Covers Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest. Presentation to journalists in Singapore. Download PPT to get the notes and the URLs. March 19-23, 2012. (Part 2 of 4.) Part 1 covers concepts and definitions. Part 3 covers Storify, Instagram, YouTube and WordPress. Part 4 covers Facebook, Google+ Hangouts, and LinkedIn.

1. SOCIAL
MEDIA
A GUIDE FOR JOURNALISTS
PART 2 OF 4

2. TODAY’S* TOP SM TOOLS
 Twitter  Instagram
 Tumblr  YouTube
 Pinterest  WordPress
 Storify  Facebook
* This list will change

4. TWITTER
Identity of the Twitter account:
 Does it represent you, alone, as a reporter?
 Is it for a regularly scheduled news program?
 Is it for the entire news organization?
Choose one identity, not more.
Be consistent with this identity.

9. Left: Anderson Cooper 360° (CNN news program)
Right: Anderson Cooper (personal tweets by the journalist)

11. MASTERING TWITTER
 Communicate within the 140-character
limit
 Search and find Twitter feeds by
name, topic, or hashtag (#)
 Choose Twitter feeds to follow (curation)
 Create Twitter lists (also curation)
 Learn the art of the retweet (RT)
 Learn the difference between replies and
DMs (direct messages)

12. HASHTAGS
Any Twitter user can make a hashtag
Add # before a word (no spaces and no
punctuation)
Create an impromptu grouping or collection
Examples:
#opennews (The Guardian)
#asknyt (The New York Times)

13. TWITTER FOR JOURNALISTS
Uses of the Twitter account:
 Ask for comments and feedback from audience
 Follow fellow journalists
 Follow sources (monitor what they‟re
discussing; discover trends)
 Share links to news content
 Tweet breaking news updates
Which of these are consistent with the
account‟s identity?

15. TUMBLR
Many of the
best Tumblr
blogs
emphasize
photography
and keep the
text brief.

16. Example post: SI Photo Blog on Tumblr (siphotos.tumblr.com)

17. Example post: NPR on Tumblr (npr.tumblr.com)

18. Tumblr on the iPhone: A stream of interesting things
The Tumblr app has been downloaded more than 1 million
times on Android (iPhone numbers not available).

19. Example: The Economist on Tumblr (theeconomist.tumblr.com)

20. Source: Mashable.com (November 2011)

21. TUMBLR IN A NUTSHELL
Tumblr users are rebloggers: They will
spread your content (and your links).
Tags are very important: Many Tumblr
users subscribe to tags.
It‟s not a full-scale blogging platform
like WordPress.

22. BEST USES FOR JOURNALISTS
 (re)Broadcast your own content
 News organization
 Program
 Topic (e.g. Singapore)
 Subscribe and follow Tumblr blogs
to get ideas, see what‟s being reblogged
 Use Tumblr as a clip file for ideas
 Create your own tags to improve
usefulness

23. “Tumblr is
“Tumblr is
the 25th most popular site
in Singapore based on
a combination of average daily
visitors and pageviews.”
—Alexa Traffic Rank, March 9, 2012

24. SOME GREAT TUMBLR BLOGS
soupsoup.tumblr.com (Reuters)
life.tumblr.com (photography)
shortformblog.com (news)
links.laughingsquid.com (weird & fun)
theeconomist.tumblr.com (news)
fotojournalismus.tumblr.com (photo)

26. PINTEREST
Still in the “invite
only” phase,
Pinterest beat
Google+, LinkedIn
and YouTube
combined for
traffic referrals in
February 2012.
It also beat Twitter.
Findings based on aggregated data from more than 200,000 publishers that
reach more than 270 million unique monthly visitors each month.

27. Pinterest is perfect for eye-catching visuals

28. Similar to Tumblr: “Repin” on Pinterest

29. All your Pinterest “boards” are listed when you start to repin

30. Repinned content cites the original source (top)

31. The link from the original “pin” is preserved

32. WHY CARE ABOUT PINTEREST?
 Female: 68.2% of Pinterest users are
women
 Well off: 28% of users have annual
household income of US$100k+
 Young: 27.4% are ages 25 to 34
Average Time Spent on Site
Pinterest 15.8 minutes
YouTube 16.4 minutes
Facebook 12.1 minutes
Twitter 3.3 minutes
Source: mashable.com

33. PINTEREST PROS AND CONS
Pros
Addictive: Users like to spend a lot of
time on the site
Lots of repinning: Users can spread your
content far and wide
Huge increase in referrals from Pinterest
prove that people do go to the original
(your content, your site)

34. PINTEREST PROS AND CONS
Cons
It‟s the hot new thing; it may fizzle out
The visual bias is even more dominant
than on Tumblr
It may be better suited to product
advertising: popular categories include
home decor, DIY and gifts

35. PINTEREST TIPS
 Don‟t fight the visual bias. Choose a
really good visual (make sure it‟s on the
content page).
 Write a short, interesting caption. Make
people want to know more (so they will
click).
 Play like everyone else: Repin!

36. WHO’S PINNING YOUR STUFF?
You can check and see:
http://pinterest.com/source/nytimes.com/

37. COPYRIGHT AND PINTEREST
Even though images
link back to the original site,
this kind of re-use
does appear to
violate copyright laws.

38. COPYRIGHT AND PINTEREST
Even though images link back to the
original site, this kind of re-use does violate
copyright laws.
Pinterest has
an online form
for reporting
any copyright
violation.

39. COPYRIGHT AND PINTEREST
Even though images link back to the
original site, this kind of re-use does violate
copyright laws.
Pinterest has a form for reporting any
copyright violation.
For news organizations, any desire to
prosecute copyright violations should be
weighed against the value of referral traffic.

40. “I would say Pinterest is more of an
„evergreen‟ social network than some
of the others. Once you pin
something, it‟s there for a long time. I
find that, as a journalist, I pin things
there that will still be interesting
days or weeks later. This isn‟t
necessarily true of Twitter or
Facebook, that are more in the
moment.”
—Rubina Madan Fillion,
graphics editor, The Wall Street Journal

41. PINTEREST TIP
 People can follow you (your profile)
 Or they can choose to follow only
one of your “pinboards” …
 Or just the specific pinboards they
like (instead of users + all of their
pinboards)
(You can do the same)

42. USA Today (daily newspaper) has 15 pinboards.

43. WARNING: Pinterest can be very addictive.

44. SOCIAL
MEDIA
Presentation by Mindy McAdams
University of Florida, USA
mmcadams@jou.ufl.edu

45. Keep up on the latest news and tips
about social media and journalists:
http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-journalists
Follow these sources on Twitter for updates
on the social media universe:
@NiemanLab
@mashable