Social Media

What’s your favorite social media application? Do you tweet with regularity? Are you an obsessive Facebook updater?

But I wonder, how big is the impact? My company uses Facebook and Twitter, which has attracted some notice. We gained a few subscribers from blast messages on the sites about a free trial of the News Service.  On a personal note, I usually post on Twitter when I have updated my blog and it seems to bring some readers into the site.

I tend to think, why shouldn’t I, or others, be using social media. If it brings you even a few more readers, that’s definitely a plus. I’ve also come up with more than a few stories from Facebook or Twitter. 

But how do you maximize the use of these sites? Is posting headlines or updates enough? Should you be direct messaging or replying ot other users? Should you be on as many sites as possbile or target the ones that specifically work for you or your company?

Here are my thoughts…

* Not every social networking site is going to work for you. For example, my company is subscription based. So, I’m not going to post on some content sharing sites and give away the product. We do need to make money. Don’t forget that journalism is a business, no matter how noble you think it is.  And unless you work at a huge news organization where there is a person whose entire job is to handle social networking, you don’t have time to sit at the computer all day browsing those sites. Stories need to be written.  So, find what works for you/your organization, and make the most of it.

* Making your presence known on Facebook might let sources fe3el like they know you better. While I still feel a bit weird using Facebook to contact sources, I’m amazed how quickly sources will occasionally message you back on Facebook instead of calling you. I don’t know why, but it happens. If you have a quick question and not a plethora of information, it could be the way to go.  It goes against the traditional grain of working the phone, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

* Do blast message members of your company Facebook group, but not too often. Think about how many times you delete those messages. But, if you want to alert them to something special, this could be very effective.

Remember, all of this is free and doesn’t take up a lot of your time. Do you have any ideas or better ways to utilize social networking sites for your news org?