The way the world gets its news is changing rapidly. Technology continues to change the way we get our news. Mainly this is through the onslaught of social media platforms. And because everyone has a smartphone with video and audio capabilities, they have opportunities to capture breaking news as it happens. This somewhat pushes out the journalist.
However, just because technology allows the average citizen to act as a quasi-journalist, it doesn’t make them one. In fact, as a journalist myself, I know there are many more steps and procedures that professional journalists take when using social media that ensure rapid delivery of news and, more importantly, good quality news. Factors such as when to post, how many characters/sentences, with an image or not, which social media platforms are useful for news media, and much more matter to how a journalist can utilize social media for his or her benefit. Read this post if you want to know how journalists use social media platforms for their benefit to produce quality news.
Why is Social Media Important to Journalists?
Growing Audience
The amount of social media users will continue to grow exponentially as years progress. It isn’t going anywhere, so journalists should learn to use it. Smartphones are everywhere. They are super affordable. And the first thing someone does when they get a new phone is to add social media apps to them. They want to stay in touch with the news and gossip of the day.
And when they arrive home, they use the smartphone and their computers. They are double-connected at the same time. All it takes is one simple blog post or video or notification from you and they will see that you have posted new content.
Embrace your social media audience.
Enhance your Writing Skills
When posting a story to LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter, the key is to keep it short and sweet. Any news post that goes beyond 140 characters on Twitter or a few sentences on Facebook, will not appear in full. You should try to produce a well-written headline or lede that projects what the story is about. Always include the most important details, obviously. Use the 5 W’s. By training yourself to write shorter headlines and blurbs, it will improve your ability to condense clear thoughts.
Interact with Communities
News reporters who listen to their online communities for feedback will improve their reporting. Social media users typically give ideas about why a news story didn’t work out well with the community. Maybe it was too general, not specific enough. Or perhaps it was too off-topic for the channel.
You can also ask them questions to keep them interested. By inquiring what they thought of a story, it will include them in your world. Users enjoy that. It makes them feel part of something. They will learn about your personality, making you more than just a blogger.
It Archives your Stories
The digital revolution has allowed the journalism profession to keep and locate previous articles faster than ever. Social media further helps a journalist in the same way.
For example, if a journalist wrote a story about homeless people and their connection to the city’s crime rate last year, it can be reposted if a homeless person was arrested for armed robbery last night. All it takes is to use the search bar on the social media platform or a quick search in the archives to find the story.
When you repost a story that was already there, you might think that it is bad journalism. It is not. In fact, many sites use this method. Sometimes, sites repost articles from years prior.
It doesn’t matter. Your readers will enjoy it.
Advertises the Primary Website
Assuming the fact that every media outlet has a business website of their own, social media can only add to that prestige. Moreover, social media has the ability to add to your traffic. And that is how online success forms its foundation. Without traffic, any website will fail. You must advertise and market your stories as much as humanly possible to ensure that traffic continues to your website.
Social media is perfect for this. Sites like Facebook and Twitter provide direct links to your main website. It is at your main site where you can have the actual subscription process or eBook purchase, etc. The main site can act as a final place to obtain a visitor’s devotion (and money).
Ways Social Media can Build your Stories
Prior to Creating a Story
If you have a Facebook page, etc. you need to pay close attention to what your community is saying. Find out what they consider (un) popular and important. This will provide insight into what they need, which will give a head start at trends that could give you an opportunity to reach your crowd.
(Re) post stories about the head honchos in your community. If your subject matter involves…painting, then you should know who the important big dogs are in the art community. Post articles about them. Post images of them. Ask questions of your followers about the people. Build a conversation about this person to find out what your community needs, so you can help them.
As you’re Writing the Story
A great way journalists can navigate what their followers are thinking is to conduct polls or online surveys. People will jump at the opportunity to participate in a survey. The key is to provide options in the survey with an additional option to write their own opinion.
Another way is to use the Internet to gather information. Do the research first. Use social media platforms to see what is hot and what is not. Use the topics that people are gravitating towards. Join Facebook groups and post images and questions that will get others to interact with you. Provide a link to your website for more traffic.
And if you can, get actual live interviews of people who want to discuss the issues. Nothing is better than having a nice, crisp 1080p video of an eyewitness talking about what they just saw. This will give you major credibility with your audience and will fuel your ambition to keep going.
If Twitter is your tool of choice, nothing says in-the-moment-news like tweeting as something is happening. Twitter is a social media platform like nothing else. Because of its ability to provide limited characters, it forced users to say only important responses. In many ways, Twitter is your best bet to reach a wide audience.
Hit Publish!
Once you have done the above steps and made links that head back to your website, a great idea is to begin personalizing your social media platforms. Your followers do not want to follow a robot. They want to know you are down to earth just like them. They want to know you are not infallible.
A really great way is to share a B-roll of your videos of you making mistakes. Or share an activity you did on your day off. Maybe you can share a few photos of your pets. Whatever it is, your followers require that you allow them to know you are just like them. The moment you begin presenting yourself as someone who takes themselves too seriously, they will lose that connection with you.
Related Topics
Will print media go away?
The problem with this question is that the people of today have been saturated and influenced by science fiction so much that they expect to have bionic body parts and computer chips in their brains next year. You won’t access wi-fi in your frontal lobe this century. Sorry, but that isn’t going to happen. Not for a long time anyway.
And because of this false reality that people are dying to experience, they think that print journalism will go extinct tomorrow. Listen, it won’t. Yes, print—in all forms—is losing its steam, but it still isn’t going anywhere. Readers of fiction thought that e-readers were taking over a few years ago and that print books were disappearing. After a year or so of that eBook craze, paper books began making a return to form.
Consuming news media is different from enjoying literature. A novel takes days, sometimes weeks to finish. So, the physical book in your hands brings with it a mental connection to that story. The physical book is, therefore, a legit part of your storytelling experience because it is a lengthy experience. The same goes for magazines and newspapers. They don’t require a battery life to experience.
However, with the blitzkrieg of video platforms and personal vlogs and podcasts, print media will see a reduction. But it won’t go away permanently because people still enjoy reading magazines and newspapers.
We are not living in the year 3000 yet. Relax.
Will journalism go away?
NO.
Journalism will always stick around because American society does not want to learn the news from some random person. There is a certain level of trust the people need from who they obtain their news media. Just because someone can write a blog or use a smartphone to record an incident at the right time, it doesn’t make them a legit news reporter.
As prominent as fake news is right now and how easy it is for image software to manipulate photos, people know better than to accept what they see and hear and learn from the media. A good quality, reputable and respectable news reporter and his or her firm they associate with will always be necessary.
With the blitz of social media in the last 20 years, yes, journalism has changed. But it will never go away.
How do I become a journalist?
The earlier you know you want to study journalism, the better.
If you have a propensity for writing, chances are you might fit nicely as a journalist. So, recognizing talent is first. Most high schools have writing programs or school newspapers that you can join. Once involved there, you can get a better insight into the journalism process to see if you think you would enjoy majoring in journalism in college.
Once you enter the university as a journalism student, it becomes a serious adventure. By this point, you must be absolutely sure studying journalism is your full-time desire as a career. I suggest, immediately upon beginning your freshman year of studies to enter some type of writing center project or news reporting team. Colleges and universities are chock-full of them. If you are confused, I advise you to seek your guidance counselor for more information. They will tell you about internships and maybe special courses that can get you noticed by potential jobs upon graduation.
Once you finish with your degree, you can begin entering the job market or you can go back for more schooling. Nobody requires you to get a master’s degree in journalism, but it doesn’t hurt on the resume. Plus, at the graduate level, you can better network with other students, professors, and employers.
If you do decide to go job hunting right out of college, check out great websites, such as PayScale and ZipRecruiter and Glassdoor for a decent breakdown of salary and offers.
Good luck!
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