Media Helping Media

Does your media organisation embrace social networking, or does it exploit it, or, worse still, ignore it? As a result, is your content strategy thriving, sick and ailing, or in its death throes? How traditional mainstream media decides to respond to social networking could be key to its survival.

There are many ways mainstream media responds to social networking, but here are three. Which one fits your media organisation and what are you doing about it?

Model One - Ignore

Attitude

• Social networking is a distraction that has nothing to do with traditional mainstream media.
• It is a plaything for trivial exchanges and is not for journalism.
• Keep out. Our content is our content. We know best.

Policy

• We will refer to a social network trend in a story but only as an illustration and only if supplied in wires copy.
• It’s our job to provide information. We are the professionals.
• If there is a piece of user-generated video, a still or a comment doing the rounds on the wires or other networks we may refer to it or include it, but, come on, we are journalists and they are just bloggers.
• We’ve been trained, and we have standards - they haven’t. Keep them in their place.

Guidelines

• Stick to the wires, press releases and getting our own reporters to cover diary events and our correspondents to cover their specialisms.
• Don’t be distracted by the noise out there.

Result

A dry, we-know-best product that fails to reflect/acknowledge changing audience behaviour targeted at the audience that consumes news rather than participates in news. While this is going on, an increasingly informed and influential middle media is taking over the role of informing the public debate with people-focused stories, published on blogs and virally distributed, that reflect diversity of opinion and offer perspectives often lacking in a heavily-controlled news environment.

Prognosis

This model is in its death throes or already dead.

A dry, we-know-best product that fails to reflect/acknowledge changing audience behaviour

Model Two - Exploit

Attitude

We realise social networking is popular, we understand all about its benefits for viral marketing and distribution, and we see it as a way of disseminating our material to a wider audience. Our Sales & Marketing department is on the case. Every now and then we are happy to refer to it in our bulletins and stories, and sometimes – but please do not overuse - it may well be the basis for a story, but only in terms of showing a trend or where there is access to voices we would not normally reach.

Policy

• Keep social networking elements in the ‘and finally’ part of the bulletin unless central to the story.
• If presenting on camera and talking about a social networking story, offer that wry smile and knowing nod and wink to suggests it’s all a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously (we need to make sure the audience knows that we are really above all that stuff).
• If reporting on radio, make sure there is a slight snigger in your voice that indicates to the audience where the line exists between OUR news and the social networking story.

Guidelines

• Our use of social networking must be on OUR terms ONLY.
• When referring to social networking be sure to attribute any information as unconfirmed and ensure there is an element of doubt until we can confirm with two independent sources.
• When inviting social networking participation on any story, whether in the form of comments or forum discussions etc, be sure to keep control of the agenda.
• Only invite user input on the stories WE want covered and only publish the comments which fit into OUR editorial plans.

Result

Containment, with a firm grip on the amount and scope of social networking in output. Regular references to social networking as a phenomenon and an increasing awareness of social networking as a possible newsgathering tool, but the main thrust of output still firmly based on wires, diary events and reporter/correspondent input from newsroom meetings, their contacts and their specialist beats.

Prognosis

This ‘engage with on OUR terms’ model will work well as a part of a transition from the ‘broadcast/publish AT’ model, but should not form the basis of a survival strategy.

Containment, with a firm grip on the amount and scope of social networking in output

Model Three - Embrace

Attitude

We see social networking as central to all we do. By tapping into this rich vein of stories, perspectives, and first-person witness and thought we are able to enhance our output in a way that enriches our news and current affairs offering and reflects the changing audience behaviour in order to highlight real concerns, adds genuine comment and ensure our output is relevant and revealing.

Policy

• There must be a social networking element on all stories.
• If we don’t reflect what is going on in society we are limiting the scope of our coverage and narrowing our audience relevance.
• We must view all bloggers and social networkers as potential stringers.
• We must be monitoring the social network chatter at all times and build a new network of trusted contacts who we can turn to and who can turn to us.
• We need to get to know the network of contacts belonging to those social networkers we turn to the most and build on that, too.
• We need to ensure we use crowdsourcing wherever possible.
• Ideally we must aim to move away from a wires-led and events-led news agenda and shift the focus over to the audience.
• All our content is there for our users to take away to their preferred social networking space where they can interact with their contacts and add their own context and analysis – and we must always look for ways of bringing this back into our newsgathering and news production processes.

Guidelines

• No story is complete without a social networking element.
• In a breaking story situation where we are feeding the social networks with RSS headline feeds, we must be sure to be part of, visit and tap into those networks in order to monitor the discussion and reflect that in our output.
• We must not just rely on RSS feeds to Facebook or updates on Twitter. We must be part of the social networking conversation so that we can stimulate the debate, ask questions, find answers and uncover new information.
• All journalists must have social networking aggregation tools on their desktops and be monitoring updates at all times.
• As with all information, we can refer to it but only confirm it when we have two independent sources.

Result

• A fresh, relevant, user-focused news offering covering the issues that really concern the target audience and wider audience.
• A rapid growth in viral distribution, brand influence and trust.
• Increased traffic back to the media organisation’s online properties as a reference point and for added value information.
• Increase in Twitter followers leading to rapidly increasing re-tweets and traffic back via the headline links.
• Increase in fans on the media organisation’s Facebook group, Vimeo or YouTube site and other social networks - again with associated increases in traffic to all the brand's online properties.
• Most importantly, a welcome to the social networking party – not as a gate-crasher, but as a trusted friend and an informed source of information.

Prognosis

A healthy strategy, adapting to changing audience behaviour, letting loose of content to hold tight to the audience while, at the same time, reflecting the priorities, concerns and thinking of that audience.

[span class=notice]A fresh, relevant, user-focused news offering covering the issues that really concern the audience [/span]