Integrating Social Media With Traditional Media

Parker Mason

About Parker Mason

• Product Support Manager, CNW Group

• BlogCampaigning.com

• @ParkerNow on Twitter

About the Presentation

• Not a very formal presentation.

• You don’t have to take notes

• I’m going to make you raise your hands

• Ask questions! Tweet!

• Also: time at the end for questions

• This is the last slide with bullet points.

“Integrating Social Media With Traditional Media”

Not a great title.

(my fault)

Social media and traditional media are integrating just fine

without us.

The lines are blurring between social media and traditional media.

Stop freaking out about social media.

It’s just media.

Stories have comments.

Easily-shareable content.

Engaged Reporters.

New Title.

“Everything I Need To Know About Social Media I Learned

From The Globe and Mail”

1. Make it easy for people to get the information they want in the

format they prefer.

How does this apply to you, the communicator?

Make it easy for anyone to access your information.

Multiple channels

Multiple formats

2. Embrace multimedia

Not limited by column inches.

Not limited by print schedules or news cast times.

So what can you do?

Add multimedia to your news.

Offer different formats.

Offer different photo sizes and qualities

Print quality and web quality

Same with video.

Enable embedding.

Offer downloadable versions.

“What if someone does something with it and re-posts it

on the internets!?!?”

Your biggest problem is obscurity, not satire.

3. Easy URLs

If you want people to access your information…

…make it easy for them.

Boston.com/bigpicture

http://ParkerMason.ca/files/October09/presentations/

CanadianInst.ppt

ParkerMason.ca/globe

People are more likely to click on friendly URLs like that.

Also! search engines look for keywords in the URL

(also: if its an electronic version of the link, always use http:// )

(and those URL shorteners can be a smart idea)

4. Keyword-rich, easy to understand headlines

*Actually BBC, not Globe and Mail

Study by Jakob Nielsen

“usability expert”

An average of 5 words and 34 characters

Great for search

No jargon.

5. Do It Live.

Everyone is busy.

People don’t have time to go to every single event.

Let them join virtually.

Do an online press conference

Give updates as they become available.

Make your spokespeople available to answer questions

online.

But!

It’s not all about technology.

6. Be Part Of The Community

“Linking to people and reading comments makes journalists

stronger”

-Mathew Ingram, Globe and Mail Communities Editor

Why?

It teaches them about their audience.

“Put the social in social media.”

Who is your audience?

The best way to understand your audience is to join them.

The best way to join is to participate.

7. Keep It Fresh

Why do you read the newspaper?

New information everyday.

Try New Things

Last Lesson:

Forget case studies.

Stop thinking about “best practices”

Go out and do something interesting.