Photo slide show with text/sound instead of just stills
• Comments and replies between journalist and consumers

12. HIGHER IMPACT:
Much more clear measure of the impact of
a story because of the possibility for
people to react (and interact) via
comments, retweets, linking

13. HIGHER IMPACT
Direct link with consumers of news
potentially gives journalists a new
possibility to make change,
influence events
Ex: Nick Kristof of NYT mentions charity and leads
to $700,000 of donations.
But is this the journalist’s role? Should it be?

14. REPORTING NEWS: summary
• multi media
• expectation of enriched content and background
information
• more involvement from
readers/viewers/consumers/amateurs and even
participants in the news
• higher impact
 new responsibility for journalists?

15. DISTRIBUTION
News is no longer distributed at
a fixed time in a fixed place
Bye bye to…
– Evening TV broadcast after work
– Morning paper at the news stand
– Radio news bulletins at top of the hour

16. DISTRIBUTION
• news alerts (SMS and email)
• one story/multiple platforms
(broadcast + mobile + internet)
• on-demand (users getting their news
wherever they are)
• accelerated delivery
• redistribution through networks
(personal and public)

17. Conclusions:
• Gathering: Being able to use the wisdom of crowds
about what is interesting, what to write about, what
questions to ask: it explodes the limits of the
journalist’s sources, of accessibility, of distance
• Reporting: Like everything else in convergent media
universe, it is less of a broadcast/monologue and
more of a conversation
• Distribution: Broadened distribution potentially
broadens the impact of a story too, suddenly a lot
more people are able to tune in, read it, watch it,
consume it

18. Basics of Good Journalism

19. Basics of Good Journalism
• Be accurate
• Avoid biases
• Present multiple viewpoints or perspectives
• Pursue the truth
• Use factual data, but develop people skills
• Maintain community ties
• Be open and transparent
• Evoke emotion, tell a compelling story
• Have vision

20. Basics of Good Journalism
Accuracy is more than just getting the
facts right – it is getting the right
facts, and backing up our
interpretation of the facts with
authoritative and unimpeachable
sourcing. We need to let the reader
know how we know what we know.
Source: Reuters Handbook of Journalism, 2011.

21. WRITING FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
What’s most different about
writing for social media from
writing classic news stories?

22. YOU’RE NOT JUST
WRITING TO REPORT,
YOU’RE WRITING TO
CONNECT

23. What are some of the ways to
connect that we have already
talked about?

24. Using Social Media: Tips
The cost of using social media as reporting tools
is time!
Use social media to build an audience and
establish rapport with your social media
followers so they will be more inclined to
share information and tips with you.
Know your audience. Where and how do they
most frequently access information?

25. Good hygiene
When you ask for data or quotes from social
media audiences, make sure they know who
you are and understand what you intend to do
with what they tell you.
When you use quotes and other attributed
information from social media, tell your
audience that the information came via social
media.

26. WRITE FOR YOUR MEDIUM
Write for your medium as well as for your
audience.
• think about the way it will be consumed
• think about structuring the information for
optimal consumption/sharing
– Ex: Write Facebook posts as ledes or blurbs. Write
tweets as headlines.
• tell the same stories in many different ways

27. WRITE FOR YOUR MEDIUM
• what doesn’t change is
accuracy
• what does change is form and
speed and frequency

28. SEO tips (1)
1. Headlines are extremely important. Use specific
keywords.
2. Find the keywords that readers use to search for
content. (Check out trending topics on Twitter or
test out Google Trends)
3. The inverted pyramid is a very search engine-
friendly style of writing.
4. DO use specific terms. DON'T use jargon.
5. Google is crawling Twitter, images and video as
well as text, so think about SEO for this content,
too.

29. SEO tips (2)
1. Use words that people would use in search in
order to find the information being provided
2. Put the most searchable elements at the front
3. Proper names and locations are often used in
search, so names should be included in the
headline and if appropriate at the front.
4. Scatter key words throughout the text. Link them.
5. Make content shareable. Search engines are
paying attention.

30. SEO-friendly headline
Template:
KeyWord KeyWord: More Information
Something witty, clever, and why not searchable too?
 you can automate the tweeting of your posts, but if you do it
manually you can put hashtages in your headline and use
commonly searched terms on twitter
 its a good idea to customize for the platform

31. What does this mean concretely for
SEO?
• Headlines and subheds
• Trending words (key words)
• Links, lists, bullet points
• Tags
• Location
• The more recent it is the more optimizable it
is. That means posting often!