John Herman (@johnherman) came to UNH’s journalism department Tuesday evening to bring students into today’s digital world of news.
Here are some of his tricks for media illiterate journalists… and those of you who think you know how to tweet.
Numero uno, the key to getting people to read your stories online is through REPOSTING. This is really the only way people will find you today.
Online multimedia for journalists is truly invaluable. John Herman promotes the use of web video. This might not seem like anything new, but it is still worthwhile to highlight the power of web video for telling stories. Why? In short it is so much more engaging.
Something new on the horizon of journalism is the use of Geo-location. This can be seen in major newsrooms like the Boston Globe and their digital media lab, which is working on projects like a monitor of Boston featuring geo-tagged Instagram pictures (check out @globelab for more info). Geo tagging allows you to augment your reality with social media and give stories an even greater sense of place.
The biggest topic of the night was the dreaded COMMENTS section. But, get this guys, John Herman says that the comment section is a supplement to journalist’s work that can foster discussion surrounding your stories. To engender good discussions, even in the face of negative news trollers, engage with your readers through thoughtful responses when appropriate.
John Herman is kind of the king of Google+, which he says is really “the new hotness.” John Herman started hosting his own game show on Google+, which was featured on the main page of Google+. He also hosts a talent show. Be an early adapter: get on Google+! There is no effort to join, you can control your privacy, and it’s fun! The Dalai Lama even uses Google+. Enough said.
In other notes, Herman discussed a term most journalists in the room were unaware of, even though many are doing it. ‘Newsjacking’ is used as a way to inject your ideas into a breaking news story and generate tons of traffic on your own platform, i.e. your blog. Along those lines, the aggregator of all news aggregators is popurl.com.
And I’ll leave you all with this quote that Herman left us with:
“In fact, if you just think about it only as distribution, you’re not getting what you can out of social media, the most that you can, which is really about user interaction, engagement and news gathering.” – Liz Heron, The New York Times social media editor
