Use social media to transform your newsroom’s culture
3/2/2010 3:59:00 PM
| By Steve Buttry |
| If your social media use isn’t transforming your work habits and your newsroom culture, you aren’t using these important tools enough. You need to lead the way into social media in your newsroom. Don’t think of this as a task you can delegate to a young and savvy social media editor (I called mine a social media guide). Newsrooms and journalists made a huge mistake in the 1990s, when we were learning the value of data analysis as a journalism skill. We turned it into a specialty, letting a few geeks change how they worked while the rest boasted of “shoe-leather” skills, ignoring the fact that the good data specialists used shoe leather to flesh out the stories based on data. Perhaps if newsroom leaders had recognized that computer-assisted reporting was as ridiculous a term as notebook-assisted reporting, we would have insisted that all journalists learn to use spreadsheets, databases and mapping software. Beyond the stories that wider use of data skills would have generated, it might have developed a culture of innovation. Newsroom leaders can’t make that mistake again. A top editor’s most important job today is leading the news staff into the future. We may not know all the ways that social media will improve our journalism or how to address all the challenges social media will present for journalists. But clearly these tools are the path to a prosperous future for journalism, or at least might be flashlights that will help us find that path. If you think you are too busy to waste time with Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook, then you haven’t spent enough time with them. My father was a Baptist minister who preached that you should give till it stopped hurting. I think the same principle applies to newsroom leaders and social media: Tweet (and update and check in) until it stops feeling like a waste of time. Your visible use of social platforms will send strong messages to your staff and your community. You will tell the staff that learning new tools is important. You will expose your own vulnerability in learning publicly and will help your staff accept risk more readily. You will connect with people in your community who may not consider your news products relevant to their lives. | | Steve Buttry is Director of Community Engagement for the Washington local digital news operation of Allbritton Communications, which is planning to launch in 2010. He spent 38 years in the newspaper business and is former editor of The Gazette and gazetteonline in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the Minot (N.D.) Daily News. |
Page 2Five steps to help the social media neophyte start changing your newsroom culture
Ask staff members to tell you in 140 characters (a tweet) how social media helps them as journalists. Take the staff member (or two) with the best answer out to lunch (bring along your cell phones) and ask them to show and tell you more. Beyond the value you get from the lunch, these staff members will talk and tweet about the discussion and the staff will learn that you are serious about learning.
Load apps to use at least Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare on your phone (and get a smart phone if you don’t have one yet). This will let you use social tools when you’re out in the community, waiting for meetings, walking to appointments, etc. (helping you use that precious time wisely).
Tweet at least five times a day for at least a week. At least one tweet should pass along an interesting link (not always from your staff); at least one should be conversational with staff or peers, replying to someone or retweeting what someone else has said; at least one should be conversational with the community.
Follow at least 10 new people from your community a day for at least a week. Make sure you tweet a little first; people aren’t likely to follow you back if all they see is one tweet that says, “Finally decided to try and figure out Twitter.” You can easily find people in your community who are active on Twitter by using Trendsmap, TwitterLocal or Nearby Tweets.
For the next few weeks, search keywords, hashtags and local trends (the tools listed above are helpful, as well as Twitter search) relating to a couple news stories in your community each day. Check a variety of stories: a storm, a minor traffic snarl that was big in the morning but won’t even make the next morning’s paper, perhaps an athletic event or a festival. Certainly if you have a major breaking story, check that. Consider how the tweets you find might enhance your coverage and act accordingly.
Page 3If you’ve been dabbling in social media, but want to accelerate the transformation personally and for your staff, try these five steps
Schedule some social media workshops for your staff. If you’re pretty good at a particular tool, you could lead one yourself (or collaborate with a staffer who’s even better). Identify staff members who are proficient with various social tools and arrange for them to help lead others along the path.
Attend a tweetup (perhaps host one at your offices or a nearby restaurant) and meet some people in your community who use Twitter. Discuss how they use Twitter and what they think of your organization’s use of Twitter and other social media.
Identify your staff’s most stubborn and scornful social media Luddite. Take him or her to lunch and present a challenge. Even stubborn journalists respond well to a challenge (and you know your staff; choose one who will rise to the challenge). Maybe you can compete in pursuit of some goal that will demonstrate mastery of a tool that neither of you uses. Maybe you set an individual goal for him or her to meet, with an appropriate incentive. And you ask the Luddite to blog about the effort. As he or she starts to get it, other staff members (who have been noticing the scorn) will notice the acceptance and (dare you hope?) enthusiasm of this reluctant convert.
Come in an hour early once a week for the next month or so. Spend that hour trying a social tool that is new to you or engaging more deeply with a social tool you use a little. Join Aardvark and ask or answer some questions. If you use PowerPoint but haven’t used SlideShare, open an account and post some of your slide shows. If you’ve joined LinkedIn but haven’t done much with it, find and connect with some colleagues, recommend some former colleagues and join some groups. If you watch YouTube videos, but only when someone sends you a link, create an account, favorite a few videos, comment on some. Or post a video yourself.
Blog about your social media growth. Be sure to post links to your blog posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms you use.
Journalists watch their editors closely. If you are cool or just lukewarm in your approach to social media, they will know that it’s OK for them to hold back, no matter what you say. If you embrace social media, your curiosity, enthusiasm and willingness to risk will become contagious.