Slides for a workshop on community engagement.

1. Engage Your
Community
Steve Buttry
New York Press Association
Sept. 19, 2014
#NYPA14

2. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• stephenbuttry@gmail.com

3. Stories coming up
next week?

4. Your homework
• Choose 1 or 2 things to try next week
• Choose 1 or 2 things to try in October
• Write down follow-up questions
• Slides and links on my blog

5. What is engagement?

6. Ways of engaging
• Community blogs
• Social media
• Seek community content
• Curation, aggregation
• Contests
• Don’t forget the newspaper!
• Face to face

7. Growing your network
Finding new bloggers:
• Google (blog search w/ community
names)
• Check local blogs’ blogrolls
• Check links of local tweeps
• Help set up people with blogs

8. Host some group blogs
• Community clubs
• Community religious organizations
• Youth sports teams
• Neighborhood groups
• Music (marching bands, church choirs,
garage bands, youth recitals)
• What else?

9. Social media
• Community orgs w/ FB pages
• Community FB groups (if they’re open)
• Community orgs, voices on Twitter
• Community orgs w/ YouTube channels
• Community orgs on Instagram, Flickr
• Community Pinboards

10. The Social Media
Conversation

11. Great for promotion, but also …
• Great for reporting
• Find story ideas
• Crowdsource
• Join & spur the conversation (reply,
retweet, ask questions)

12. engagement
• Photos used to engage best, but now links
w/ strong photos work best
• Don’t autopost, start a conversation
• Have a human voice
• Engage with (and police) comments
• Ask questions
• Use polls

13. engagement

15. Why converse w/ no link?
• Question invites conversation
• Engagement w/ question boosts
views/engagement on subsequent links
• Builds brand, gain followers
• Do you enjoy conversation w/ people
always calling attention to themselves?

16. CT Twitter study:
• Newsroom accounts mostly heads & links
• @5thDistrictCT conversational (links to
competition, RTs, replies, great info)
• @5thDistrictCT = 2x to 10x more referrals
per Twitter follower

17. Tips for being conversational:
• Monitor @ mentions & reply (answer
questions, thank for links, address critics)
• Make link posts conversational
• RT competition, community bloggers
• Ask questions

18. Monitor community conversation:
• Save searches for key names, hashtags
• Save location searches for breaking-news
terms (fire, emergency, siren)
• Make lists (HootSuite, TweetDeck
columns) of key community users
• Reply & RT

19. Encourage staff to be conversational:
• Be personable (can do that w/o stating
opinions)
• More than just links
• Listen to community; reply & RT
• Livetweeting events

20. What’s your social-media voice
• All about me?
• Join other conversations?
• Appropriate to content (light, serious)?
• Who would your social-media voice be
(think of a character)?

21. Crowdsourcing tips
• Say what you know, what you need to
know
• Don’t ask for help; invite people to tell
their stories, share their photos
• Reach broader audience (hashtags, ask on
FB pages of groups w/ interests)

22. Lead the conversation
Live chat opportunities:
• Enterprise story: Reporter and/or
source(s)
• Promote upcoming game or other event
(or during the event)
• Controversial editorial
• Community leaders

23. Lead the conversation
Live chat opportunities:
• Promote contest (or contest winner)
• Columnist, editor fielding questions
• Second screen (Oscars, Super Bowl,
election night)
• Damage control
• What else?

24. Live-chat tips
• Lots of tools available: CoverItLive,
ScribbleLive, WordPress, Superdesk
• Twitter chat brings in community
audience
• Promote on home page, print product
• Moderate comments
• Don’t solo

25. Live-chat tips
• Have participants on phone call, so you
can promp participants about next
questions, know when they’re done
answering, etc.
• Give start time but not end. Plan for an
hour but OK to quit early if it’s run its
course.

26. Curating the conversation
“I think curation has always been a
part of journalism; we just didn't call it
that.” – Andy Carvin (then of NPR, now
with First Look Media), quoted in The
Atlantic by Phoebe Connelly

27. What is curation?
Museum curator:
• Studies topic
• Chooses relevant
content (other
sources & museum
collection)
• Authenticates
• Groups related items
• Provides context
• Presents exhibit
Journalism curator:
• Studies topic
• Chooses relevant
content (social
media, blogs, staff)
• Authenticates
• Groups related items
• Provides context
• Presents collected
content

28. Curation tools
• Search (Google, Twitter etc.)
• Storify
• Tumblr
• RebelMouse
• Pinterest
• Geofeedia
• Spundge

29. Curation sources
• Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr,
YouTube …)
• Blogs
• Staff content (current & archives)
• Other news media (yes, competition)

30. Authenticate & attribute
• Ask: “How do you (they) know that?”
• Ask careful questions of crowd to help
you vet & verify
• Check links, tweets & information on
sources
• Link to original source
• Attribute

31. Contest possibilities
• Holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving,
Christmas, Valentine’s, Mother’s Day,
Father’s Day, July 4)
• Seasons (fall colors, winter photos, etc.)
• Children, pets
• Sports
• Community locations

36. Contest tips
• Photo contests rock
• Facebook works (brings new likes, helps
you in news feed algorithm)
• Which is better – judging or voting?
• Experiment, learn, laugh
• Don’t forget the print product

37. Contest sponsorships
• Get advertiser(s) to provide prizes
• Tie in advertiser’s Facebook page (people
can enter by liking it)
• Event at sponsor’s business
• What else?

38. Your contest ideas
• Groups of 3-4
• Something for fall or winter engagement
• Theme?
• How enter?
• How judge?
• Ideal sponsor?

39. Video engagement
• Surveillance video
• Seek submissions from community
• Vine, Tout
• Google Voice + still photos
• Search YouTube, Vimeo
• Hangout (live on YouTube)

40. Video engagement
• POV camera
• Live webcam
• Re-ask best question (quick edit)
• Post raw video
• Live coverage
• Video from source, agency

43. Your homework
• Choose 1 or 2 things to try next week
• Choose 1 or 2 things to try in October
• Write down follow-up questions
• Slides and links on my blog