Blogs, social capital and social media optimisation

Paul BradshawCity University, UKPublisher, Online Journalism BlogFounder, Help Me Investigate.com

Why social capital is the currency of the web (and how to start investing)

“If you enter the jobs market without one, no matter how good your degree, you’re increasingly likely to lose out to people who better present all they can do, and have the experience of creating and curating their own site.”

Neil McIntosh, The Guardian (now at WSJ). See also: http://bit.ly/dA6KEj

But first: Do me a favour.No, really.

Blogging = sharing

“This is the number one asset of the news organization: stored trust, reputational capital. Any competent journalist knows how to benefit from that: your calls get returned… like magic! But as to how that capital is created, or the transaction of trust that involves people and their connection to the news, the professional journalist is minimally involved."We start telling students in graduate school they won’t “have” credibility unless they meet professional standards and obey the rules, but this tends to be interpreted as: “if we obey the rules of journalism, and meet the standards of our peers, then we have credibility.” And that is not true. 

Jay Rosen, http://archive.pressthink.org/2005/01/21/berk_essy.html

“(Your peers may have the wrong standards.) If it were true, having a wall of journalism prizes would be equivalent to having the public’s trust.

"John Hiler observed: “For bloggers, it’s all about trust too: except weblogs are starting from zero, building their reputations from the ground up. Blog responsibly, and you’ll build a reputation for being a trusted news source. Don’t, and you won’t have a reputation to worry about.”

Jay Rosen, http://archive.pressthink.org/2005/01/21/berk_essy.html

“Here is one advantage bloggers have in the struggle for reputation— for the user’s trust. They are closer to the transaction where trust gets built up on the Web. There’s a big difference between tapping a built-up asset, like the St. Pete Times “brand,” and creating it from scratch. Bloggers are “building their reputations from the ground up,” as Hiler said, and to do this they have to focus on users. They have to be in dialogue. They have to point to others and say: listen to him! The connection between what they do and whether they are trusted is much alive and apparent. In journalism that connection has been harder to find lately. Journalists don’t know much about it. They do know their rules, though..”Jay Rosen, http://archive.pressthink.org/2005/01/21/berk_essy.html

Editorial advantagesCommercial advantagesProfessional advantages

ConversationalIncompleteInformal

Leave your virtual office. Comment. Meet.

Behind the scenesRunning storyNiche blog

A platform for what your community wants to do.

BlogVlogPodcastPhotoblogMoblogLiveblogLinkblogTumblelogMicroblogging

10 ideas for blog posts1. Respond2. Interview3. Event4. Question5. Fight6. Reflect7. Visual8. List9. How-to10.Guest post

"We can fact check your ass."

SMO: (Social Media Optimisation)

75% of online news consumers get news from links in emails & social sites. 52% share links via social media (Pew)Of those who use social sites, 49% used Facebook for news. 20% used Twitter. (Ken Doctor)Bit.ly links driving 2bn visits per monthWSJ – 7% from social sites; El Universal (Mexico City) – 15%Nieman Reports

“[Some editors] encourage – in some cases, even mandate – that reporters and writers promote their stories (and themselves) routinely through social media.”

Ken Doctor, Nieman Reports

• Social valuable• Financially valuable• Emotionally valuable• Unique? First? Connected?

What is worth sharing?

A website is not a distribution

strategy

link

Lab

1. Identify potential sources online2. Make contact and meet3. Blog your whole process – piece by piece. Not a finished narrative.

Links

OnlineJournalismClasses.tumblr.comDelicious.com/paulb/cityoj03OnlineJournalismBlog.com