Profession: Journalist. Not as simple as it used to be.

How the newsroom used to be.

The internet has impacted the world in many ways, many of which have altered the journalistic profession as it used to be. The internet, and more specifically social media, has provided the opportunity for anyone with a passion for writing or breaking news to be heard. It has also put more demands on professional journalists, making it essential for them to have a prevalent online presence, as well as preforming their jobs as they have always done. In this post, I plan to examine each of these elements of impact that have altered the life of journalists around the world, and at the end post a query to you the reader.

The first point I mentioned was how social media has made anyone who wants to be, in essence, a journalistic voice. With the rise in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, anyone who can access the internet can report on news that they see around them before the media is even on the scent of the story. With the rise of social media sites such as Word Press that offer free blogging services, such as this blog, it allows once again for anyone who has access to the internet to post whatever they would like. The issue with these modern day amateur journalists is the news they put out could be slighted by their views, here say, or even made up completely. However with the speed and accessibility of the internet, if the story catches interest it can spread across the world in a metter of hours, the truth a lost concept in the frenzy of discovering breaking news or fresh gossip. Examples of these incidents include the recent “death” of Bill Nye the Science Guy on Twitter, or even the rapid spread of the offensive film made to hurt those of the Islamic faith, “Innocence of Muslims”.

I know Bill, how could they just kill you off?!

The ease of anyone to report to an audience leads nicely into my second point: how professional journalists of today are expected to have a strong social media presence, as well as preform the duties they have always been expected to do. As an example, take any broadcast news reporter from a large nationwide network; beyond their normal hours of reporting and providing their expertise on other broadcasted shows, each has an official Twitter page, a Facebook, in most cases a blog, and sometimes even an Instagram account or You Tube channel (with the rise in the application’s popularity and depending on the netwrok). All of these are updated in real time when a news story breaks, as well as to update those who aren’t watching the television broadcast with one liners from the show or updates on guests who will be on the show throughout the day. Especially in the world of news reporting, or even politics, there doesn’t seem to be an “off switch” or clock out time in the world of social media. I recently met Taylor Dungjen, crime reporter for the Toledo Blade, and she discussed her social media presence as a reporter; you can follow her on Twitter at @tdungjen_Blade. Taylor told a story that particularly stuck with me, about how she was off the clock and out with some friends, when she got a tip from one of her Twitter followers. She proceeded to put her mind in work mode, wrote up a short piece updating her public, then continued on with her night.

This story leads me to my query: if you are working on social media for a company/brand/person that is not your personal account, are there set “work hours”? Or are you supposed to sit on their social media in case there is breaking news, so you can keep your followers as up to date as possible. To me, it seems like there should be a line between when work begins and when work ends, otherwise I would be working constantly and neglecting those people/things in my personal life that I care about and which also require my attention. Is there such a line? Should there be a line? Is this all dependent on your job and your company? I am curious for the answer, which I will try to discover sooner rather than later, but I would love to hear some outside thought on this as well!

MSNBC: Calming the trauma following Hurricane Sandy

MSNBC is one of the more well known liberal news stations, and the one that I personally watch the most. Not only do I like most of the hosts that appear on their news channel (thought Reverend Sharpton is not a favorite of mine), but MSNBC has an excellent handle when it comes to social media. When I can’t sit down and watch the news in the morning with my coffee, or even throughout the day, I depend on my laptop and smartphone for news updates through social media. MSNBC has nearly a million likes on Facebook, and 2 prominent twitter accounts: one simply called MSNBC with nearly 200,000 followers, and one for breaking news with over 300,000 followers. It was these social media sources that I checked when news of Hurricane Sandy’s impact began to surface.

When it was first discovered that Sandy would indeed impact NY, NJ, and other East coats areas, MSNBC began to post articles from their own website as to how to prepare for the storm if you lived on the East coast. For those not living on the East coast, the rest of the public was updated on the preparations in major cities such as New York and how they prepped the underground subway for potential flooding. Once Sandy did hit shore, MSNBC did equal coverage on how the storm was being dealt with, as well as how the presidential candidates were handling the situation. For example, there was much attention on if the candidates would be touring ravaged areas of coastline with the state governors, as well as comments made by state governors about the presidential candidate’s reactions to the crisis. They also offered advice to readers as to how they could help storm ravaged areas, and forwarded updates by the Red Cross on their Facebook and Twitter as to what supplies were needed/not needed.

Being a liberal news station, MSNBC tended to focus a lot on the support and praise President Obama received across the board, even from Republican Governor Chris Christie. The only real news Governor Romney received was how in his view, states should deal with weather emergencies on their own; or when Fox Newscasters asked Governor Christie if he would be touring the Jersey coastline with Romney and the governor said, roughly: “I really don’t care. I have a job to do, this isn’t about politics”.

Overall, MSNBC’s coverage of the disaster was thorough, though with a slight political angle. I didn’t much appreciate the politically angled stories personally, as I saw this as something we all needed to come together on as Americans, not be divided apart by election reminders. The most important, though sadly not as prominent, stories were those updating the public on the status of the cities which had been hit and what we could do to help. Save the political slights, it makes the network seem like they have an angle and that their candidate is benefitting from a terrible event.

Starbucks: Giving the people what they want

Starbucks social media campaign is one that extends across the social media sphere and beyond. Starbucks is reaching out to their public through Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and a personal blog– but they have also created their own special form of social media.

Starbucks’ Facebook page has over 32 million likes, and this is not including the Facebook pages for individual places such as the U.K. or the Philippines. Their Facebook page is active with photos, video links to their YouTube account, as well as advertising deals for specific days/products to their customer base. Some of these deals are advertised on only their social media sites to incite customers to join up.

Starbucks’ YouTube account has 14,552 followers, with nearly 9 million video views. Customers can subscribe to the account in order to: view Starbucks commercials; see videos explaining the origins of certain coffee blends as well as how they are made; view videos of the charity work the company engages in; and see videos telling the history of the company, in hopes of establishing a personal connection with customers

Starbucks Coffee’s Twitter account has close to 3 million followers, and this doesn’t even include the Twitter accounts for specific places or purposes such as ‘Starbucks Jobs’. Starbucks uses their Twitter to answer specific questions or comments  tweeted at them, as well as retweeting compliments made by their customers about the brand. This allows for easily seen customer testimonials, as well as a great way to personally connect with and communicate with Starbucks’ customer base.

Starbucks’ personalized social media, entitled ‘My Starbucks Idea’, allows customers to not only share their thoughts about the company– negative or positive– but to also post ideas people would like to see the company implement. Examples of ideas Starbucks received from their customers include: VIA (instant coffee) flavors in a variety pack; Starbucks tote bags; bringing back the pumpkin muffin with cream cheese ice cream; more ‘light’ food options. On the site they have sections dividing these ideas up in multiple ways, from most recent ideas posted to product ideas, as well having a poll question for customers to weigh in on.

Starbucks’ personal blog, entitled ‘Ideas in Action’, takes the thoughts posted on ‘My Starbucks Idea’, and keeps customers updated on how the company is attempting to implement them in real time. The blog is written by Starbucks employees, and creates a sense of loyalty to the brand amongst customers, as they can see that the company takes their thoughts and opinions seriously.

Overall, Starbucks has managed to use social media to their advantage across the board. They have managed to make themselves a personable company that their customers can reach, rely on, and enjoy supporting– something many corporations of today could learn from.

Don’t let social media be your downfall

So many companies and corporations of today have jumped on the social media bandwagon, which in theory is a good idea. However, if the company or whoever they have controlling the social media does not know how to use it properly, the plan could backfire in multiple ways.

So, here are some common mistakes that businesses new to the social media sphere may make, and how they can avoided:

1) Over posting: In their attempt to make a strong, immediate connection with their audience, oftentimes businesses will alienate them all together. A business should not exceed a maximum of 24 tweets per day, allowing for about one per hour; Facebook should have half as many posts at around 12. These social media outputs should also be planned so they are not all posted within a couple hour time span, so you are consistently putting information about your business out there.

2) Imperative content: Whatever you are posting for your business should ultimately increase your follower’s knowledge or interest in your business. The worst thing you can do is post just to post because you haven’t in a while. Also keep in mind everything you post will reflect on your business: the sources you use, articles you post, people you quote, etc. If you constantly post the same information, or information that doesn’t pull your reader’s interest, they may stop looking at your posts altogether, or worse unsubscribe.

3) Monitor your progress: This will ensure your efforts to target and appeal to your audience have not been in vain, and that you are not continuing strategies that are not working. It is also an excellent source of quantitative data that you can use to measure the business’ progress through social media from year to year.

4) Don’t over promote yourself: Posting what’s going on in your business, asking the public’s opinion about your business, and overall pushing your business’ agenda is all well and good, but you don’t want that to be your sole social media interaction. Finding other businesses, bloggers, or even celebrities who support similar causes or morals to you; this will allow diversity in posts as well as show that your business is necessary and has a ‘nitch’ in the market.

5) Decide if social media is right for you: Not every business is ideal for all types of social media; for example, if your business is not one that has multiple events, promotions, or exciting information the public will want to know multiple times a day, then Twitter may not be for your business. Instead, you may want to utilize Facebook, where you can not only post updates on your business easily, but you also don’t need 20 or so new bits of information a day to put up.

Mistakes in social media can be made, even in corporate America

Being from the Detroit area, when asked to discuss a corporate social media blunder, the one that immediately came to my mind was Chrysler’s Twitter mishap of 2011.

Chrysler, like many large corporations, decided that once they dove into the world of social media, it would be more beneficial to outsource their social media updating to a company called New Media Strategies (NMS). Though it saved them having to keep people on payroll to handle social media affairs, a negative side to outsourcing was seen clearly when Chrysler was caught as off guard as the public when a lewd tweet was posted from Chrysler’s Twitter handle, @ChryslerAutos. The original tweet can be seen in the photo below:

Chrysler hastily took the tweet down, replacing the offensive tweet with: “Our apologies — our account was compromised earlier today. We are taking steps to resolve it.” They elaborated on the events that lead to the Twitter mishap, stating in their blog that: “an inappropriate comment was issued from the Chrysler brand Twitter handle, @ChryslerAutos, via our social media agency of record, New Media Strategies (NMS). After further investigation, it was discovered that the statement was issued by an NMS employee, who has since been terminated.”

Later on it was revealed that Chrysler’s Twitter account was the responsibility of a single employee, who posted to Chrysler’s Twitter instead of his personal account. There are multiple basic social media mistakes here:

#1: NMS should not have assigned the account to just one employee. Chrysler is also slightly to blame, for not having someone from their corporation on the account as well. Having multiple people on a social media account is a safeguard for the account holder as well as those running the account, in case a mistake like this one is made.

#2: Not tweeting on the go for a corporation may also be a good guideline to follow. Social media is instantaneous, and if you are rushing about attempting to do 7 things at once as well as Tweet, you may tweet on the wrong account- as in this case- or perhaps something as small as a spelling error. Big or small, errors on a corporate account you are paid to update is unacceptable.

#3: Letting a third party company in general control your corporations social media account. A corporations social media account is a digital extension of who they are, just like personal accounts. Not only is this an issue if a person only gets their news from social media (which is actually the voice of another company, not your own, and who knows what they are saying every second of the day), but outsourcing your “online self” isn’t genuine to your customers.

So corporations, spend the extra buck and hire on your own social media experts. It will save you hassle and face in the long run.

Silly intern, social media isn’t for kids (at least not in the workplace)

After reading the article written by Hollies Thomases, as a 22 going on 23 year old- I honestly couldn’t help but be offended. I would hope that before hiring on someone to handle your company’s social media you would have had them checked out- to make sure that they are in fact mature enough, educated enough in the ways of social media, know how to handle themselves online, etc. At the same time even if the person you hire is qualified in all these ways, I would definitely still suggest there be a training session about what to post, how to respond to disgruntled customers/consumers, as well as making sure the person knows how to write ( a must, duh).

I was also attempting to figure out why Thomases wrote this article, because 23 year olds in general are incompetant on Facebook? Or because friends of hers with businesses are hiring young, fresh out of college students willy nilly because social media scares them.

I feel as though there is a difference between the average college student (who apparently needs the list of what not to do in Thomases’ article) and the recent grad who has extensive professional social media experience who would be a huge benefit to a corporation. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people I know that I would not let anywhere near my corporate Facebook if I saw the way they conducted their own social media accounts- but not all of the people that come to mind are my age. In fact, more than half of the names I have in mind are in fact much older than myself. Even in the textbook “New Rules”, first chapter, it discussed how in fact people of the younger generation are much more careful about what they place on the web than those who have grown up around social media and therefore know the dangers.

In my opinion, most of the issues Thomases has with hiring someone young to handle the business is somewhat of a risk whenever you hire someone. It doesn’t seem intelligent to have someone new, no matter what the age, handle your social media aspect unless they are well versed in not only the goals of the company, but also the image the company displays to their consumers. I resent the idea that simply because of my age I would be portrayed as being immature/having a lack of etiquette/being without professional communication skills- I would like to think that with all of the internship experience I have had, as well as some educational training about the company, I could rival someone who is older (and therefore perceived as being more competent) than myself.

Presidential candidates attempting to Facebook update and Tweet their way to victory

Within this presidential election, the use of social media is more prevalent than ever before. After the Republican National Convention’s secret keynote speaker Clint Eastwood created a 15 minute parody of himself taking to an empty chair- meant to symbolize President Obama- the Democratic Party choose to take their response to the web. Obama’s campaign responded to Eastwood’s remarks by posting this picture to the right with Obama sitting in the President’s seat with the caption “This seat is taken” on their Twitter as well as Obama’s multiple Facebook pages; the campaign also created a seperate Twitter account called @InvisibleObama.

A San Fransico Chronicle article written by Julie Bykowicz discusses the huge surge social media has taken since the last presidential election in 2008, as well as how much larger an influence/role it has. According to the article, “as of Sept. 4, it (the chair photograph) had been retweeted more than 54,000 times — the most activity of anyone during the Republican convention and the second most ever from Obama’s account”.

“This will be, without a doubt, the most socially connected election season ever,” Joe Green, president and co-founder of NationBuilder, said to Bykowicz. “Democracy in its most basic form is really about mobilization of the masses, and that is what social media enables at the grassroots level.”

Not only is social media the best way for candidates to reach their electorate, but it is also the way that many people of the younger generation receive their news in general, a critical age group the candidates are fighting to win over. Most of what I know of each political candidate and their separate stances has come from either their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, or the new of the two social media sites. I don’t always have time to sit down and watch the news for hours when the RNC or DNC is broadcasted, but I definitely did check the updates of the conventions from each candidates’ Twitter account, Facebook, and later watched some of the speeches on YouTube. Without the candidates utilizing social media, I know that I for one would know much less than I do now. Social media is overall, simply, very convenient. It can be looked at on the go, and if you have a smart phone can be accessed almost anywhere. That is the type of source that in the technology age, candidates are smart to utilize.

To creep or not to creep, that is the question…

Hopefully no one from her professional life sees this...

In regards to the discussion we had in class last week about employers “creeping” on a potential/current employee’s Facebook, I honestly don’t think it’s a terrible idea. Not only in the electronic world, but also in the real world- you never know who is watching. With smart phones and internet access almost everywhere, a crazy night out at the bar could be uploaded online in a matter of seconds, which isn’t exactly something you would like someone to judge you off of, least of all a future/current employer.

Though there are measures you can take to protect your Facebook, you never know how easily those protection or privacy settings can be hacked in to or broken. And though catering yourself to please your boss is no way to live, if you are really hankering to go nuts- have a party at your apartment, or don’t take a camera with you out to the bars, or minimally don’t post your drunk photos on Facebook.

Your actions inadvertently represent the company, no matter where you are or what you are doing; this statement is especially true in the field we are choosing to go into. No company in their right mind is going to hire you to represent the company’s image to the media when you cannot even handle your own personal image in an appropriate manner.