links for 2011-05-31

• News:Rewired — the growing complexity of journalism | Journalist Profile | Reuters.com
  An excellent example of Storify used to curate action and tweets during the news:rewired conference. It provides a great narrative and is a particularly good example of how to use Storify well.
  (tags: journalism twitter newsrw Storify Teaching curation)

links for 2011-05-25

• The Ten Commandments for journalists (or are they?) | Social Media NZ
  It is always important to remember social media is a tool, beware of perceptions and be professional.
  Bringing an element of yourself in is okay, particularly if it is your own stream. However, I have seen Twitter accounts for brands used for personal chats, and I don't think that's right.
  (tags: journalism socialmedia teaching)
• 5 Easy Ways to Liven Up Your Facebook Stream
  More tips from Mashable on how to make your Facebook page lively.
  (tags: socialmedia facebook business)
• How newspapers can use Facebook more effectively | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog
  Examples of how Facebook has been used by the New York Times to engage with its audience.
  Mashable has also listed eight great ways to use Facebook for any brand.
  I always believe in being as human as possible and trying to avoid feeds. It's a delicate balance though.
  (tags: facebook journalism community)
• New York Times unplugs its cyborg Twitter
  This is an interesting development from the New York Times as its editors will be Tweeting directly rather than using RSS feeds.
  Tweeting as a human being is a brilliant thing, and it is important to interact with your readers. However, this is a labour intensive job.
  I started out Tweeting as a human for the newspaper I used to work for three years ago. However, there wasn't anyone to do it when I was on holiday. They all thought I was nuts (they're all on Twitter now).
  Small news teams need to a certain level of automation alongside the human voice.
  (tags: socialmedia twitter journalism teaching)

links for 2011-05-24

• Future of Media: Curation, Verification and News as a Process: Tech News and Analysis «
  Examples of curation during the BBC Social Media Summit.
  (tags: journalism socialmedia twitter curation teaching)

links for 2011-05-23

• New tools in news gathering: Curation and verification in journalism | memeburn
  Looking at tools for journalists.
  (tags: curation teaching verification)
• My notes from the BBC Social Media Summit
  A summary of numerous speakers at the BBC Social Media Summit. An excellent analysis by Martin Belam
  (tags: socialmedia blog social_media bbc)
• The Media Blog: Journalism: Is it ever 'just a numbers game'?
  A look at what drives people to particular news sites as well as further discussion about social engagement. An analysis of Raju Narisetti's comments at BBC Social Media Summit
  (tags: bbcsms journalism metrics seo washingtonpost teaching)

links for 2011-05-20

• KMOV puts Facebook to work covering airport tornado – Lost Remote
  KMOV-TV in the US used social media to spread news about tornados and damage quickly via social media, particularly facebook.
  (tags: socialmedia facebook crowdsourcing journalism teaching)
• #bbcsms – Cultural Change – One Man and His Blog
  An interesting summary of the first session at #BBCSMS with examples of how to encourage journalists to use Twitter and get involved with their wider community.
  (tags: twitter socialmedia teaching community)

links for 2011-05-19

• Wikileaks Iraq war logs: every death mapped | World news | guardian.co.uk
  James Ball referred to this map during his visit to Brighton Future of News Group
  (tags: journalism data news map)
• 5 Rules for journalists using Storify – storify.com
  Staci Baird's piece gives great advice on how to use Storify well. She gives good examples of best practise.
  (tags: journalism socialmedia journalists tools curation)

links for 2011-05-18

• What Journalism Is Like Now – Working With 2,000 Sources – NYTimes.com
  Further to the Neal Mann article I linked to on Monday, Mathew Ingram of GigaOm expands on the original observations and includes National Public Radio's Andy Carvin in his discussion piece.
  Ingram points out the tools are available to everyone, but journalists are needed to filter and verify.
  (tags: socialmedia journalism teaching)

links for 2011-05-17

• BBC | BBC College of Journalism Blog – #bbcsms: Charting a course for social media research for journalism
  Julie Posetti points out that social media training is essential for journalists today, and I agree with her.
  The social media world is far more noisy than it used to be which means journalists need to have even greater understanding of how to use social media as a tool to reach an audience, develop contacts and source stories.
  (tags: journalism socialmedia research social_media teaching)
• Dear Journalists, This is The Title Search Engines Care About
  There is a great deal of pressure to get the SEO right and increase traffic to websites. A simple headline with useful key words does help, but as this post by Dominic Litten points out there is more to it than a "boring" headline. There are ways to keep the wit in a story if you have good site architecture, a good sitemap, internal links etc.
  (tags: journalism journalists seo headlines)
• Personal branding and the evolution of ‘innovative’ journalism | Joseph Stashko Personal branding and the evolution of ‘innovative’ journalism | Thoughts on the media
  An interesting post from Joseph Stashko as he looks at what would make a student journalist stand out. It has started quite a debate on his blog.
  (tags: journalism Brand personalbranding)

links for 2011-05-16

• Social media guidelines for journalists
  Mindy McAdams writes a great deal of common sense here about using social media as a journalist.
  For professional purposes I use Facebook as a page, it keeps things simple and protects my personal account with its high security settings.
  (tags: journalism socialmedia twitter facebook)
• BBC | BBC College of Journalism Blog – #bbcsms: The new journalism is working with 2,000 sources
  Neal Mann puts a strong case forward as to why journalists should be using social media. There are still people who resist, but it's not just a broadcasting tool, it's a way to find stories, interact with other professionals and learn a great deal.
  (tags: journalism socialmedia twitter teaching)
• #citylocal Sustaining Local Journalism conference | a storify | Wannabe Hacks
  This Storify created at the Sustaining Local Journalism conference at City University London, shows just how useful this tool is.
  (tags: local storify journalism socialmedia)

List making is hard to resist

Curiosity led me to the Sunday Times Social List after spotting a few #stsl tweets and reading this blog by Adam Tinworth. I don’t consider myself influential, I share the occasional opinion and find other people far more interesting, but put myself on the list anyway for a laugh.

This will be my highest rank ever:

Bet I won't be a 'tycoon' for long

In some ways this is a bit like Word Nerd, the Times game to show how clever you are. It was fun for about half an hour and a great piece of promotion.

At Journalism.co.uk we created a top 100 most influential journalists in the UK, in early May. We seeded the list with 50 people and then threw it out to the crowd. There are journalists missing from this list, but the people on it were nominated by their peers, and then ranked according to PeerIndex‘s algorithms.

Personally I don’t think there is a definitive list. There are people who are useful and interesting to you, and they are the most important.