Six Week Social Media Newsroom Training Plan

The goal of this training is to teach journalists how to incorporate social media into their workflow in a way that enhances and improves the types of content they produce. The training is separated into two potential objectives: (1) building a personal brand; (2) improving sourcing and reporting. The first training is tailored towards on-air personalities and the second towards newsroom reporters, but ideally the two skills complement and support each other. This training assumes that all participants start with a basic understanding of standard social media platforms, basic multimedia skills, and advanced reporting skills.

Contents: Group #1: Building Personal Brands 1. 2. 3. 4. Finding your social media personality Understanding right and wrong Building a library of actions Practice and discussion

Group #2: Sourcing and Reporting 1. Skills training: Google Analytics, Google Alerts, RSS feeds, Twitter search, Hootsuite 2. Techniques for social media monitoring 3. Developing content that drives traffic

Training Group #1 Building Personal Brands

This training group focuses on understanding and developing your unique brand on social media. It dispels the misconception that there is a right and wrong on social media, helping you create a presence that is right for you. At the same time, it will help you understand what crosses the line into inappropriate or a fireable offense, freeing you to experiment within the bounds of acceptability. By the end of the six weeks you will 1. Thoroughly understand policies for appropriate use of social media and be less risk averse 2. Define the personality/brand you will establish through social media 3. Have an expanded library of ideas for what to do on social media 4. Understand how to measure progress and be prepared to monitor your success going forward Metrics goals: Followers (as defined for each platform on which you engage) Engagement (as defined for each platform on which you engage) Klout score

At this point we are not setting specific numerical metrics goals. You should register an increase in followers and engagement by the end of the 6 weeks, and progress towards a target Klout score, but your numbers at the end of the training will serve as the baseline for measuring future progress. Schedule: 1 session per week, 1 hour per session

Week 1: Finding Your Social Media Personality

It is important to establish a consistent persona in your online interactions. With this in mind, you need to have a good handle on your social media personality, and ensure that this personality makes it easy for people to interact with you. Before you can start to establish your online personality, you need to determine what that personality is. On the next page is a social media styles quiz to help you determine and understand the personality you will to cultivate. Once you have taken the quiz, we will discuss each of your personality types and what they mean for how you might approach your social media use. Homework: Find two examples of successful social media who you feel fit your personality type. Think about the following questions: - How have they translated that personality type into social media success? - What do you like about the way they interact? - How can you emulate the pieces you like in your own social media use? - What dont you like about their behavior? Notes from when we held this session: Participants enjoyed taking the quiz and generally agreed that the results matched their own personalities. We spent a long time discussing how social media personalities can differ, and showed off a couple of examples of Twitter users with very different usage patterns but similar levels of success. We also attempted to tie the social media personality types to target Klout scores, explaining that different types of people will achieve different Klout levels (for example, a very niche topic will never be a Klout 100). It would have been useful to include some metrics training at this point to help people understand what these numbers mean.

Social Media Styles Quiz: Pick one option for each line, and write down the letter of your choice
Is your style/tone Do you Professional/serious (F) OR Filled with personality (B) Focus on one or two topics/niches (F) OR Broadly cover news and culture (B) Regularly interact via social media with 4 out of 5 most influential people in your field (F) OR Have 50,000 followers (B) An expert in your field (F) OR A source of knowledge about many things (B) Specialist (F) OR Generalist (B) Reply to other peoples posts (S) OR Post questions to start conversations (R) Share others content regularly (S) OR Write original content as a post (R) Share links to content you find (S) OR Share insight about whats going on (R) Retweet other peoples comments about the event (S) OR Post updates of whats happening from the ground (R) Post updates about the event and links to analysis of it (S) OR Comment on or talk to people who are talking about it (R) Irregularly, as the mood (or editorial purpose) strikes (A) OR Regularly, on a schedule (O) Immediately reach for your computer and post updates as they come in, respond to people at the scene, retweet everything about the event (A) OR Try not to overwhelm your followers, posting relevant content at near your normal frequency of posts (O) Wait until youre working again to post (A) OR Queue a few posts to tide over your break, or have someone else post for you (O)

Are you more successful if you

Would you rather be

In your professional, do you prefer to be a Do you plan to

Would you rather

Do you prefer to

During a news event, do you

The day after a news event, do you

Will you post

When something big and newsworthy happens, will you

What will you do to your profiles on weekends, off-hours, or when youre on vacation?

Count up the number of times you have each letter, and write the one you have more of below _________ _________ _________ B/F S/R A/O Go to the next page to see your results

Mostly BSO or FSO (target Klout Score: 59-65) Youre a Broadcaster.

Youre the type of person who likes to share stories, headlines, and occasionally, tidbits about your life or work. You dont always seek out other people to talk to about topics, although you often will retweet something you think is worth sharing. You prefer to pick the top stories of the day, or the things youre most interested in right now - articles, quotes, breaking news. Your regular stream of recommended reading and breaking news make you a reliable source of news and information for your followers. When you take a day off, or get stuck in meetings and cant make your regular update schedule, youll still post an evergreen comment, just so your followers dont miss you in their feeds. You fill the role of Information Hub, and are a great curator of content but you change the topics you focus on frequently. You want people who are deciding whether or not to follow you to think: Wow, theyre so objective and well-rounded! Im interested in what theyll share with me tomorrow.

Mostly BRA or BSA (Target Klout Score: 72-83) Youre a Tastemaker or a Thought Leader.
Youre the type of person who shares stories, commentary, and headlines you think are really interesting. You like to compose your own tweets or facebook posts instead of retweeting or sharing others work, unless what they said is really that good. Your personality shows through your profiles, and while youre maintaining your objectivity, you think its ok to comment on news events, topics that youre interested in, or cool things you discover in your day-to-day work. Youre a pretty constant presence for your followers, always sharing whats on your mind, whats coming up next, and whats the current hot topic. People follow you because you give them the pulse in whats happening in the world, and they like your occasional wit and charm. When breaking news happens, you reach for your pda, iphone, or computer, and start posting minute-by-minute commentaryOn slow days you might post once or twice. You dont often focus on specific topics for very long, and you like to add your own spice to your posts. Your followers like you because of your charm and appeal youre inoffensive, and dont linger on controversial topics for long. You have rapport with many of your followers, and love to be retweeted and to have people comment on your brilliantly curated thoughts. Your open-book attitude lets you build relationships with many types of people.

Mostly FRA, FRO, or FSA (Target Klout Score: 42-48) Youre a Specialist/Networker.
You like to focus on a particular topic or beat and stick to it, and youd rather be known as the go-to source of information for a specific thing than to generally curate content. You foster relationships with specialists and people who are influential in your topic areas, and regularly discuss and analyze current events in your niche with them. People follow you because youre the best source for all things Middle East trade, or the most knowledgeable person about US-Russian cultural relations. While your content is always spot-on and excellent, you would rather stick to your niche and have a smaller but highly engaged audience than have millions of followers who never comment on what you say. You can turn to your network to get information, feedback, or commentary about a breaking news event since you regularly interact with them and foster good relationships with them, theyll know that youll listen to what they have to say and acknowledge their input.

Mostly BRO (Target Klout Score: 65-71) Youre a Pundit.

You focus on a few broad topics, and are the go-to source for information on what you cover, and your style attracts a large audience. You curate content relevant to your broader area of expertise, post unique insights a different perspective, including humor- regularly. Your audience hangs on your every word, and you make an effort to post content that will have a mass appeal you like it when people share things that you say. You foster some relationships with influencers in your field, but ultimately, you ARE a key influencer in your field. You post consistently, you know that your audience will hang on your every word, and you regularly respond to other influencers questions or comments.

Week 2: Understanding Right and Wrong

In order to feel free to experiment and develop a personality on social media, you need to understand the boundaries. The most important thing that is right on social media is consistency letting your followers know what to expect from your social media personality and then delivering on it. But this session will help you understand what is objectively wrong, and find the line between being provocative and being fired. On the next page are some examples of things people have said on social media, which we will discuss to figure out what toes the line and what crosses it. Homework: Start building social media into your daily workflow. Publish at least one update on your platform of choice (preferably one per day) that you feel fits with your brand. Think about the following questions: - What types of activities could you try on social media? - What do you see others doing that you like? - Where will social media fit into your day? - Are there any types of work you do in your day that are not compatible with using social media? Notes from when we held this session: Most of our trainees started out fairly risk averse, but some were indignant at being told that there are certain types of things they cant say on social media. Once we drew a parallel between their knowledge that they can quote anyone on Twitter and that anyone could quote what they say on Twitter, they understand why its important to moderate what you say. We ended up breaking down posts on social media into two components: (1) What you say; (2) How you say it. In some of the examples we discussed, the sentiment was fine but we felt the way it was expressed was inappropriate. So we talked about considering both aspects in what you post in public.

Case Studies: Staying on the Right Side of Social Media Use Look at these case studies of people who got fired for their use of Twitter or Facebook. Then, discuss actual examples from employees. Would you consider these appropriate? Tweeting about your employer. A new hire got fired from Cisco for: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work. Discuss: Times like this, you need shortwave. Too bad intl bcasters think it's pass. ( looking at u voa & BBC!) Joking about sensitive issues. Gilbert Gottfried got fired from AFLAC for: "Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." Discuss: And all of Twitter cringes in unison #spilledmilk Regarding Obamas spilled milk joke in the State of the Union Together, there's nothing America can't achieve -- except the World Cup in Soccer. Let's be realistic. Having opinions on big news topics or topics youre covering. Sportscaster Damian Goddard got fired for: "I completely and wholeheartedly support Todd Reynolds and his support for the traditional and TRUE meaning of marriage." Discuss: LOL #Boehner looked surprised when Obama called out "Speaker"...lol Boehner's falling asleep & so indifferent about speech ! #Sotu How do you justify TV reruns of 'I love Raymond'? Sucked then...#badtv See more examples. Twitter: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-fired-2011-5 Facebook: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-fired-2011-5

Week 3: Building a Library of Actions

Even the most experienced social media user needs help remembering all the different ways they can engage. In this session we will talk about and brainstorm ways to use social media in concert with your daily workflow. These are just some of the things you can do each day on social media. Keep this list in your head, or by your computer, so you always have ideas for things to do. On the next page is a starting point for building your own library of actions. We will discuss these ideas and brainstorm other possibilities specific to your work and personality. Homework: Start using your library of actions to inform your daily social media use. Keep notes of two things you did that you felt went well and two that didnt go as you expected. Think about: - How do you know this activity did or didnt work? - Why do you think it did or didnt work? - How can you replicate or learn from this? Notes from when we held this session: The suggestions that came up in the brainstorming session were really creative. It would probably be useful or worthwhile to have a brainstorming session every month or every quarter to rethink about creative things to do on social media and break whatever routine people have fallen into in the meantime. We had originally planned to use this session to have people come up with a rough schedule for their social media use. This groups workflow was centered around a weekly TV show, and their social media use ended up following a similar pattern. Included is a sample schedule for a typical reporter that could be used in future training sessions.

Basic library of actions 1) Keep a running Twitter search and Google Alert for your name and your show. Respond to any feedback that seems relevant. 2) Share a link to an article or blog post you read and found interesting today. 3) Forward (retweet) something interesting you saw on social media. Add your personality by giving an indication of what you found interesting about it. (Awwwww) 4) Share what youre covering that day, and what youre looking forward to reporting. 5) Talk about your show preparations. Do you have anything new and exciting coming up? Anything gone really well or really poorly? 6) Share a behind-the-scenes photo 7) Ask for opinions on a topic youll be covering. See if you can find ways to incorporate some of the feedback in the show. 8) Ask what people want you to cover, or what aspects of a news story you should be focusing on. Give credit for suggestions you use. 9) Ask for feedback about the show. What do people like? What do they want to see that youre not doing? 10) Brainstorm your own ideas:

Sample Twitter Schedule Before you start: Make 2 saved searches of common words in your niche Day 1 AM: Do a search for one topic youre working on (or check your saved searches) - see whos talking about it and if anything new has happened (10 minutes) PM: Find 3-5 people to follow and retweet at least one (10 minutes) Day 2 AM: Check your @mentions and respond to any that have come in (5 minutes) PM: Tweet a link to one news article youve read (5 minutes) Ex) Smith makes an interesting point about the possibilities of clean coal http://www.URL.com Day 3 Do a search for one topic youre working on (or check your saved searches) - see whos talking about it and if anything new has happened (10 minutes) Day 4 AM: Check your @mentions and respond to any that have come in (5 minutes) PM: Write a tweet about something youve learned from your work this week or something interesting youve come across (5 minutes) Ex) Met an incredible woman today who is devoting her own time and money to greening her house. Amazing what one person can do. Ex) Learned a new trick on Final Cut today! Cant wait to use it in my next piece! Day 5 AM: Tweet a link to a piece of your own work or a colleagues work (5 minutes) Ex) What does it take to make it in the green tech industry? My colleague Carolyn did a great profile of @biotechindustries http://www.URL.com PM: Retweet someone youre following (5 minutes)

Week 4: Refining Your Strategy; Metrics

Once youre comfortable with the basics of using social media, the next step is to start refining your strategy. The only way to know what works and what doesnt for your persona and your fans is to think about it regularly, and to adjust your approach based on the feedback you see (in the form of engagement and follower growth). Over the next few weeks we will discuss your progress each week to understand what worked and what didnt, and why. This session also discusses the use of Klout and other metrics as a way to measure success and refine strategy. Homework: Come with two examples of successes and two of failures from your past week social media use to discuss as a group. Notes from when we held this session: We actually held the Klout session as part of week 6, but felt in the future it should be included as part of the discussion on refining strategy. This would help build a culture of analytics use right from the start.

Week 5: Refining Your Strategy; Crisis Preparedness

No matter how well youre using social media, there will always be critics (and the more successful you are on social media, the more critics youll probably find). If you have a strategy for dealing with bad behavior and criticism, you will be ready to deal with anything without losing your cool or your mind. Notes from when we held this session: We emphasized using different approaches for different situations, depending on the seeming personality of the offender. This seemed intuitive to everyone.

Week 6: Recap and Looking Ahead

By this point you should have achieved the following goals laid out for this training: Understand policies for appropriate social media use; understand your own personality/brand; have an expanded library of ideas for social media use; understand how to measure progress. In this session you should think about what new goals you want to set moving forward, both qualitative and quantitative, and figure out what skillsets you are still lacking that you want to gain.

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Training Group #2 Sourcing and Reporting

This training group focuses on using social media as a valuable input for reporting and content development. It discusses how to understand what people are interested in and what theyre talking about, and how to apply that knowledge to develop content that resonates with your audience and drives traffic to your stories. By the end of the six weeks you will 1. Know how to use Google Analytics, Google Alerts, RSS, Twitter search, Twitter lists, Hootsuite 2. Have a greater awareness of audience behavior and preferences 3. Understand how to use information gleaned from analytics and social media monitoring as inputs for deciding what to cover 4. Understand how to use information gleaned from analytics and social media monitoring as inputs for deciding how to cover a story Metrics goals: Number of web/social-native story elements generated Visits to content generated Social media refers

At this point we are not setting specific numerical metrics goals. By the end of the six weeks you should be ready to start generating story ideas and story elements based on analytics and social media monitoring, and at that point can begin setting metrics goals. Schedule: 2 sessions per week, 30 minutes per session

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Weeks 1-2: Skills Training

There are many tools that are vital in helping you understand what people are reading and talking about. These sessions will give you the skills you need to start using Google Analytics to monitor and dive into your web traffic, Google Alerts and RSS feeds to follow topics, and Twitter search/Twitter clients to monitor social media chatter. On the next page is an exercise to establish metrics baselines for your web traffic and to practice using Google Analytics to understand your audience. Also included is a powerpoint presentation on advanced techniques for searching Twitter and Google. We will walk through how to use Google Analytics, Google Alerts, RSS feeds, Twitter search/lists and Hootsuite, and discuss how each of these applies to your work. Homework: Use Google Analytics to find some insights about what sort of content works and doesnt work on your site. Think about: - Do different audiences have different preferences? - Why does some content work better than others? - How can you use these insights to contribute to your story development? Set up a few Google Alerts and Twitter searches for beats or topics you regularly focus on: - Are you finding useful information? If not, how can you refine your search? - Are there any particular websites or Twitter users who seem to be leading voices? Notes from when we held this session: A lot of our discussion during the skills training and even in the sessions that followed was centered around explaining why this is relevant for reporters in their story development. In the future it might make sense to start with a general introduction to social media and its uses, so everyone starts from a common understanding. One key revelation was the idea that Google Analytics is for understanding what people are interested in on your site, while social media monitoring is for understanding what the wider world is interested in. Or, Google Analytics is for understanding your current audience and social media monitoring is for understanding your potential audience.

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Establishing metrics baselines Site Date Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Facebook Refers Date Total visits Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Twitter Refers Date Total visits Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat

Total visits

#1 story visits

#2 story visits

Pages/visit

Avg. visit duration

Bounce rate

#1 story visits

#2 story visits

Pages/visit

Avg. visit duration

Bounce rate

#1 story visits

#2 story visits

Pages/visit

Avg. visit duration

Bounce rate

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Practicing Audience Segmentation on Google Analytics When youre looking at top articles, youre seeing the sum of all articles that everyone read on a given day. But people are all different. This exercise will let you break your audience into smaller groups based on a particular characteristic to see which stories they read. 1) Select two audience segments that represent different types of audience groups. Example: Visitors from two target locations (countries, cities), visits referred through search vs. visits referred through social media, visits with 1 pageview vs. 5+ pageviews, new visitors vs. returning visitors. 2) Create an advanced segment for each audience group. Youll use these throughout the exercise. USE THE INCLUDED WORKSHEET TO CARRY OUT THE FOLLOWING TASKS 3) Start by writing a few sentences about how you think these audience groups are different (based on your research, general knowledge or assumptions) Example: Search visitors find us because they are looking for a specific topic; social media visitors find us when they either follow us or a friend refers them. Search visitors are potential new audience; most social media visitors should already know about us. 4) For any two week period, look at the top stories for each audience segment on a given day. List a few words to describe the topics of 2-5 top stories that day. Pay attention to how the two segments are different (be sure to mark the dates so you keep track of what youve looked at you can do this exercise for two weeks that have already happened). 5) In the last column, jot down each days overall hot topics, based on your site metrics, what youve read in the news, and/or what youve seen on social media. 6) Add metrics from the last three months to the table at the top. AFTER YOURE DONE, ANSWER THE FOLLOWING 1) Are the audiences/segments different? How? 2) How can you consider both segments and their preferences on a daily basis? 3) Given your new knowledge of the preferences these audiences have, how can you test to see if new topics/angles/story types will appeal to each audience? 4) And critically: Are there better ways to break up your audience to better understand and target them?

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Audience Segmentation Worksheet Audience Segments: Segment 1

Segment 2

Initial observed or assumed differences between these audience groups:

Metrics Baseline: Look at the last 3 months (from a Sunday to a Saturday) find the following for each segment
Segment Highest weekly Pages Visits viewed Average weekly Pages Visits viewed Lowest weekly Pages Visits Viewed About the visits: Pages per Top traffic visit source(s) Time on site Bounce Rate

Topic Tracking: Use 1-2 words to describe the top 2-4 stories for each segment & general trends/topics for each day. Date Segment 1 Segment 2 Notes (hot topics, what happened today) Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Sun Mon Tues Wed Thur Fri Sat

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Advanced Search Techniques

Search Techniques: Twitter and the Web

How to: Create effective Twitter searches Get more out of Google searches

To recap:

Search = Find Tweets by Keyword

Search for tweets, people, and media using the search bar at the top of the screen.

Toggle between Top and All to see what the most important Twitter users are saying and what everyone is saying.

To recap:

Use Advanced Search to Refine

Once youve done your search, click Advanced search. Now you can exclude terms, see tweets only in a certain language, search by location, etc.

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To recap:

Twitter Search Operators

Refining Your Twitter Search

Are there key words you can exclude to narrow your search? Use the - operator

Are there particular phrases that will make your search more specific? Use the operator Are there multiple spellings or multiple key terms you can include? Use the OR operator
Are there particular hashtags in use? Search only by hashtag, or include hashtags in your OR search Are you getting a lot of results you cant read? Use a lang: search to restrict the languages

Start with a broad search and tweak until youre happy with the results
Pick up on key terms in the search results that might get you refine your query

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Ex: Monitor the Egyptian election

Ex: Find news on Occupy Wall St.

Remember:

Save good searches

Return to any of your saved searches by clicking on the search bar at the top of the screen. You will see the most recent results for that search. Use that search to continue finding and homing in on trends, and to identify key users on the topic.

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Use lists to save good people you find while searching

Lists let you curate users into categories, and then view their tweets in a separate stream.*

*You dont have to follow someone to put them in a list

Access your lists from your profile page or from your head icon

Tools to Try
Topsy.com Search Twitter archives and sort by relevance or date. Search includes photos, videos and links shared on Twitter, users mentioned on Twitter and Google Plus content.
Twitterpowersearch.com Shows searches in side-by-side streams so you can easily test search terms against each other Trendsmap.com Browse regional trending topics

Sulia.com Identifies the most influential tweeters around various topics

Addictomatic.com See results from Twitter and many other online sources all at once

Google Search
Take advantage of the many easy options for refining your search

Are you looking for a news event, an opinion piece or a specialists view? Try switching to a blogs or news search

Do you need things that are very recent, or that are definitely not recent? Adjust the date
Not finding exactly what you need? See what related searches you could try

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Google has an advanced search

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

But learning basic search operators is easier OR either word the exact phrase - excluding this word

Useful operators you dont know

* The wildcard used as a placeholder for any word. ex) Obama voted * would find Obama voted yes and Obama voted no ~ Includes words similar to the word you specify. ex) ~glossary would also find dictionary related: Finds sites similar to the site you specify. ex) related:voanews.com would find websites similar to VOA site: Searches within one specific website. ex) Putin site:voanews.com would find mentions of the name Putin on VOA
More: http://www.googleguide.com/print/adv_op_ref.pdf

Google Alerts
Subscribe to good news or blog searches by email or in an RSS reader. The alert will automatically deliver new search results to you as they appear.
http://www.google.com/alerts

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Tools to Try
Google Keyword Tool, Google Insights for Search Find and compare related keywords, and see how keywords are trending Google Reader Googles RSS reader for subscribing to blogs and search alerts you want to follow Google Plus Another place to see what people are sharing and saying. Allows you to save and track web/social searches

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Weeks 3-4: Techniques for Social Media Monitoring

Session 1: The first session each week focuses on how to decide what is worth focusing on when monitoring social media. Youll regularly monitor your topics and beats from 10,000 feet up, but when you want to do something with the information youre gleaning, youll need to start narrowing down. Deciding what you want to narrow down to is not always as easy as it sounds. Start by thinking about: (1) What are the big topics in the news right now; (2) Whats driving discussion among the people you follow; (3) Is there anything trending on social media thats not currently a big news story? What are the big topics in the news right now? o How are people engaging with that story on your website? o Is there activity around this story on social media? If so, what are people talking about? o Is there the potential for this to be the type of story people talk about? Is anything trending on social media thats not currently a big news story? o Is there an angle worth covering now? o Is this going to escalate into something worth covering?

We will discuss what topics you might want to focus on each week, given what youre seeing in your analytics and on social media, and how to home in on them using the tools at your disposal. Homework: Monitor the topics youve chosen and try to identify trends or important developments. Think about: - How is the story changing over time? - What have you seen that is unusual or interesting? Is the story being driven by whats happening on social media or is social media responding to the story? - Is this the type of story where eyewitness accounts and multimedia provide added value? - Are certain angles driving conversation on social media? Are there pervasive questions that need answering?

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Session 2: The second session each week looks at what to do with the information you gather from monitoring social media. Deciding what to focus on with social media, and what content to create from that, is simultaneously an art and a science. Its based on your skill as a journalist for finding news and creating interesting content, and your newfound understanding of what drives traffic on your website. Sometimes social media monitoring can lead you to a whole new story, sometimes it can help you create sidebar or other value-added content for a story, and sometimes it can help you pick an angle on a story given the conversations around it. We will discuss what youve been seeing around the topics youre following, and how to use that intelligence to develop content. Homework: Given what youve seen around the topics youre monitoring and our discussion, what types of content might be appropriate to create? Think about the following possibilities: - Using Storify or embedded tweets to capture the social media conversation - Reporting a solid explainer to fill a hole youre seeing in the conversation or a clear need - Holding a live chat (Twitter, Facebook, web, other depending on where the conversation is) - Tailoring the format of your content to fit the type of content people are responding to (infographic, video, photo gallery, etc.) Notes from when we held this session: There was a lot of concern among the reporters about letting social media drive story development. We took some time to discuss the fact that social media monitoring does not mean giving over news judgment to the public. Rather, it is another source of intelligence to use in understanding what stories and angles to pursue and why they may resonate with your audience. In retrospect, this is a conversation that should have been given more time sooner in the training.

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Week 5: Developing Content That Drives Traffic

Now that youve got the hang of monitoring social media, well focus more broadly on how to build your intelligence about website analytics and social media monitoring into all your story pitches. You already know how to develop and write interesting stories, and were not trying to mess with that. This is about building an additional component into your process thinking about whether a story is going to drive traffic for your website or discussion on social media, and how to tell your story in a way that is more likely to resonate with your audience based on what you know of their behavior. Analytics and social media monitoring will become an input for deciding what to cover, and be used again as you decide how to cover it. Think about: - How have similar stories or approaches performed on your website? - Is this topic trending high on your site? If so, how are audiences finding and consuming that material? - Is this topic trending on social media? How are people talking about it? What are they responding to, or what do they want to know? On the next pages youll find a pitch sheet to help you develop ideas from the kernel of an idea stage into a full story pitch. You should come to session 1 with the first page filled out, and we will discuss your ideas and how to refine them. Come to session 2 with the second page filled out, and you will complete the final pitch following our session 2 discussion. Notes from when we held this session: We asked the group to come to the first session with the kernel of an idea that they might want to develop. In almost every case we had to really push them, asking WHY is this idea going to drive traffic? What have you seen in your analytics or on social media that suggests to you that this idea or this approach will work? It was definitely a new way of thinking for most of the people in our group. And, as mentioned before, there was a lot of concern about letting the audience drive news judgment.

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Pitch Sheet for a Traffic Driver Story

Step 1: The kernel of an idea
Topic you anticipate covering: A couple of words about what story or topic you are planning to look into.

This story could be a big traffic driver for the site because: In 2-3 sentences, explain what qualitative or quantitative data makes you think that this topic is worth pursuing. In other words, what makes you think your audience will care?

What approach will you take to finding an angle/project? Given the audience behavior youve observed around this story or similar stories, describe what sorts of angles or approaches you plan to explore.

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Step 2: The development of the idea

Subject: Now that you have refined your topic, what is the specific subject you will address?

Why this angle?

Based on your research so far, the lead sentence or explanation of approach will be

Describe what media you will use to cover the story and/or what special tools or elements you could employ: Video, audio, photos, graphics, text, etc. / timeline, curation, Storify, UGC, raw interviews, info box, etc.

Time frame for completion?

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Step 3: Final pitch

Adapted from: http://174.37.47.227/~converge/wordpress/?p=813 Subject/Slug: One or two words that summarize your story/project.

This story could be a big traffic driver for the site because: In 2-3 sentences, explain what qualitative or quantitative data makes you think that this topic is worth pursuing. In other words, what makes you think your audience will care?

Based on your research so far, the lead sentence or explanation of approach will be

Some potential sources for this story: interviews, information to be curated, thought leaders around the topic (include contact information)

Describe what media you will use to cover the story and/or what special tools or elements you will employ: Video, audio, photos, graphics, text, etc. / timeline, curation, Storify, UGC, raw interviews, info box, etc.

This approach fits with my reasoning for why this story could drive traffic because

Insert links to or summaries of relevant previous stories on this topic: If your story idea has had significant coverage previously, explain what new depth you will bring to the story.

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Week 6: Recap and Looking Ahead

By this point you should have achieved the following goals laid out for this training: Know how to use Google Analytics, Google Alerts, RSS, Twitter search, Twitter lists, Hootsuite; be aware of audience behavior and preferences on your website; understand how to use information from analytics and social media as inputs for deciding what to cover and how to cover it. In this session you should think about what new goals you want to set moving forward, both qualitative and quantitative, and figure out what skillsets you are still lacking that you want to gain.

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