Maureen Alley's Blog

Source: scriptingnews

Like most people last week, I was glued to the TV and my Twitter feed. I was heartbroken by what happened at the Boston Marathon — seeing so many people lose limbs and three people lose their lives. I taped “For Boston” to the back of my running jacket on Tuesday, and ran on Wednesday in support of the national “Run for Boston” campaign.

The last time I was that glued to the news was on Sept. 11, 2001. I was a college junior in Stevens Point, Wis., and had yet to realize journalism was my passion. Today, I have my masters in journalism, teach journalism and am passionate about the craft. I get excited when I see good journalists doing awesome work, and I get frustrated when I see others screwing it up. Last week’s events proved to be another lesson on how to report breaking news in the world where Twitter is everyone’s news feed.

People were tweeting from the scanner leaving the Boston Police to ask numerous times for people to stop. Trained journalists know this – though some were still doing it. Matthew Keys who was social media reporter for Reuters, (also lost his job this week), wrote about his use of Twitter and using the scanner for reporting.

Social media is deeply embedded in breaking news. It can’t be ignored which means journalists need to understand the best way to use it. I was impressed with how the Boston Police were using Twitter. They embrace it as a form of communication, and it was cool to see. In an effort to teach my students the way to use social media in breaking news, I’ve aggregated a few articles about what happened last week in regards to journalism.

Here’s my list.

• Poynter: 4 takeaways from journalists’ coverage of the Boston explosions
• Daily Mail: Reddit apologizes to the family of the missing Brown University student they wrongly accused of being the Boston bombing suspect
• Washington Post: What the Boston bombings taught me about journalism
• Columbia Journalism Review: Boston cops: Don’t reveal our tactics, please
• Nieman Journalim Lab: Social media and the Boston bombings: When citizens and journalists cover the same story

Have you read a good article that touches on this topic? Share it!

Photo: Maureen Alley

I often second guess how much information I share online to keep myself and my family safe. When I take photos, I make sure to crop them so there isn’t too much personal detail showing – such as my TV, or the look of my living room, etc. I rarely post pictures of my son because I want to maintain his privacy – though as he gets older it’s getting harder for me to keep his cuteness to myself. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the act of privacy/staying safe and how women approach social media.

I don’t want to delete my accounts or stop using them because I’ve made such valuable connections – both personally and professionally. I’ve met new moms, other teachers, journalists, and more because of Twitter. I’ve learned a lot; I’ve been offered gigs because of my connections that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to develop. The value of my Twitter connections is invaluable to me. But at the same time, where’s the line of sharing too much information? I wanted to find out how other women handle their social media, specifically women who are doing social media right. So I turned to Sarah Evans, Kate Gardiner, Krista Ledbetter and Abby Draper. Check out what they have to say about using social media and staying safe. They give some great tips.

What practices do you follow to keep yourself safe?

A lot of people have been asking me lately how to use Twitter. I admit that I’m probably addicted to Twitter, and need to learn how to let go of my phone. While I may be over the top about it, there is definitely value to the site. I’ve written about it before. And I’ve talked about it to my classes. But when people ask you how to use it, sometimes it’s hard to remember all the parts that go along with using Twitter. So, I created a best practice tip sheet for myself and thought it didn’t hurt to pass on to you. This post is a little long – longer than my usual posts – but I tried to cover everything. If you have anything to add to this list, please do so in the comments.

Name
Your Twitter name will also take up characters in your tweets so short names are better. However, your name is also your brand so you want to make sure it represents you. For example, Maura Wall Hernandez, digital editor at the Chicago Tribune has her full name as her Twitter profile because that is her brand. In addition, you want it to be easily remembered – avoid underscores and numbers. Marivic Valencia, owner of Valencia PR owns TechPR twitter name – direct, concise and short.

Bio
People will look at your bio when deciding if they should follow you or even allow you to follow them. There is a lot of spam on Twitter so making your bio personalized helps other people to see that you are not spam. Make your bio interesting by adding personal tidbits. For example, I have coffee addict and Lucy the dog’s mom in my bio. It allows people to connect with me on a personal level. Add your website URL in your bio so people can move to another place to learn more about you.

Avatar
Your avatar is your photo. Make sure it’s a photo of your face – people want to see and connect with a person.

Tweeting
Tweet about information – provide value to your followers. They follow you because they find you interesting and you provide them with value. But don’t just tweet information, also tweet about you. Show them there is a person behind the tweets. People want personality and connection. For example, I tweeted about ice cream:

Ice cream fixes everything. Or I should say Culvers custard does.

Your tweets should be a good mix of information and personality. Give them both. Information without personality is boring, and personality without information is not valuable. Also don’t just sell yourself all the time. Listen (read tweets) and comment. Create and participate in conversation.

Finding people to follow
For starters, follow friends. Then look at who follows them and who they follow. If you have similar interests, then follow them. You can also search www.wefollow.com for people. This site allows you to search by location or category. Make sure you have posted a handful of tweets before finding followers. This gives those people something to look at when deciding if they should follow you back. And it shows that you are not a spammer.

Mentions
When people use your name in a tweet, that tweet will show up in your mention folder on Twitter. Check this often. And comment back to people who are talking to you. Also check the Retweets folder on your Twitter to see if anyone retweets your tweets. Then thank them for doing so.

URLs
You only get 140 characters to work with so it’s important you make the most of your space. There are many URL shorteners available that will take your link and shorten it down to fewer characters. These URL shorteners also provide analytics. I prefer bit.ly the best but there is also ow.ly, goo.gl and a few others. Create a profile on one of these sites so you can have all the analytics for all links posted to Twitter in one place.

You can also customize shortened links so they are easily remembered. For example, I have my website posted in my bio but I’ve used bit.ly so I can track how many people click on the link. And I customized it so people have an idea of where they are going by clicking on the link. So, if you click on http://bit.ly/MaureenAlley you will be directed to my website.

Analytics
Pay attention to these numbers. Bit.ly shows you tweets, how many clicks, share, comments, likes, referrers. It can also show you what works and doesn’t work. For example, posts to RD+B’s account about tradeshows have done very well – many clicks and tweets. But posts about housing numbers don’t tend to get many clicks – if any. It shows you what your audience likes.

Retweets
If you like something someone tweeted or think it would be helpful to your followers, you can retweet that tweet. There are two ways to do this. You can click the retweet button under the tweet or you can type “RT @” and the person’s Twitter name, and then their tweet. For example, I recently retweeted something Madison College tweeted:

RT @Madison_College Average Madison College student age: 29.

If I want to add commentary to the retweet, I do it before the “RT.” For example, I recently retweeted something Ryan Olson tweeted:

Ditto RT @redeyery It’s Monday – I’m not gonna lie – I hate you.

If you are going to automatically hit the retweet button, keep in mind that you don’t show up as the person who tweeted it – meaning the person with the original tweet will show up in your followers feed. It’s a brand issue. You want yourself to be in front of your followers so limit the amount of auto retweets and use the manual RT more often. You can also choose the auto tweet when you are limited with character space. So if there is a tweet that you want to retweet but won’t have enough space because you’d have to add RT and the person’s name to the beginning of the tweet, then hit the auto retweet button.

Replys
If you want to comment or reply to one of your followers, you type the @ symbol and then their Twitter name – then your message. Keep in mind that the only people who will see this tweet are the person you are replying to and common followers. By common followers, I mean people who follow both of you. In order for other people to see the tweet, add a character before the @ symbol like a period or quotation mark. For example, if I wanted everyone to see my response to Ryan’s tweet about Monday’s, I could type the following:

. @redeyery I hate Mondays too.

Hashtags
Hashtags were originally created as a search tool. You add the pound sign in front of a word and it becomes a searchable link. For example, #Madison. If I click on that in Twitter, it will populate every tweet with that term in it. Use the hahstag for anything that you think people will search for – cities, fields (journalism). But don’t use more than two or three in a tweet because it looks spammer-ish.

You can also find people to follow this way, or find what people are talking about regarding that term. Many companies have started doing Twitter chats which you need a hashtag for. By searching the hashtag set up for that chat, you follow the conversation. For example, AIA has a Twitter chat and they use #aiachat.

Hashtags have also morphed into a way to show sarcasm or be funny in your tweet. For example, I recently tweeted about Britney Spears new song and added a sarcastic hashtag to enhance my tweet:

I drop my head in shame but yes, I did just add “Hold it against me” by Britney to my favorites
on Grooveshark. #dontjudgeme

Pictures
There are many photo tools out there that will automatically tweet a photo you upload from your PC or phone. Twitpic, Yfrog, Plixi, Twitgoo and a bunch of others are available. I’ve used Twitpic, Yfrog and Plixi. These also give you analytics for the photo – how many people viewed it, if it was retweeeted, etc.

APIs
There are many Twitter APIs – tools – that allow you to use Twitter instead of the web Twitter. For example there is TweetDeck, Hootsuite, Seesmic, etc. Some of these are operated in a web browser, others are desktop applications. I like Hootsuite better than TweetDeck but they are both good. I’ve never used Seesmic but it’s a popular one. These APIs also allow you to manage more than one acct at a time – plus Facebook – in one place. Hootsuite also has analytics in it so I can track links that way too but I’ve found that bit.ly works better for that. You can also schedule tweets with these APIs.

Lists
Twitter allows you to create lists and add people to these lists. I am on 46 lists which is a lot. Look at the lists you are added to and make sure it represents you. For example, I am on lists about teaching, housing/construction, Madison, and journalism. I also follow lists that I’m interested in which Twitter gives you the functionality of doing.

Linking with other platforms
You can set you other social media sites so your tweets automatically populate on them. These include LinkedIn and Facebook. Do not set up your accounts so every single tweet populates on Facebook or LinkedIn because these sites have a much different atmosphere. Twitter is constantly updated – and you should be updating Twitter at minimum three times a day to stay top-of-mind with people. Facebook and LinkedIn are not that constant. Posts once a day are about average for Facebook and maybe a few times a week for LinkedIn. If you post a lot to these sites you will turn people off and they will unfriend you. However, sometimes you post something on Twitter that will provide value to Facebook and/or LinkedIn. Set up your accounts so you decide when something goes to Facebook and/or LinkedIn. If I put #in in my tweet, then that tweet will automatically post to my LinkedIn profile. And if I use #fb in a tweet, that tweet will show up on my Facebook page.

Those who don’t use Twitter think it’s stupid, a waste of time, and pointless. However, as an avid tweeter and lover of reading tweets, I disagree. There are so many benefits offered by using Twitter. No, it’s not a game changer, but it does have benefits. And if you’re not on the medium, you’re missing out.

Branding. Twitter is one more tool that allows you to brand yourself for free. You can follow your mentors, educators, and industry-insiders on Twitter. This site provides something that no other medium offers: instant, real-time interaction with any single person using the site.

Networking. I needed guest speakers for two classes I was teaching in the fall. I reached out to those I’m connected with on Twitter in Madison. Threw it out there that I was looking for people who received a job offer or interview because of blog, website, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I found three speakers.

News. News hits on Twitter faster than it can be published to your RSS reader – or even a website. It’s also a sea of content. Millions of people are sharing articles and conversing with each other. By not being on Twitter, you’re missing a huge opportunity to be an observer of those conversations as well as being an active participant.

Efficiency. With only 140 characters, you have to be concise. This will make you a better writer and better at communicating with less information. A great tool for business writing.

Management. Google yourself. What were the results? Things from college that you don’t want potential employers or colleagues to see? Twitter can actually help you hide results. Search engines love fresh content. Twitter is updated constantly – or at least it should. And Google indexes Twitter, which means, Google is more likely to show your tweets than an old website from 2003 that shows you drinking from a beer bong.

So get on Twitter and start participating in intelligent conversations. This is a huge part of your branding that you shouldn’t risk. But pay attention to the key phrase: intelligent conversation. You don’t want a few dumb posts to ruin your reputation. Always remember that millions of people can read what you put online.

Social media, RSS feeds, newsletters, blogs, video and more are everywhere allowing for faster and easier news syndication and information sharing. Great news, right? Well, it could be hurting your brand if you’re not doing it right. Are you using the second-day story approach to producing content online? If not, then your website visitors won’t even bother to read what you have to say because they’ve already heard it from a hundred other people.

So what’s an editor and writer to do? Think analytically. When news hits your desk, are you looking outside the box? Are you questioning what hasn’t been covered yet? Or are you simply repurposing it? If the tremendous growth of Web products tells us anything, it’s that people love information. So give it to them. Make your brand a must in their need to stay informed.

A few examples lately can highlight the exhaustion of the same news over and over: Patrick Swayze, Michael Jackson, racism and senators, Google and eBooks, Kanye West and Taylor Swift, plus many more.

For business-to-business editors, the news is much more niche, with fewer news sources covering the same industry eliminating the level of exhaustion we feel from regular consumer news. However, it’s still something to keep in mind. Even though there are fewer players covering your industry, it doesn’t mean your readers won’t feel annoyed by seeing the same stuff everywhere. Consider what’s missing in the coverage and give it to them. If you’re providing readers with quality content, they will see value in your brand and continue to come back to your site – ultimately increasing consumer engagement, loyalty and increased traffic numbers.

During my five years in business-to-business trade, I’ve learned a great deal about niche marketing and writing. I’ve also learned a great deal about magazine production. Additionally, I’ve learned I have a huge passion for these. But one thing that surprised me about this industry is the struggle editors and publishers have with social media and new media in general.

I’ve always been excited about new media. Maybe this comes from my age, or maybe from the fact that I’ve been surrounded by computers my whole life (my dad is a computer guy) — but nevertheless, I have always looked at the computer as advantage, not disadvantage. And this is where I drift from the traditional B2B world. My ideas are different, and those who’ve been in B2B for a while don’t tend to agree with me or see what I see.

There’s no arguing that B2B is struggling to find its footing between loss of ads and growing reliance on the Web for users. I don’t think it’s as difficult as some think. The first step is being open-minded and realizing that past models are outdated. We must change the way we operate to succeed. I truly believe B2B has the most advantage of all media to succeed with the different platforms available. However, to do that, things need to change. Below are a few tips for B2B editors to guarantee you’re getting the most out of social media and online.

• Get on LinkedIn and make sure your profile is up-to-date and active. Only have connections on LinkedIn that you can vouch for — quality vs. quantity.

• Start reading RSS feeds. RSS provides a more efficient way of reading more content faster.
• Get on Twitter and use your name as your handle. Too many editors think you need a personal Twitter as well as a separate professional one. This is a huge mistake. Make yourself a brand — and your brand will enhance your magazine’s brand.
• Create your own website or blog. Again, use your name if possible as your domain name for branding purposes. Then use your website or blog to showcase your knowledge making yourself an expert in whatever you’re an expert in.
• Stay up to date on the latest technology and try it out. Most of them are free, so why not? Example: I just signed up for FriendFeed because it was being talked about so much online and I didn’t know what it was. Surprise — I like it better than Twitter!
• Participate in conversations online. Use Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIn — and any other social platform to make connections.
• Don’t limit your connections to those in your industry. Read blogs and tweets from technology insiders so you stay up to date on the newest tools.
• Despite my annoyance that Google has such a large market share (73 percent), it offers good tools. Use them!
  • Google Docs allows multiple people to collaborate, edit, share information on spreadsheets and other documents. This is huge for efficiency and communication.
  • Google Groups allows you to collaborate with others in a forum-like fashion.

Create your Google profile to guarantee your owning your brand. Even if you only set it up with the basic information, you still own it.

• Write blog posts on your magazine’s website at least three times a day.
  • Readers like new content. If you’re constantly putting new information up, they will come back.
  • Search engines like new content, so make sure you give it to them.
  • Market these new posts on all your social platforms such as Twitter.
  • Make sure these posts are of the highest quality (relevant information, written professionally, no spelling or grammatical errors).

These are just a handful of ideas that you should be doing at a minimum. Once you get this far, you’ll have your own ideas on how to keep moving forward. It’s just getting to this point that’s been a struggle for so many. Good luck!

To be successful online, branding and self-promotion is a must. But for most editor and writer types, this involves pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. It’s not news that most editors and writers are typically introverted or at least behind-the-scenes kind of people. We are different than our sales counterparts. So how do we balance the uncomfortable feelings of putting ourselves out there and being successful?

I admit, I always second guess what I write when I know the content I’m writing has the possibility of being viewed by anyone who access to the Internet. I stagger over the “publish” button before executing. Here are a few steps to keep in mind when moving around the online landscape.

Step one: Write about topics you know. Being confident in the topic you’re writing about will make you more comfortable knowing other people are reading what you’re writing. And if you write about things that you aren’t confident of, say it. Generally people like when they can relate to other people. We all have insecurities, so owning up to them isn’t a crash course to failure.

Step two: Accept that you won’t please every person who reads your content. Just as when you’re writing an article in a magazine, you will never meet everyone’s expectations. We all see everything through our own prisms and experiences. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean your point of view doesn’t have value.

Step three: What is important to you? Do you want to become a name brand in your industry or stay unknown? If putting yourself out there is too much for you to handle, then staying unknown is your path. There is nothing wrong with this, but accept that you will never be known in your industry.

Step four: You are an expert in something – determine what it is and go for it. It’s easy to think that everyone knows more than we do when we read all the blog posts throughout the Web. The saying we were taught in school, “ask a question because it’s likely someone else has the same question,” applies here. It’s impossible for everyone to know everything. We’re all at different learning stages, so it’s most likely that you’ll help someone else with your advice.

Step five: Rely on each other. Read fellow editors’ and writers’ posts. Reading what they have to say not only makes you more educated and aware, it also shows you that other editors/writers are out there.