Twitter for council meetings (or similar public events)

Reporters when going to council meetings or similar public events can set a web story live beforehand, highlighting high-profile agenda points, including details of coverage e.g. live-tweeting plus linking directly to meeting agenda or related documents online.

Twitter feed of Peterborough Telegraph news reporter

This offers:

a) chance for public to engage earlier, ask questions – may highlight more interest in a lesser agenda item
b) highlights our coverage/live tweeting, and
c) saves some time for post-meeting update

Live tweet before (to promote coverage) and during the event, tips:

• Only the main points are needed, add some colour, but keep serious in the main
• Important to add context where possible,names/organisations/subject titles
• Always highlight and correct a mistake – delete offending tweet if it would cause confusion/legal issue
• Remember each tweet stands alone, this is helped by using a pre-agreed hashtag,
• e.g. #pborocc for all Peterborough City Council meetings – make sure this relatively short, and is unique/doesn’t conflict with similar choices
• The hashtag then enables followers to comment specifically on the meeting and the news team can then collate them efficiently afterwards, eg. to produce a Storify where suitable

May well not be time to respond/field questions at the time, although were checking mentions to help spot any errors.

Always good practice to respond to followers reasonable questions – even if after the event, even en masse where relevant

Importance of writing separate headlines for web and social media

Updated, 21 May 2013: Writing for the web isn’t like writing for print. That’s not to say you cannot still be creative with headlines and intros, but you need to give your content the best chance of being found and shared as it can be seen in many different ways, on different screens at different times…

A couple of useful articles below, checklists to make sure you’re following the best strategy for online content publishing. Essentially you are turning print strategy on it’s head, front-loading your headline and intro with key words/phrases/names to draw your reader in, attract browsers scrolling through headlines, posts or tweets.

And to reiterate, print is not web (is not mobile, is not Twitter is not Facebook), but we’ll start with general digital headline writing:

Inspiration from 10 questions to help you write better headlines on Poynter.org

Help when choosing headlines for digital audiences from Matt Thompson on Poynter (from 2011, but still relevant) with some personal thoughts…

1. Is the headline accurate?

2. Does it work out of context?

Imagine it being seen alone/on Google/on Twitter/Facebook or an RSS feed etc.

3. How compelling a promise does it make?

Or “What will this story do for me?”

4. How easy is it to parse? “keep your headlines straightforward and unadorned”

Is it easy for readers to quickly take in when scanning/skimming page, e.g. on mobile device…

5. Could it benefit from a number?

Written numbers are less easily noticed/scanned, four vs 4

6. Are all the words necessary?

Less is always more in the time-poor digital world

7. Does it obey the Proper Noun Rule?

Use common names/subject words, keep it simple, straightforward

8. Would it work better as an explanatory headline?

e.g. If a secondary story/background to a lead

9. Does it focus on events or implications?

e.g. if it’s a follow-up to a big news event, an objective piece, link back to original & use similar keywords

10. Could it benefit from one of these 10 words?: Top, Why, How, Will, New, Secret, Future, Your, Best, Worst.

and my own 11. Also consider writing Twitter headlines and how they might be retweeted. Important to leave space for RT @username

Also: 8 common mistakes when writing for the web – and what to do about them

Paul Bradshaw’s own checklist for getting your digital head on when sending stories to your digital platforms, key points for me: getting to the point, writing in brief paragraphs, link to your sources -

Are you doing the following?

1. Getting straight to the most newsworthy, interesting piece of information in your first par?

2. Linking to your source whenever you refer to a piece of information/fact?

3. Linking phrases (e.g. “a report”) NOT putting in full URLs (e.g. “http://university.ac.uk/report”?

4. Indenting quotes by using the blockquote option?

5. Using brief pars – starting a new one for each new point?

6. Using a literal headline that makes sense in search results and includes key words that people might be looking for, NOT general or punny headlines

7. Splitting up your article with subheadings?

8. Ending your post with a call to action and/or indication of what information is missing or what will happen next?

In detail: 8 common mistakes…

Further reading/examples:

More found links on writing headlines on Delicious

More writing for web tips from BBC College of Journalism, e.g.:

Tell the story up front. For it to work across all possible platforms and devices, it needs to be told in essence in the first four paragraphs, around 70 words

and a four-point checklist for their headlines.

Copyblogger’s The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines

Yahoo! Style Guide’s Shape your text for online reading

Journalism.co.uk’s How to: write headlines that work for SEO.

The Economist’s Style Guide -  on being understandable and adding clarity

Be careful what you tweet and retweet

Twitter is a wondrous thing, quick to pick up, quicker to use, share, and be heard across the globe, getting your self retweeted and trending in no time.

But with this great feathered gift comes pitfalls, particularly for journalists. Obvious ones, but pitfalls worth noting, especially in the wake of the Newsnight/McAlpine case.

When you post online on social networks or blogs, you become a publisher and those publications “are subject to the same laws as those of professional publishers, such as newspapers.”

As I’ve written before, Twitter is just a tool, like your phone, pen and paper or editorial content management system. Or:

Journalists should remember that Twitter is just an additional channel, like writing on a wall. #nx12

— Faisal J. Abbas (@FaisalJAbbas) November 16, 2012

Charlie Brooker offered three simple rules to using social media in the wake of recent news media events, common sense being the key point, but he explains it far more eloquently and sarcastically than I.

A vital @paulbradshaw post for anyone creating and publishing content: 7 laws journalists now need to know, from database rights to hate speech, definitely worth saving, bookmarking and sharing with your news team/colleagues.

More legal advice from: Viewpoint: What dangers may lie ahead for libellous tweeters, by Niri Shan And Lorna Caddy on bbc.co.uk:

The legal position of an individual who posts content online, be it on Facebook, Twitter, or on comment sections of online news pages, is clear: He or she is responsible for that content [that includes a retweet]. Ignorance of the law is not a defence.

And a quickly tweeted apology as a “defence is unlikely to succeed.”

As well as the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, retweeting without verifying any information within the 140 characters or reading a linked tweet has it’s own risks:

You, as the journalist, should always click before a retweet. You need to vet the info before you pass it along. Studies like this also should be motivators to be mindful that even if a retweet is widespread, that doesn’t mean it’s widely read. By extension, that doesn’t meant it’s widely vetted. (Indeed, that’s probably a bit how Twitter rumors spread.)

From: Retweeting Without Reading? Yeah, It’s Happening– and It Affects Journalism Strategy on Twitter by Kevin Loker, on mediabistro.com

You may also be interested in: Journalists: get more value from Twitter – tips, tools and ideas

Further reading:

• BBC College of Journalism – Defamation: a very brief summary of the law on defamation for journalists, viewed 13 November 2012
• BBC News – Ex-cricketer Chris Cairns wins £90,000 libel damages, March 2012
• Guardian – Twitter and the law: 10 legal risks, August 2010

Useful free Android apps for journalists

Updated 16th November 2012:  Some useful applications to get started creating, broadcasting, storing and sharing content from an Android smartphone for journalists (I have experience of the Sony Xperia Neo (don’t laugh) and the HTC One S), many have Apple iOS counterparts: any comments, corrections, suggestions appreciated - @richardkendall

General tools

• Firstly, depending on your device, I recommend installing the Ice Cream Sandwich Keyboard, does a nice job remembering words and works pretty efficiently
• Dropbox -  for storing, sending and sharing files securely. Particularly photos galleries.
• or Google Drive -  (used to be Google Docs) open/write/share documents using a Google account
• Alternatively for viewing office docs: OfficeSuite Viewer 6 and Adobe PDF Reader
• Google Translate
• Google Mail - is a relatively pleasant experience on the HTC/Xperia
• Tasks/to-dos: Astrid Task/to-do lists -, can sync with Google Tasks, recently updated, still fairly intuitive or Wunderlist, for task organising,  (thanks @chrismccormack1)
• Evernote - is an impressive note taking/storing tool, with addons for taking audio notes and drawings, and like Dropbox you can sync your files across devices.
• Power Note –  for saving and syncing bookmarks with your diigo.com account.
• For articles saved, or for saving on the move, Pocket -formerly Read It Later does a good job of dispalying articles efficiently and syncs across devices
• The Met Office Weather Application is pretty good for latest forecast and warnings, you can store multiple locations
• WiFi Finder for scanning for nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and public Wi-Fi

Travel and maps

• Google Maps - you can now save portions of maps for offline viewing, potentially a huge advantage – and Google Maps StreetView
• TripAdvisor Hotels and Flights
• Travel: the National Rail Enquiries app is very neat, and stores favourite stations/journeys.
• For the big smoke: London Underground Free and London Transport Live (includes bus travel)
• Flashlight for when, it’s erm, dark,  (thanks @chrismccormack1).

Browsers

• Opera Mini  is the best browser I’ve used, it’s pretty quick, enable sending/sharing links etc.
• Big names Firefox  and Chrome have their own decent Android versions now, and the Dolphin Browser is a strong alternative. All would do a decent job, but I’ve found Opera the most assured.

Social media

• Twitter‘s own native app is not the worst option, but limited for advanced users.
• Then there’s the official Twitter alternative, Tweetdeck where you can add multiple streams as columns
• Hootsuite (which has recently acquired Seesmic) works pretty well as an unofficial alternative and includes Facebook, plus you can schedule tweets as with the desktop/browser version – unlike the Tweetdeck app
  
• I’ve also tried TweetCaster  which has plenty of options for sharing/managing found links and information
• Banjo -  taps into the most popular social networks (includes Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram) around your location (via @markwoodward)
• Also an additional accessory is Buffer for timing future tweets* (*although this should be used sparingly and wisely)

Multimedia

• For an improved feature set camera, try Camera ICS (panoramic option works well) and Flickr or Instagram if you’re using those services
• I’d recommend Pixlr Express –  for both photo simple and advanced editing or Quick Pic
• Photoaf Panorama - very nice, quick (in my experience), simple and good quality way to create 360º panoramic views
• Record My Call for recording interviews, Skype for phone and video calls  (thanks @chrismccormack1)
• For video recording an streaming, try Bambuser or Qik
• TuneIn Radio

Because you never know when you might need it: First aid by British Red Cross or St John Ambulance First Aid

And most importantly, for a break or time-killer, the addictive Pocket Soccer

By no means an exhaustive list, I don’t claim to have used every app in depth, but they all have high ratings and/or are backed by reputable developers/brands.

Further reading

• Ten fantastic apps, tips and tools for recording audio – Journalism.co.uk
• Mobile Media Toolkit
• Online Journalism Blog – category/mobile-phone-news/ including:  What does a mobile journalist need? from October 2009, but still some good points worth noting.
• Just Got Your First Android Device? Here Are Simple Answers To Your Everyday Questions – MakeUseOf.com
• Journalism.co.uk – blogs/mobile
• Guardian / Technology / Apps

Originally published 31 August, 2011

Journalists: get more value from Twitter – tips, tools and ideas

Updated, 22 November 2012: Twitter is such a simple newsroom tool, but with a few tweaks and additional tools, journalists can get even more value from Twitter as part of day-to-day workflows.

A relevant starting point, by Casey Capachi: Q and A with Liz Heron on Her Share-worthy Strategies, includes some good basics and thinking on Twitter strategy from the director of social media and engagement at the Washington Post, @lheron on Twitter.

A sample quote, some advice on starting out on Twitter:

Casey Capachie: Q: What would you say to a reporter looking to get started with social media?

Liz Heron: A: For somebody who is new to social media and is a journalist, I really encourage them to just start following at first. To think of it as something to consume before they put any pressure on themselves to put themselves out there.

Apart from obvious uses: tweet a breaking story, your web story+link, asking for eyewitnesses, feedback, comments, assistance with a story your working on, share an interesting/relevant link; here are dome other ideas/tips (by far from complete, feel free to constructively critique or suggest more)…

• Retweet your big stories for later in the day to capture a different part of your audience, use ‘scheduling’ tool in Tweetdeck or ‘publisher’ Hootsuite to time a similar tweet (you can use them within your browser, Chrome or Firefox but not Internet Explorer, never IE). (Note, Twitter doesn’t like identical tweets, a minor edit or rewording should solve this). But, be careful what you tweet and retweet, some legal examples and advice also by me.
• Aside from live tweeting an event, court case, arrange a twinterview, if it’s suitable for the public to view/join in? Related: Tips for twinterviewing by Steve Buttry  (@SteveButtry) & @DeannaUtroske.
• The Buffer app, is a similar tool, which will schedule and spread out your tweets according to times chosen to maximise number of viewers, Firefox extension and Chrome extension can help do this without leaving Twitter.
• Use Twitter lists to organise: local politicians, official sources, all other news sources within your geographical patch, more tips on using Twitter lists/Twitter tools by Steve Buttry.
• Tweet an archive story if it’s relevant or adds background to a current story, e.g. some people may not have read a big story from the weekend.
• Cite your sources, thank (@ mention) users for genuine tip-offs and comments, doesn’t have to be immediately, but it visibly shows you are listening and will encourage others that it is worth engaging and adds transparency to your work.
• Verification remains key to journalistic integrity, but there are new challenges using social media: How to: verify content from social media – journalism.co.uk has a good list of expert tips
• For verifying images: try Tin Eye or Google’s Search By Image to track the source of an image sent or tweeted.
  also: Useful Links: Verification Tools – EmergencyJournalism.net, 16 Oct 2012: tips on checking people, places, images
• Don’t just tweet a web headline, add adjectives and keywords to capture interest, make it more likely to get noticed in a sea or flood of tweets.
• For local council/political coverage and especially live tweeting, choose an appropriate hashtag – we use #pborocc at the Peterborough Telegraph – make sure all newsroom staff use it, so users can follow a meeting/event. These could then more easily be turned into a Storify story. More hashtag tips by Steve Buttry.
• If you’re not sure about which term or hashtag to use for an event or issue, try comparing at google.co.uk/trends to see which is most popular in searches, and obviously searching Twitter to make sure your hashtag doesn’t clash with an existing one.
• Ask a question-based headline or add a request for opinions at the end to engage your followers and encourage a conversation or debate.

Worth noting:
Gaining more followers is useful, particularly in the early days,and it’s difficult to ignore the follower count as it’s there for all to see on profiles, but don’t focus too much on that one metric:

@richardkendall Local journos in particular – what matters isn’t numbers, it’s location, engagement, quality, trust. Harder to measure.

— Mary Hamilton (@newsmary) September 25, 2012

An general mantra/message for getting the best out of Twitter:

In short, be useful, interesting, relevant and people will follow, recommend and be more likely to interact with you.

See also, the initial inspiration for this post, a fuller list of tips: ‘20 simple ways to get more retweets on Twitter‘ by Chris Lake

Plus, for more inspiration and discussion, @SarahMarshall3 at @journalismnews has put together: 100 Twitter accounts every journalism student should follow, and you can subscribe to the ‘key list for j-students‘ on Twitter.

See also: Best practices for journalists from Twitter themselves.
More resources: from Mashable post

• Complete Twitter Cheat Sheet
• Twitter Newbies’ Cheat Sheet
• Twitter Manners Cheat Sheet

General social media:

• Blocking Cheat Sheet
• What’s Not Allowed Where
• Social Media Keyboard Shortcuts

Moving to digital first journalism

For journalists moving to a digital first strategy, here are some tips on digital content workflow and social media use, specifically Twitter as an initial publication platform and source of news and engagement:

But an important point to remember, as the digital media landscape changes, so does journalism (the traditional basics remain constant, accuracy, honesty…)  in the digital age, by Steve Buttry, Leading a Digital First newsroom:

Digital First newsrooms are constantly learning new tools and techniques. The Digital First editor must make training a part of the culture of the newsroom and a high priority. As staff members learn new skills, you ask them to teach colleagues through coaching, workshops, webinars and how-to blog posts… I wish you amazing and frequent success. But the experimentation required for success in a Digital First newsroom requires that you risk and celebrate failure.

Assuming you have a Twitter account (see my post Twitter for news journalists: why and how), some suggestions, ideas and best practices for a digital first workflow:

Practice writing to Tweet length  - shortened link URLs (use Bitly or similar to shorten) and RT @names, ideally less than 120 characters.

Covering live events:

When covering council meetings or court cases use a hashtag to enable readers to follow the event, add context & create quotes/notes #dig1st

— Richard Kendall (@richardkendall) June 12, 2012

Live event follow-up coverage:

When following up council/local issue stories add related Twitter hashtag/social media links & ask a question to engage your readers #dig1st

— Richard Kendall (@richardkendall) June 12, 2012

Don’t leave readers hanging with unfinished stories, be transparent about errors or updates  and don’t miss opportunities to grow a story and engaging your community:

A story doesn’t end after 1st publication: correct errors, update details, add reader quotes & contextual archive/external links #dig1st

— Richard Kendall (@richardkendall) June 12, 2012

Add value to your tweets, and you will get more back, as will your followers = everyone wins:

Don’t just tweet a story headline & link, add more context/keywords to attract maximum interest & ask a question or include quote #dig1st

— Richard Kendall (@richardkendall) June 12, 2012

Style I would suggest for using today, tomorrow etc. on the web should be:

Asim Butt will attempt to upset his Saturday paymasters in the Jaidka Cup tonight (Tuesday).

Stories are read on future days/from archives, so this saves some confusion – readers don’t always see the publication time/date!

Add keywords and names in headlines and intros. More likely to get clicked on and picked up by search engines.

For locally well-known sports teams e.g. in Peterborough, Posh and Panthers, write Peterborough United and Peterborough Panthers in first instance so story will get picked up by more web and social media searches

Much more on these areas of moving to digital first journalism:  How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work, by Steve Buttry

More Twitter tips lists

‘Twitter Tips: 11 Things to Tweet When You Have Nothing to Say’ by Hollis Thomases.

1. Other People’s Tweets
2. Breaking News
3. Be a Curator - Provide a valuable service to the Twitter community in your field or specialty area by acting as a filter or curato
4. Help Requests
5. Thank Yous – don’t forget to credit and build relationship/credibility
6. Evaluations, Reviews & Opinions – e.g. new equipment/tools/services you’ve used
7. Oldies but Goodies - some of your best content might go unseen in others busy Twitter streams
8. Think Aloud – ask a question
9. Entertain
10. Be a Connector – build up and share connections (also don’t forget to build relevant lists)
11. Now … About You

The 10 best practices identified in an article by Susana Herrera and José Luis Requejo in March, reproduced by Alfred Hermida on www.reportr.net:

• Have a voice that is credibile and reliable, but also personal and human
• Be generous in retweets and credit others
• Link to external material rather than simply broadcast your own content
• Listen and respond to others
• Provide information that adds value
• Seek out the views of users
• Promote the most interesting and useful content for audiences
• Use hashtags created by the Twitter community
• Include multimedia with tweets
• Link to other networks where a conversation is happening, such as Facebook

Same content standards, regardless of the platform

A key ideal and admission for all news organisations: all your content, everything that has your name on it should adhere to the same high standards of production and maintenance – and that includes social media.

Everything is equal across the digital landscape, nothing should be given less consideration.

Any content you publish, whether it’s re-purposing from print, or collected from digital sources, should still have a quality stamp from your organisation:

“Until now, we spoke about ElPais.com when we were referring to online content. But in this new age, we’re dropping the “.com” and the whole El Pais newsroom is working, regardless of the platform where content is published – in print, on the web, on mobile or tablets – to the same standards of quality and rigour,” declared the paper, as it unveiled the new design, “El Pais is El Pais, no matter where you read it.”

From SFN Blog – Website redesign reflects new newsroom philosophy at El Pais by Hannah Vinter

Twitter’s evolution and the latest no news

Following the riots across England this week, Peterborough, like many towns and cities I’ll bet was awash via social media with rumour, suggestion and misinformation about potential disturbances in the city. Here’s how we handled that through our Twitter coverage:

Andy Dickinson makes lots of good points (here is my discussion with Andy on his article) on Twitter’s evolution for news organisations, suggesting via a tweet:

August 8, 2011 10:21 pm

Reporting that nothing is happening in your area/city? ask yourself is that really news.

@digidickinson

But I feel there’s a balance to be had here and saying no news is not a valid reason for Tweeting is not always fair. If as an official local news source on Twitter you’re seeing multiple tweets asking/predicting/suggesting there’s rioting or other event not actually taking place, at some point there is a duty to respond (it would be ideal to include all those Tweeters but with a 140 character limit, that’s not always realistic).

At the @PeterboroughET we took the policy of limiting our updates and retweeting local police (who were pretty on the ball with their updates) where possible to add weight to our information. Verification has always been key with Twitter, along with sifting and filtering sources and tip-offs, all part of regular news process, they are just magnified on social networks.

It would have been easy to respond to all those concerned locals individually (plenty of them genuine) and getting directly involved with those seemingly deliberately misinforming regarding potential or imagined riots in our area, that would best be served by a linked rolling story enabling longer coverage, but we took the view initially that publishing anything on our website would be fueling a non-existent fire.

This partly relates to the issue of resource, whether we spent much time on such a non-story, a vital issue especially for stretched local news teams, but mobile/web apps enable social media monitoring and interaction without being necessarily on duty or in the office, enabling news teams to react more quickly to events such as this.

It’s all part of the learning curve of Twitter for news orgs, which becomes more difficult as your following audience grows, but the benefits of being able to quickly inform, collaborate and communicate still outweigh its negatives.

The value of an engaged news website audience

A few thoughts sparked by an article ‘Guardian part 2: What are engaged users REALLY worth?’ by the Wannabe Hacks:

Speaking from the point of view of a local daily newspaper website… All visitors have value, but they visit for different reasons. and they have become a disparate bunch, Twitter followers, Facebook likers, registered commenting site visitors etc. Different strategies are needed for each group.

Big reasons for staying/returning to the site: quality and relevance of content to visitor’s interests – as it always has been. Good quality journalism has long term value, celebrity stories have high short-term value.

Many people visit but never comment or interact on news websites, should we force these people to register? If they are a large but loyal number then I think the potential loss of audience is too great. If your publications voice is only being heard by a small minority how can consensus or influence be maintained?

Clamoring for the largest audience must be tempered with not overlooking delivering what your target audience want, be that subject or geographically based. If you’re not doing that then you’ll have little chance of moneting the audience.

The data on registered users though has huge long-term value, knowing what they look at, where they came from, their journey through your site, enables tailoring related content and commercial offers to them and justifying changes to your site structure.

There’s nothing wrong with commercial elements alongside quality content, but if it has relevance to the user, then there’s clearly more revenue potential and everybody wins!

In short, a very difficult area, a fine-line to be trodden through making enough money to pay for quality of content and product whilst keeping a strong, loyal audience and not driving them away with over-bearing commercial strategies.

In terms of skills, SEO and understanding how content works in a digital environment is vital to all editorial staff. Being able to judge how and when to add keywords and phrases into headlines/intros, compacting a story into a Tweet and other web-based copywriting and sub-editing is a hugely valuable skill-set.

Live blogging for journalists

The live blog is an opportunity to curate multimedia content and information from professional and non-professional sources ‘on the ground’, using editorial judgement in what to publish.

It’s a great collaborative tool for news organisations to cover major or breaking events, conferences or big issues using mobile tools and central monitoring to coordinate interactive content publishing, the audience then have the power to feed into the live stream and feel part of the process.

A live blogging strategy

As an example strategy, setup a CoverItLive blog and promote across all your platforms in advance where possible, setup initial questions if possible. Get all your journalist involved using Twitter, all their feeds can be added to the live blog, collectively creating the live blog stream without any other action required in its most basic form.

A manager can monitor the live blog, adding user comments and any related tweets as well as multimedia content and polls into the stream.

Specific Twitter hashtag feeds can be used if appropriate to integrate information from members of the public who may be at the scene and let the audience follow via Twitter if they prefer.

When to use a live blog

It has its place when suitable situations arise or events break as an important digital media publishing strategy that shows what can be achieved coupling journalistic skill and citizen knowledge with readily available digital publishing tools.

Editing and curating is a vital part of the operation, but this is clearly a different area of journalism from reflective, objective long-form pieces that would follow-up online and in print, but all have their value to the audience.

It’s just a new opportunity in a multimedia, multiplatform publishing world.

Further reading:

• Tips on tweeting live by Mary Hamilton – advice on choosing hashtags, sources and curation
• Twitter for journalists: beyond gathering and distributing content
• Styles of live blog: Guardian, New York Times, BBC, FT – Andy Bull, multimedia-journalism.co.uk