In the past year, I was able to build interaction with our page and take the number of “fans” (now they people who clicked “like”) up from 250 to 1330. It is not very large, but a nice start. I expected younger, more digital news consumers to participate. But in the end, I’ve found people 30 and older are more likely to comment. They are also more likely to share photos and stories with our Ning network. But on slower news days, the interaction stops. Also, very sunny and nice days slow down the conversations as well. It makes sense.

But I didn’t really understand Facebook interaction and its potential until I took my mom blog about my daughter to Facebook. I invited people I knew to “like” it. Then I started adding little stories that would never make it to the blog. I shared and met and created better online relationships with people I know and don’t know. In two weeks, it has boosted the blog’s site traffic by 100 percent. Readership time increased by more than a minute per visit. I think it’s fascinating.

On our news page, when we link to our site, it boosts traffic. But I have found building a relationship with our news readers are not as easy as it has been on Twitter. Our news users visit and maybe comment but there is little community I seem to be able to build there. It may be my fault. It may be our market. Maybe I just haven’t found the right way to take full advantage of the Facebook experience. But when I work with my mom blog page, there is consistent interaction. There are people who have liked the page who have never met me or my daughter. There are people who made new connections with us and the website that would have never happened without the Facebook experience.

With these positive experiences, I’m trying to find ways to take my new knowledge of Facebook page success and move it to our newsroom’s page. I added my name to our news page’s info box to try and add transparency to the “wizard behind the screen” feeling a Facebook page can give. I try to not over post, but worry about days when we under post. I have not given many people access to our Facebook page. I don’t have a tool that helps me manage access like CoTweet which I use to manage our many, many KOMU Twitter reporters. I’d love to hear other ideas out there.

I have had a chance to get involved in great conversations about privacy as well. A long time ago, privacy was easier. The majority of our actions were behind closed doors and they stayed there. Work activity stayed at work. Home life stayed at home. But with the ease of sharing and communicating, we are all much more connected. That means we are also a lot loss private. So what is privacy now?

I am okay with parents at my kids’ schools knowing that we spend a lot of time participating in sports and other after school activities, but I wouldn’t be happy if Nike and LL Bean knew about it without my permission because I talked about hiking boots or a soccer game on Facebook. I get creeped out any time strange businesses try to tweet me about services just because I mentioned server space on Twitter. But I know every word I see and every action I mention on Twitter is public. I’m more aware and I’m careful with what I say in that social space. So I’m learning about a new level of privacy. And I think many people are starting to realize there’s a new level of privacy that we may not have control over.

That’s why the changes in Facebook’s privacy structure scared a lot of people. I’m fascinated with the Like Button site… and I have shown it to many people who were shocked by how easy it was to see what our Facebook friends “like.” I added the “like” buttons to this blog and my mommy blogs. But now I feel like I may have made an error jumping into the “like” craze so quickly. Am I invading my readers’ privacy? My fascination may be a privacy invasion to another person.

I have not decided where I stand in my opinion about Facebook. I’m deeply involved in that space. I joined in 2005, I teach my students how to use it as a tool to connect with my newsroom’s audience and how to stay in touch with potential contacts that can help get them jobs someday. I use it to link to people I would never stay in touch with but Facebook makes it possible. I do feel a bit used by the Facebook leaders. But I also feel like I am willing to give up some privacy for the service it provides… I’m just not sure Facebook is transparent enough about what privacy I’m giving up by using the site. Have you seen the New York Times graphic that shows all 170 steps to customize your privacy? Wow.

Where does the news business play in all of this? Well, we need to understand how the general public feels about privacy. The challenge right now is each person has a very different opinion about privacy. Our audience/readers/viewers/whatever you want to label people who consume information you produce are in the middle of such an amazing shift of privacy that we are serving them while privacy expectations range from “Not in my house” to “Please make sure you tell me before you share anything to advertisers” to “Aw heck, I don’t mind.” We need to be mindful. We need to participate in social spaces while being aware of these many different perspectives. We need to be as transparent as possible. We CANNOT do what Facebook is doing. We have to be open at every step. As Dana Boyd wrote as a follow up to yesterday’s blog post, Facebook is a utility. Journalism is a service. There’s a difference there. I think it’s an important one. And it’s a conversation that we need to talk about a lot. And Facebook is just one element of a much larger shift in our culture.

(Image courtesy of Horia Varlan‘s Flickr page)

Twitter
I used to lifecast a lot more than I do now. As my number of followers jumped and as those followers were more and more involved journalism and technology, I became more mindful towards what I wrote and started to mindcast more. I explained my thoughts on lifecasting/mindcasting earlier in 2009. I think I still believe in a combination of mind/lifecasting. But I toned down the life portions. Twitter turned into a more professional venue than when I joined in 2007.

I also took Twitter and made it a mainstay in our newsroom. Thanks to the CoTweet tool, I have multiple people helping manage the tweets from all of our daily general assignment reporters in the newsroom. Feel free to check out how I explained the use of that tool if you’re curious. (Hootsuite is another option if you are curious about other options that offer similar benefits.) My focus on newsroom Twitter use quieted me down a lot on my personal account.

Facebook
I have always used Facebook as a place to connect with people I have met face-to-face. I’m more open about the information I share about my children and I post a bunch of pictures. I tend to connect with friends and family in this space. But in the last year, Facebook became a more powerful tool on a professional level and for my newsroom. I started friending more people in the industry and I picked up my use of fan pages for my newsroom. I plan to start using some of the settings that allow me to regulate security based on groups when I have a little time to myself. (Good luck to me.) I haven’t perfected a process of using Facebook on a professional level for the newsroom at this point, but I look forward to getting better at it in 2010. The one thing I do know about Facebook is I moved a lot of my lifecasting from Twitter over to Facebook in 2009. I also started looking at how a fan page may be more useful for certain businesses over building a blog or Twitter account. Of course it all depends on the target audience or customer. But I found myself recommending the creation of Facebook fan pages for the first time in 2009.

Blogging
I run three blogs. I have this one and blogs about each of my children. My son’s blog is mainly aimed towards family members. It hasn’t picked up a lot of organic viewership. I don’t market it… but it’s a sweet space to share his life updates. My daughter was born with a physical difference and it has gained followers organically through my membership in online communities and support groups. (I help co-moderate a support group in Yahoo Groups) After my trip to SXSW in 2009, I started considering taking her blog up a notch and actually working on SEO and increasing its marketability. I’m still not sure if I will go in that direction. My trip to SXSW in 2010 will probably convince me. Of course I have this blog. I wish I could give it more love these days. The newsroom job and my efforts to put my thoughts into practice are really important. I would love to spend more time writing out my thoughts on our work. These are excellent goals as we head into the new year.

The one major change I made in my blogging practice in 2009 was to move my mom blogs to WordPress. (This blog has always used the WordPress platform.) I spent more time playing with templates and learning the potential of this CMS for other news-focused websites. I played with the Money Commons site and there is a possibility the project could come back to life this year.

Mobile
I’m an iPhone user. I’ve had one since it first came out. Lately I’ve found I use it even more. The expansion of applications help me run a mobile version of almost every tool I use on my computer. I can work entire days without opening my laptop. I am not ready to travel without my computer, but I can see that happening in the near future if it becomes possible to upload the photos I take from my SLR camera or the HD video from my point and shoot camera to my phone.

Online Portfolios
I have taught an Internet-based course for the last four years and a major focus of it has been to teach my students the skills needed to build an online portfolio and know how to keep up with it when they graduate and move on with their careers. That way they can continue to promote their work online without needing to spend extra money or rely on someone else to build a website. In the last year I really focused on showing students how to take advantage of open source CMS or free tools (with the opportunity to upgrade) like Wix and Weebly. My tools page expanded this year to include document sharing and collage making tools. Since moving away from Dreamweaver and into more user-friendly tools, I’m seeing more of my students continuing to update their online portfolios and keeping potential employers interested in their work. These days I’m also talking more about why LinkedIn is a helpful tool. I’ve also expanded my use of these tools personally. I used Weebly to build a personal family holiday website and I’m starting to just jump in and use these tools to help friends expand their career potential online because I think what I’m teaching is useful for any career – journalism or not.

Other Tools
There are more and more tools coming out to help us communicate. In the last year, I started finding ways to use Ning, Livestream, Qik, Cover It Live, Google Wave and Google Voice. My goal is to constantly try these kinds of tools, offer my newsroom opportunities to test them and put them into the workflow of our newsroom if and when it is appropriate. In the meantime, I’m also hoping to find more opportunities to use these tools in the classroom. In 2010, I hope to allow my students the chance to live blog, tweet, stream… Whatever we can think of… Just to give them the experience of playing with these kinds of tools.

Happy new year to everyone and I’d love to hear how you’ve changed your use of technology in the last year.

Jen Lee Reeves is a fan of

KOMU-TV

Create your Fan Badge

To me this is a big deal because it makes it MUCH easier to show and share a fan page. I tweeted earlier today saying I think this is Facebook sharing a little bit of Ning.

He focused a lot on Facebook and Twitter. It was great to hear what he had to say and really reminded me how important it is to focus on the social networking tools that people already use. (I say that often – it’s so great to hear someone else have similar thoughts) You can target people who are in your newsroom who already know how to use these tools and have them help you administer the products. They’ll teach you stuff you probably didn’t know.

Facebook is savvy with its product pages. Not only does it give you the opportunity to promote your newsroom’s brand, you can get creative, promote and track the activity on your page. This is something I haven’t taken the time to do yet but recently got the support of my station to move forward and really work on building a great identity on Facebook. What’s even better, Facebook has written up how to do it. It’s very smart.

Worried about snarky comments? Facebook requires less maintenance on the snarky level because people have to use their names and maintain their true personality on that site. It’s a great point. You will see fewer snark because you can’t slam a newsroom anonymously. Your reputation is important on Facebook… so you probably won’t muck it up just to leave negative comments on a newsroom Facebook page.

A big discussion came up over employees using Facebook at work. Everyone should have access to social media. Former news director and current MultiMedia Concept Group’s multimedia executive Joe Coscia said it really well: “This is the voice and pulse of what our market is saying.” He wants to hire younger people who have the smarts and know the technology. That’s what rubs off onto the rest of the organization. His big question (which is everyone’s question) is how is this going to help the core business. This isn’t driving the same margins. Maheney mentioned newsrooms should develop a written guideline for your staff on how they should manage their time. “I don’t mind Facebook use – but I want to know they’re on there promoting the company on company time.”

The next portion of the discussion to use your Twitter accounts to engage your audience. Some sites have a cache — there’s a delay in posting!! (Could be 3, 5, 10 minutes late!) Your logo, information can pop up right away using Twitter.

Chip showed how Tweetdeck works, how to search topics, follow trends and understand some of the basics of hashtags. Twitter isn’t a big deal because it is a website – what is great is the power of the site. Every post is open and viewable by anyone else. It’s powerful as the messages travel everywhere and anywhere. You can track trends with Twitscoop and other tools… Twitter gives you all of its content and it gives anyone a chance to harness that information. All of that content is free. These tools help organize the millions of tweets a day.

Assignment editor could create searches to keep track of information in your area. It’s portable. It’s quick. It’s informative. So dang simple.

Chip is going to offer advice on tech tools later on today at RTNDA… So he wrapped up with some general tools and advice.

“How To Win Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie. Chip used this book as a great example on how to use social networking. So he tweaked the advice into today’s terms.

1. Realize the social networking world does not revolve around you or your station. It’s everyone’s home! You don’t have a tower. You’re not
2. Listen before you speak. See how people talk to each other. Figure out the terminologies. Ask questions. People love to help. But listen first.
3. Make your friends feel special. (@reply by a person’s name) A big personality who replies or comments and call someone out by name, it’s special to them.
4. Ask lots of questions.
5. Proactively manage the conversation
6. Bring something to the table that the online community values.

You as a leader in a newsroom can implement these tools:
1. Be online. You don’t have to be the biggest consumer, but you need to be out there with a genuine interest. You need to show that it’s important and you care.
2. Learn to keep score. This is for any kind of online work. Check the metrics on your online properties. Hold yourself accountable for raising traffic month to month.
3. Start small. Move fast. Start with one thing – one tool to connect with your audience. Maintain it and keep it moving. Do something new again next month. One month, get onto Twitter. Next month, get onto Facebook. Do seminars to teach the culture. Take advantage of the social networking experts in your town. (Chip’s town has meet ups where
4. Exploit your expertise. If it’s weather, communicate really well about weather. If it’s investigative reporting, do it.
5. Learn a new skill every month. If you can do it, your staff can do it.
6. Experiment. It’s OKAY to fail, as long as you “fail fast” and learn. Don’t let it linger out there. See what works and move on. Set a time limit and decide if you will move on or keep it going.
7. You can’t stand still. Learn. Go to Mashable and learn.
8. You can’t try everything at once
9. Hire people who know more than you.

Your staff needs to know how you stand on social networks. Be open and honest.

The simple fact: I have too many jobs. As a professor, newsroom manager, fellow, grad school advisor, technology and policy committee member, technology faculty council member… mom, wife, dog owner, home owner… I could go on and on and on. To build a community I would need to shuffle priorities and lighten my load.

This is a big reason why Smart Decision ’08 didn’t take off as a community. It’s why I’m not pushing too hard to publicize my current economy project. I had initially thought a collaboration of traditional media content that is aggregated into a single site would bring enough viewers to develop a community. After working with Jane Stevens and watching her project grow, it makes more sense to develop the community and supplement it with traditional media aggregation. Jane is working on creating a structure of web-based health communities that focus on specific topics. She’s also helped launch a journalism web community called the RJI Collaboratory. These communities need time, attention and commitment.

While I have tried to develop my Money Commons site, I have also taken all of my lessons learned to KOMU. I have changed the way we use Twitter. We have launched a social networking community. We’re trying to find better and more effective ways to use our Facebook page. I have had a chance to share what I’ve learned about social networking to media outlets and many more faculty and students than I evercould have talked to if I was working exclusively out at the television station. I’m so darn lucky for this opportunity. I hope to have better ideas on the steps to take towards expanding my Money Commons community. My time with RJI is coming to a close, but I’m going to continue to look to a future of helping the Missouri School of Journalism prepare for an unknown but exciting future.

After a huge revolt against Facebook’s Terms of Service the company announced it plans to go about things differently.

In the Facebook Blog, we learn that members will be asked to vote on new Facebook Principals and a new Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. I will be very curious to see how many people read it, post comments and then see what comes of this process.

Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg writes:
History tells us that systems are most fairly governed when there is an open and transparent dialogue between the people who make decisions and those who are affected by them. We believe history will one day show that this principle holds true for companies as well, and we’re looking to moving in this direction with you.

I’ll be interested in seeing if that actually happens. (Yes… You can hear a slight note of pessimism. It’s the journalist in me) Are you going to join those groups to put your five cents into the process? Will anyone take the time to do the reading and giving input? Is Facebook that important to you?

KOMU.com (my home away from home) is streaming it live. All of the networks and 24-hour cable stations will offer live streams of the ceremony. But there will be many other options. Obama’s inaugural committee sent out an email offering a link to watch the ceremony. Hulu.com, Ustream.tv, and Mogulus.com have streams live on the front of their sites. The most interesting option to me is how Ustream now offers live video streams onto your iPhone! I applied for access to the new iTunes application and gave it a try a little while ago. There appears to be streams of the inauguration from the Associated Press and CNN.

I haven’t tried the chat function yet but it will be interesting to see what people have to say during the event. I wonder if iPhone users will have more productive conversations than on standard chat rooms. I’d love to hear of any other creative ways you are watching the inauguration.

UPDATE: Many of my Facebook friends say they plan to watch CNN’s live stream of the inauguration it is offering on Facebook. I’ll have to check that out. (okay — it was great)

Mashable is asking everyone to vote for the spot with the best way to watch the innauguration online. I ended up enjoying a combination of Twitter, the iPhone stream on Ustream and the CNN/Facebook combo. Check out the amazing numbers the website is posting about that website partnership.

ANOTHER UPDATE: There are a number of wonderful photo collections developing online:
Washington Post Flickr Collection
NPR’s Andy Carvin is collecting listener photos as they email them in.

Poynter is keeping track of headlines and webpages

I look at this on two levels: How can it work for me and how can it work for my news website.

For me, I love social networking. I love chatting, learning and sharing. It’s kind of obvious from my previous posts. But I think it’s so cool to be able to share and see different perspectives from people I trust. It’s the same idea as having a get together with your friends – but I know I’m not alone when I say many of my friends live across the country. We move around a lot! Not to mention, my job has given me the chance to meet really cool and smart people in all kinds of locations. Social networking lets me stay in touch in ways that writing a letter and sending it in the mail can’t do. And in a slightly self-centered way, it gives me a chance to know what my friends are doing after years of them reading my family blogs and never leaving comments! They know all about me but I don’t know a thing about their most recent updates.

On the professional side of things, I want my news product used by my market! So that’s why I tried an aggregated website sharing the news from KOMU.com, the local NPR newsroom and a local newspaper as a test. We’re aggregating all of our election-themed news and sharing it into the SmartDecision08.com website. This is a way to create a one-stop information hub on the election season in Missouri, specifically mid-Missouri. I don’t have enough funding to make it function as well as I would like it to function, but it is deep. There is so much information and it’s delivered in a way that can really let a news and political information consumer learn a lot. I want to find ways to help collect information and give people the change to socially learn and share on this kind of level. Take news and make it personal. That’s been my goal for years. It’s so cool to see how today’s technology is reaching the concepts I thought about a long time ago.

I am trying out a new site called blippr.com – it gives you a way to socially share the things that entertain you: books, movies, music and games. It’s a level of social networking I haven’t really participated in before. Facebook has all kinds of options that include those items, but blippr seems to have a very clean, concise and non-gimmicky way to accomplish sharing entertainment reviews. It connects to facebook and twitter and friend feed so the idea is to use it as an aggregator of sorts to collect and share your likes and dislikes within the products you already use. I think that’s where everything is headed. I just wish I could wrap my head around how we can use these kinds of tools and still help inform online consumers the news they want and possibly need to know to participate in the non-computer based world where they live. I would have something really cool if I had money and programmers who would put up with my constant brain dumps!

I’m deep inside many different social networking tools. I use them personally in order to see how useful they are for my job. If it’s useful for my day to day life, then there may be a great reason for my newsroom to share its information using those tools. A year ago I got into Twitter, but no one else in my circle got into it so I left. I jumped back in last fall and it’s really picked up steam. Now I’m trying to think of ways these short messages can be helpful for my job and I’ve enjoyed what I can talk about in my life. Fun products like Tweetstats can show off what I talk about the most (like kids, work, meetings, newsroom). I spend a lot of time playing with these tools and thinking big — on a personal and professional level. I blog on WordPress and Blogger, I tweet on Twitter, I post pictures on Flickr, I create “scrapbooks” on Scrapblog, I co-moderate a Yahoo group, I connect with people on LinkedIn and Facebook. I oversee a news website and an election website. I text, I surf the web from my phone. It’s a hell of a juggle and someday someone is going to find a way to merge all of these products and concepts that offer a connection into one cellphone based tool. I hope I’ll be able to join in and help with the creation of those tools. It wasn’t that long ago when my boss and I were talking about how he would love to see a small handheld video player — Oh you know, like a video iPod? I’m visioning the world’s most interactive iPhone where you can type, talk or post without any effort. That will be super cool. Who knows. Maybe’s Google’s Friend Connect will do that… When it goes live (and it’s rumored to launch today). This could have major implications on how to help a standard website (like komu.com) connect with its audience in a more social way. (The Washington Post explains)