SlideShare: a niche social site that extends your reach

Update: Now the #twutorial slides are on SlideShare’s “most popular” page, with more than 14,000 views.

SlideShare ranks way behind Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and lots of other social tools in the social media pecking order. But some slides I posted there last week (above) got more views than all but one blog post I ever wrote. And a slide show I posted last year got more views than any blog post I ever wrote.

My experience with SlideShare shows how even second-tier or third-tier social tools offer important engagement opportunities that journalists, educators and trainers should keep in mind.

I am as likely as anyone to make fun of PowerPoint presentations. I’m more likely to be annoyed by someone who reads his slides to me than I am to remember a speaker’s slide presentation. I’ve never browsed SlideShare myself to look at others’ slides and I seldom browse very far into a deck when I find one online with a blog post or linked to from a tweet or Facebook update. I’m not the audience of SlideShare, but I certainly am a user.

I believe in results. And SlideShare metrics show that slides work for some people. So I keep using slides in my workshops and SlideShare keeps showing those slides to far more people than my workshops reach (my 130 presentations and other documents have more than 220,000 views on SlideShare).

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Social media workshop for the Farmington Daily Times

I led a workshop on using social media today for the Daily Times in Farmington, N.M. We won’t cover Twitter today (except for some comparisons with Facebook) because I’ll be doing a workshop on Twitter tomorrow.

Here are some links relating to today’s workshop:

Facebook news-feed changes mean newsrooms need new engagement strategies

Correction on AP photos: Newsrooms don’t have rights to post them on Facebook

Pottstown Mercury’s wanted-poster-style Pinboard is resulting in arrests

I’m starting to like Pinterest: a digital scrapbook (but potentially a baseball card collection)

How journalists and newsrooms can use Pinterest

Helpful links for learning and exploring Pinterest

Google+ Hangout helps with video interviews

Curation techniques, types and tips

Mandy Jenkins’ Journalists, meet Google+

Mandy’s Intro to Facebook for journalists

Here are the slides I used in the workshop (I didn’t get through a couple of them):

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From 2008: Social networking: a marathon where you sprint

This is the third of three 2007-8 posts about social media I am republishing in connection with my address today to the Arizona Newspapers Association, which refers to the middle post. I have not updated, except to remove or update outdated links. The earlier posts included my first post about social media and my first post about Twitter. I think this one holds up better over time than the first two.

Here’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned about social networking: Connection grows from activity.

When I reached out to connect with people on Facebook, we connected. When I twittered a lot, people connected with me. When I joined Wired Journalists and formed some groups and started some discussions, other journalists joined the groups and started discussing journalism with me. When I started recommending friends on LinkedIn, they started recommending me. When I created a MySpace page and left it there without reaching out, only one friend and one jailbait spammer found me.

The thing I can say most certainly after a few months of serious social networking is that I know enough about it to know that I really don’t know much. The cliché of political campaigns (especially for the early losers) is that a campaign is a marathon, not a sprint. I’ve run hard enough to recognize that social networking is a marathon where you sprint. And the finish line sprints faster, always staying well out of sight.

I’ll write separately about Facebook and LinkedIn shortly (I’m trying to learn to write shorter, more frequent posts). But my different experiences on MySpace and twitter will illustrate how activity leads to connectivity.

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Yes, social media is a ‘time suck,’ like lots of useful journalism tools

Update Sunday: I have added some further comments and videos of the panel at the end of this post.

Update: I embedded some tweets since originally posting this.

Walking to the Online News Association Friday morning in San Francisco, I tuned in using Twitter to the Associated Press Media Editors conference in Nashville. The contrast was striking.

At ONA, I attended an enlightening presentation Thursday night on best practices for journalists, based on hard data analysis. Friday morning I read a tweet from an Associated Press executive that reflected ignorance and generational stereotypes.

I’m sure the tweet that sucked me in wasn’t representative of APME, but it did highlight a disturbing divide that persists in journalism today.

My friend Joe Hight of The Oklahoman and NewsOK.com tweeted:

AP’s Liz Sidoti: Social media is a “time suck” and threatening young journalists’ understanding of reporting basics. #apme2012

— Joe Hight (@JoeHight) September 21, 2012

I was pleased to read in other tweets that some at APME and other editors disagreed with Sidoti, AP’s political editor (political editor!):

@joehight Hmmmm … I know good reporters @tulsaworld and @theoklahoman who know how to report AND use social media!

— Susan Ellerbach (@SusanEll77) September 21, 2012

Sidoti, AP’s pol editor, says journos are not learning basics of shoe-leather reporting. But blaming on Twitter? (Comment here.) #apme2012

— Carole Tarrant (@caroletarrant) September 21, 2012

Not why. MT @tiffanyg89 AP’s Liz Sidoti: social media isn’t good for journalism. Young journos aren’t learning reporting basics. #apme2012

— Matt DeRienzo (@mattderienzo) September 21, 2012

@tiffanyg89 Smaller newsrooms combined with very little focus on training. Social media is actually a GREAT “shoe leather” tool.

— Matt DeRienzo (@mattderienzo) September 21, 2012

Before commenting, I need to note that I wasn’t in the room and didn’t hear the statement or the context. But tweets from other APME members reported the same point from Sidoti, including a lament that these young slacker journalists were using social media in favor of “shoe-leather” reporting.

My response from San Francisco: What valuable journalism tool isn’t a time suck? Cellphones, data, documents, interviews, writing, thinking, verification of facts, shoe-leather reporting. Every damn one of them is a time suck. And good journalists manage their time well to do those things because they are essential to good journalism.

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Why does Bill Keller write about Facebook without trying to understand it?

Update: Bill Keller has responded. Please read his response at the end of this post.

I don’t care that Bill Keller hates doesn’t like social media. What annoys me is that his lazy reporting is making him a bad example of old-school journalism.

I am of Keller’s generation, less than six years his junior. I understand about shoe-leather reporting. Like him, I’ve been doing it for decades. You do a lot of phone interviews, sure, but you also get off your ass and see things firsthand, so you can write with authority.

When I covered agriculture for the Kansas City Star, I walked wheat fields with Kansas farmers, trying to learn their business so I could report it accurately. When I covered religion for the Des Moines Register, I accompanied missionaries to Venezuela so I could understand firsthand their mission work, their Pentecostal fervor and the disaster for which they offered relief. As a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, when I told the story of twin girls being rescued from near-death, I walked the alley where they were found nearly frozen and I asked medical workers to re-create the scene in the emergency room, so I could tell the story accurately. I’ve gone to prisons, Indian reservations and devastated communities because it was important to understand the topics I covered.

Keller knows, I am sure, that you need to get firsthand knowledge to report authoritatively. He could top my stories of firsthand reporting many times over. I don’t think he won his Pulitzer Prize for coverage of turmoil in the Soviet Union by sitting in the Moscow Bureau of the New York Times. Oddly, you don’t even have to get off your ass to gain some firsthand knowledge of Facebook. But for some reason Keller thinks it’s good journalism to write about Facebook without bothering to use it or learn its culture.

He wrote a column about Facebook Sunday, but the most recent entry on his Facebook page is from last Oct. 13, when he changed his job in his profile from Times editor to columnist. In eight months, he hasn’t posted a link or a photo or status update. His other October update generated 51 comments, none of them from Keller. If he’s not even joining the Facebook conversation, it’s clear his understanding of Facebook is based on reading and interviewing other critics, rather than firsthand experience and exploration. But you know what he did Sunday? He wrote about Facebook.

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When should journalists use branded social media accounts? Or individual accounts?

When should journalists use their personal social media accounts and when should they use the branded newsroom accounts?

An editor raised those issues in an email (edited lightly to avoid identification, because I welcome private requests for help, even though I sometimes address the issues publicly):

Some of my staff members — copy editors who also do reporting — have been finding that crowdsourcing on our newsroom’s Facebook and Twitter accounts has been very useful, as would be expected. But, at times, they say, there can be so many reporters and editors doing it that their questions get lost in a sea of posts, all of which are almost always quality. They say they sometimes can have better luck posting crowdsourcing questions to their private Twitter and Facebook accounts, which means their sources have been gravitating toward those accounts and not the official branded accounts.

A concern raised among some editors is that these private accounts don’t give our official sites the hits and exposure they could if the groundwork was done through the official accounts. In addition, the private accounts and all the new followers staffers generate through their work here would go with the staffer should they leave.

It’s hard to find a best practice for how other papers handle this. This harkens back to the day when reporters on the cutting edge of technology initially used their private email accounts before newspapers caught on and got people their own company email account.

Anyway, I hear wisdom on both sides. Just wondering if you had thoughts that you wouldn’t mind sharing. Hope that isn’t asking too much. I read your blog routinely and find it very helpful and interesting.

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Jeff Edelstein uses Klout to reach people interested in his content

Thanks to Jeff Edelstein of the Trentonian for showing a good way for journalists to use Klout.

I have wavered in my views on the value of Klout.

I think you can overdo metrics, especially when you are measuring the wrong things. But I do think we should try to measure the results of our efforts. And Klout tries to measure influence in social media.

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Questions and answers about journalists’ opinions in social media

An email (slightly edited) from a Digital First Media journalist last week raised a couple questions I hear frequently relating to social media:

I asked an important question at a staff meeting today, and the city editor suggested I e-mail you. It has to do with tweeting and/or posting opinions.

As a reporter (I know, you like the term journo), it is ingrained in me not to reflect my opinions. Last weekend, I scanned Twitter off and on and found many news outlets tweeting about the Occupy Oakland protest going on. A TV van was damaged, a flag burned at City Hall, etc.

My first impulse was to tweet my personal gut response: that I didn’t understand protests and flag burning in my generation and I don’t now. I also wanted to tweet that once Occupy got violent, that ended the argument for me.

But I had misgivings about whether I should post any kind of opinion at all, so I refrained.

So, is there a guideline about this? I thought about asking via Twitter, but obviously that wouldn’t work.

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Engage on community Facebook pages, not just your page

Facebook engagement doesn’t mean just posting links and questions on your own page. Good journalists should be reaching out to the community on other pages.

In a recent email, Toni Sciacqua, Managing Editor – Digital at the Daily Breeze, Press-Telegram and Daily News in Southern California, shared a great example of Facebook engagement:

I wanted to share a big social media aha moment we had recently at the Daily Breeze that illustrates how listening to and engaging with the community can pay off in building a new audience and help us address issues the community is talking about.

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Google+ Hangout helps with video interviews

How is your newsroom using Google+ Hangouts?

In recent months, I’ve seen some good examples of Google+ use in some Digital First Media newsrooms. I asked my colleagues to explain what they did and how. Their responses are presented below, with minimal editing. (You’ll note that I’ve been hanging onto these examples quite a while. I’ve had more blog-post ideas than blogging time lately. I hope to catch up in the next few weeks.)

From Karen Workman of the Oakland Press:

The Oakland Press and The Macomb Daily made Michigan history Thursday, Dec. 22, by conducting the first editorial board meeting with a governor by using a Google+ hangout.

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Buffy Andrews’ tips for daily beat checks using HootSuite

My blog post on questions to guide beat reporters drew a helpful response from Buffy Andrews that I wanted to give more attention than it would receive simply as a comment. So I’m reposting it separately, with minimal editing:

Another excellent post, Steve. I totally agree about establishing a routine to check on digital sources. I do this every day (you are one of them) on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, etc.

What I love about using an interface such as HootSuite is the ability to set up various columns that search for people or hashtags or companies. This makes it easy to check every day. I’ve been doing this for a few years now. I’ve catagorized my searches. For example, I have the following (among others):

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What are the ‘advantages of Foursquare’? Learning about engagement around location

As I was live-tweeting an interview of Foursquare General Manager Evan Cohen Tuesday, Joey Kulkin asked a good question:

@stevebuttry What are advantages of 4sq again?—
Joey Kulkin (@incrediblekulk) October 25, 2011

I promised an answer:

I may blog about that: RT @incrediblekulk What are advantages of 4sq again?—
Steve Buttry (@stevebuttry) October 25, 2011

So here goes. Why do I “check in” every time I eat at a restaurant or attend an event (or even at each train stop as I roll home from New York tonight as I write this)?

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