LORI MARIE TODD » social media

Dear 2010: Enough drama, already. kthnxbye!

Lori — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:30:11 +0000

2010 has been a hell of a ride so far: I got laid off from the newspaper, scooped up by the most prestigious journalism foundation and then laid off once again. Luckily, thanks to my connections on Twitter (and to serendipity), I found another job quickly – this time outside of journalism. I’ve joined AutoNation as a social media coordinator and blogger, working alongside my partner-in-crime Mallory Colliflower and just across the street from my new friends at AgencyNet.

Speaking of my new friends, I remembered how important it is to really live life. I hate to point the finger at the career I chased after, but it is very difficult to make friends outside of the newspaper when you work nights, including every weekend and holiday. These short few months outside of the Paragraph Factory have allowed me to nurture relationships with new friends which may never have been otherwise. I’ve been spending almost all of my free time with these new friends and one special person in particular. I really hope they know how grateful I am for having let me into their lives.

As for leaving journalism, it wasn’t as heartbreaking as I expected it to be. When I was initially laid off, I made the decision that I would not take another job at a newspaper. I began to struggle with what that meant. After moving cross-country a few times for my career, I made my way back home to be near family. I wasn’t ready to give that up again. And, I really wasn’t comfortable with the uncertain future of being a newspaper designer. I am young and I had already gone as far as I sought out to go as a page designer — By 26, I was responsible for weekend and daily front pages at a large metro daily paper. Initially, I was confused. How could I remain a journalist while not working for a newspaper? My short term at the foundation helped me wrestle with this question. But when the foundation gig was up, I was okay letting go if my career in journalism.

One of the reasons I switched to journalism in college was that I wasn’t comfortable with the (lack of) ethics in advertising. Since I moved back to South Florida and embedded myself in the local tech and social media scene, I was reminded of how much I despised the world of public relations, advertising and social media. And yes, here I am — part of the marketing arm of a Fortune 500 company. Ironic, huh?

Luckily, as a social media coordinator, I am not primarily focused on the hard sell. That has really helped me transition from the transparent world of the newsroom to marketing. I feel that my strong ethics and journalism background actually add to the authenticity of our approach to social media.

So, here’s hoping that the rest of 2010 is a bit more stable and that I get a chance to show those friends of mine just how much they all mean to me.

Awesome people who made my week

Lori — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:58:53 +0000

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Himmelskratzer.

This week, I’ve been helping to put together a presentation that would inspire a group of South Florida non-profit CEO’s to embrace social media. The world of non-profits is new to me, so I was thrilled when I stumbled upon Beth Kanter’s blog. How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change. If you’re working for a non-profit, you should bookmark this blog. If you’re working professionally in social media, or just interested in new ways social media is being used, this blog should be bookmarked or added to your RSS feed.

Also, a quick shout-out to Dharmishta Rood and Nick Soni, whom I have been collaborating with on this project this past week. Dharmishta has been leading the project and does awesome stuff (like the Populous Project, blogging for Mozilla, ). Nick is an awesome designer. Thanks guys!

Social Media Strategy

Lori — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:42:26 +0000

While attending the National Press Photographers Association conference in June, I sat in on a session about social media led by Misty Montano (@mistymontano), assignment editor at CBS4 Denver. While I had been using social media for the past few years, I had not ever done so on behalf of my employers. As Misty talked about how journalists should use social media, I kept thinking that I needed to take her advice back to my newspaper and refine the ways we were using social media. The most important piece of advice that Misty gave those of us at the conference was that every news organization needs to have a social media strategy.

As newspapers begin to switch to web-only editions and as some of them close, it’s important for us to be honest with ourselves. Newspaper subscriptions are dwindling and there are few statistics that point in a positive direction for the future of the print subscription model. (If you have any, I would love to see them.) We must alter the way we’ve grown accustomed to providing the news and reach out to our audience. To remain relevant in their lives, we have to go where they are, and that place – for now – is social networks.

Having a strategy for how your newspaper or news organization uses social media is integral to whether or not it will be success in this sphere. By clearly defining the social media your paper should be using and setting goals for how you will use social media, you can create brand loyalty with a (hopefully local) online audience (some of whom may never have even picked up a copy of your paper otherwise).

Step 1: Create a social media map

Creating a social media “map” (really, a list will do, but map sounds better, doesn’t it?) will help you get a clear picture of how your paper is already using social media. You can then properly evaluate why you’re on these networks and which networks you should be on. Likely, you already have accounts on different social networks. Make a list of these accounts and who administers them. Don’t forget to include blogs, live chats, forums, wikis, and photo submission galleries.

To get a better understanding of the different social networks and their varying functions, take a peek at Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas’ Conversation Prism:

Click to enlarge image

Step 2: Answer some questions

There are different uses and purposes to each social network. Identify the reason(s) you are using each social network that’s currently on your social media map. As you identify which services you’ll be adding, identify the propose of each individually. As an example: A newspaper might opt to use Facebook to (1) Connect with your audience on a personal level, (2) share links to your content on your audience’s preferred social network, and (3) interact with the audience. Blogs, on the other hand, might have a different purpose: (1) To provide the audience with supplemental information than what is included in the print and web products and (2) to interact with the audience.

In a blog post, aptly titled ‘Strategy is the key for journalists using social media,’ Misty provides a help list of questions you should ask yourself:

Ask why you want to utilize social platforms.

Is it to promote your product?

Is it to create contacts within your local community?

Is it to reach a new group of people within your community?

Is it to find new sources and story ideas?

Step 3: Create your strategy

Once you have a good idea of where you want to be and why you want to be on those social networks, you can create your strategy. You can write your strategy anyway that works for you, but I think including a goal for using social media (Is it to increase overall traffic to your website? Is it to help raise awareness of your newspaper in a heavily saturated metropolitan area like New York City?) and following it up with a few of the ways you plan to achieve this goal works best.

Again, I must reference Misty’s blog where she identifies CBS4 Denver’s goals and her personal strategy:

Advocacy, transparency and interactivity are the goals CBS4 Denver strives to achieve by using social platforms.

My strategy in using social platforms is:

Content: I provide useful information on stories the station is covering and share what it’s like to work in a newsroom. I look beyond what the station is covering and post items that may not make the news, like community gatherings or crime alerts.

Consistency: Daily I am going to talk about what I am doing in my job. I do not give away exclusive stories or give away the news integrity at all. For example, I kept a secret from Twitter. I am going to do my best in a breaking news situation to keep the public updated with as much information I can and as fast as I can.

Conversation: I respond and talk with people as I would if I was having a one-on-one discussion or a group discussion.

I achieve my strategy by being personable and sharing about myself. I do this to relate to people. I am showing that I am just a regular person, doing my job, just like they do their jobs, only my job happens to be in a news room. I do not, however; share personal opinions on news stories or on topics like politics and religion because I am a journalist and I am representing CBS4 News. I do not discuss company business, internal issues or personnel matters.

Step 4: Communicate it to everyone in your organization

Once you have a strategy in place, it’s important to share it with your newsroom. Any employees who are publicly active on social networks or identified with your product with a byline should be aware of your organization’s goals for social media and tweak their own strategy. Sharing your social media plan with everyone – not just the technically savvy – will also encourage others to give social media a chance. By laying out a clear plan for social media usage, you’ve answered many of the misunderstanding people have when they say they don’t “get” social media. Instead of feeling like social media is being forces on them, they will feel included and know where to go when they decide to give it a try.

Advice and tips on planning a tweetup

Lori — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:47:54 +0000

After holding a successful tweetup for the Miami Herald back in June, I’ve received questions from a few fellow online newspaper journalists asking for tips and advice on organizing a tweetup. Most newspapers have already jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon and are starting to test the water to see how effective social media can be in driving traffic to their home page. Realizing that Twitter isn’t just another place to dump our RSS feeds, we’re learning to interact with our audience in ways we weren’t able to do in print. And that’s where tweetups come in.

To our advantage, the South Florida social media community is already very active. On any given month, there are at least a dozen networking events and mixers to attend that all focus around technology. After a coworker and I had started attending some of these mixers regularly, we decided it was time to organize a tweetup of our own for the Miami Herald.

Mallory (@malcolli), who helps manage the @miamiherald account, Bill (@wcpassonno/@heraldsports) and I started to throw around our ideas for a Miami Herald tweetup and wrote up a proposal to submit to our boss. From there, a team of social media advocates in the newsroom was put together to organize the tweetup. The group consisted of the three of us, our boss, two social media/technology reporters, and an active social media user from marketing. The seven of us hammered out the details pretty quickly and before we knew it, without too much arm twisting or effort on anyone’s part, the day of our tweetup had arrived.

Here are some advice on holding your own tweetup.

Crowd at Tobacco Road for the Miami Herald's first tweetup.

Convincing your boss

With the decline of the print edition, we can no longer expect the audience to come to us. We must go where our audiences are and reach out to them. That’s why newspapers need to be active on social networks. If we’re going to stay relevant, we need to be relevant in our audience’s lives.

Here’s a statistic you can give your boss to illustrate social media’s relevance: The Austin American-Statesman (@statesman) got over 300,000 page views during their coverage of Hurricane Ike last August/September (2008) through the use of Twitter during the storm. (Source: Robert Quigley, Social Media Editor for the Austin-American Statesman)

Why bother with a tweetup, though? By holding a tweetup, you’re giving something back to the local social media crowd. They want to interact with each other and with your producers, reporters, and editors. Letting the audience get to know your staff face-to-face establishes real relationships. These users will be more likely to follow your tweets more closely, to interact with you on Twitter and other social networks, to retweet your links, and to tell friends.

Get your staff to attend (even if they don’t tweet)

Find an ally in your newsroom to help you. Having an ally will help you reach more people in your newsroom and help keep you positive as you encounter resistance. Many old school newspaper journalists are resistance to change. We all know that. Having an ally or a group of people working on the tweetup can help you gain support and help change peoples minds about why social media is important.

When you have the specifics set, send out an email to the entire newsroom staff. Let them know what the event is, and why they should be interested. I’d encourage you to get as many staffers to attend the event – even if they don’t tweet. When you’re publicizing your tweetup on Twitter, you want to let the public know that this is a chance for them to meet the people who bring them the news every day. If a reporter or columnist doesn’t tweet, having them at the tweetup still allows for them to connect with the audience. Maybe it will even get them to realize that they should be participating. We were pleased to have around 15 staffers attend our first tweetup, all of whom are active on Twitter. Next time, we hope to get more staffers out to the event.

RSVP

I’d recommend using an RSVP/invite service to keep track of how many people are expected at your tweet up. This will allow you to plan for the event accordingly, as well as to give your venue a heads up the day before or day of your tweetup. Also, keep an eye on your RSVP list to see who is or is not attending. We’ve seen success at ours and other tweetups of organizers at-replying active users who have not yet RSVP’d or getting people to change their ‘Maybe’ to a yes. By messaging them individually, they realize that they’re talking to a real person and not a face-less organization. It makes them realize that their presence counts.

We didn’t know what kind of response the public was going to have, so we used twtvite.com to keep a headcount for us. As the day of the tweetup arrived, the RSVP numbers started to balloon. We were hoping for 50 people, since that’s (roughly) the number that attended the first Sun-Sentinel tweetup a month or two before, but by the day of our tweetup, we had 128 RSVP’s for yes, and 32 maybes. We estimate that we had anywhere from 130 to 150 people show up for the event.

If you’re looking for an RSVP service for your tweetup, we had a great experience using twtvite, but there are other free services available: Eventbrite, Evite, and Meetup.com are some of the services that come to mind.

Spread the word

One of the hardest parts about organizing an event is getting people to attend. To that end, you really should be tweeting the details of your tweetup daily on your organizations main account. Include “Pls RT” to encourage followers to help spread the word. It may go without saying, but retweet the details on your personal account and get all of your coworkers to do the same. The day before and day of your tweetup is when you really need to start creating a conversation about the tweetup.

Tip: Use a hashtag to keep track of what people are saying about your tweetup leading up to the event and afterwards. We used #heraldtweetup for our tweetup (and future tweetups), or you can use a local hashtag like #miamitweetups. Just remember to keep the hashtag as short/consise as possible.

Location, location, location

The location you choose for your tweetup can make or break the event. If you choose a venue that’s too small or not appropriate to the tweetup, it will be what attendees talk about and remember from the tweetup. When picking a location, keep a few things in mind:

Size matters. Choose a venue that can accommodate more people than you expect.
A/C! Does the area have sufficient air conditioning and ventilation? With crowded indoor venue, you could risk a spike in temperature, so be prepared!
Plan for the worst. In South Florida, that means plan for rain. If you’ve booked an outside location and it starts to pour, be sure there’s a backup plan.
Work with the venue. Make sure that you’ve got their approval and let them know what’s in it for them. By letting the owners know the number of people you can expect, it might mean they’re willing to give you some drink or meal specials (which, of course, would give you something to promote and incentive for followers to make it to the event).

At the tweetup

Drinks help entice followers to attend

Name tags at Tweetups are important. Not every one uses their picture as their avatar and there are just too many names and faces to keep straight. Make it easy for your attendees by providing name tags. They don’t have to be fancy. Some RSVP services provide a name tag generator (twtvite does), but I like to keep things simple. Simple “Hello, my name is” tags work fine. Don’t forget the Sharpies, though.

Encourage your coworkers to “work the room.” Talk to as many people as you can. That’s why they’re attending the event. Trade business cards. Get feedback. Tweetups enable us to connect with our audience on a personal level, so let the guard down and have fun.

After the tweetup

Afterward, thank as many people as possible for coming and continue the conversations on Twitter.

We encouraged attendees to add their photos to our Flickr group after the event was over. I populated the group with a set of frame grabs from my video. Then we started soliciting people who we knew had cameras at the event to submit their photos.