Wired magazine had an interesting and humorous article about how blogging is so 2004. It’s all Twitter now. It’s timely because so many newsrooms are trying to figure out what to do with their blogs. Most are still yet to take off and many contain the same type of content you would find on the rest of the site. It’s also timely considering Lost Remote’s one week redesign.
I’m not so sure that blogs in newsrooms are going away. They have an important role to play and when done right, are very valuable. So, here’s my list of six things you can do to help your newsroom blogs:
- Have a voice - A lot of journalists miss this one. The key isn’t about having a bias but rather being human. News affects people including yourself, don’t be afraid to talk about it. Going towards more casual writing can really help you seem more connected.
- Don’t just post wire stories – Not only does this go against having a voice but it’s usually pretty stale and seems out of place.
- Engage with your readers - Not only should you solicit comment but you should also respond to them. You don’t have to defend every attack..I mean no one can…but you do want to be a part of two-way conversation.
- If you don’t enjoy it, you shouldn’t be doing it – This is a hard one for newsrooms but you can always tell when you are reading a blogger who enjoys blogging about their topic. It makes a huge difference. Even if your beat is education you may want to suggest that you blog about pets if that’s what you are into.
- Create content that’s easy to read on the fly – That means using lists, summarizing press releases in an engaging way, bolding important words or ideas and using links.
- Make sure you post the entire feed - Too many newsrooms in an attempt to get more page views are only posting the first couple lines of the blog post in the RSS feed and forcing users to click to get the rest. Very frustrating for the user and will cause them to stop subscribing to the feed.
What are your tips for blogging in the newsroom? I promise I’ll read and respond.
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“Make sure you post the entire feed – Too many newsrooms in an attempt to get more page views are only posting the first couple lines of the blog post in the RSS feed and forcing users to click to get the rest. Very frustrating for the user and will cause them to stop subscribing to the feed.”
Totally disagree. I sub to 200+ feeds, so I prefer headlines, a summary and a thumbnail. PLEASE don’t put everything in there. 1 in 5 articles is worth reading, so that’s why I sub. On the 1 I want to read, I will click through.
One phrase I saw on a blog post of a broadcast managing editor was “…People trust people, not corporationsâ€
In otherwords, put a human face to your presence on the web.
Dumping your station blog because Wired says so will be a grave mistake. Its another avenue, along with Twitter and other methods, to reach out and communicate with your viewers and let them talk back to you (the chemtrail kooks don’t count).
Unlike your on-air product, you can’t talk to your viewers in a one-way conversation online. If you are going to make a living telling people’s stories – the very least you can do is talk with them, not lecture them.
Blogging software is a publishing mechanism, not a medium. It’s a tool for rapidly authoring and updating content on a Web page, from anywhere, without programming. Nothing more. It’s still a Web site to the reader.
So “blogs” aren’t dead or passe. But bad reasons for creating a Web site or site page in blog format are. Just like the boom in personal Web pages, spawned by AOL and CompuServe last decade, turned out to be once the bright shiny object dimmed.
Even WordPress now allows creating a WordPress-authored site that doesn’t have to be in traditional, reverse chronological order blog format.
And I’d much rather read a thoughtful, well-reasoned blog entry, even written under the gun of time pressure, than a shotgunned, empty Twitter comment. That’s just Twitterpated.
Look at your station’s blogs, and eliminate all of them that aren’t updating at least twice a week.
Do not mandate that everyone blog. Encourage those who have a voice, to share it in a blog. Have a passionate new parent? Invite them to blog about parenting challenges.
Empower bloggers to use your publishing tools. I’ve been given the keys to publish directly, and I update far more frequently because I don’t have to go through someone else.
Consider promoting your blogs on TV. You may not be able to pay people extra to blog, but putting a promo on TV is a valuable reward.
I’ll try to forego the irony of someone who works for a corporate-produced, Silicon Valley blog declaring blogging “so 2004″ in a magazine that’s so 1998…
The “goodness” of blogs is actually in Matt’s last paragraph; “What are your tips for blogging in the newsroom? I promise I’ll read and respond.”
Twitter is a one-way conversation, unless maybe somebody reciprocates the “friending” and then, either they don’t have too many friends or they don’t actually read all of those feeds. Scoble himself, he got into a bit of a tussle with Facebook, maybe two years ago because of some arbitrary 5000 friend limit. I don’t know the ins and outs of Facebook, but I assume this “friending” mess has something to do with commenting.
During this political season, I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the TalkingPointsMemo family of blogs and out of all their sites, I spend the least amount of time on the mainsite because there’s no way to comment. I also don’t venture onto Huffington Post too often because there’s no reason to comment, it’ll soon be buried, etc. etc.
And, back to the Wired piece, as for corporate versus personal: A widely-read, frequently-updated site with authoritative information and the ability for readers to comment is going to beat some guy expressing his Obama-love from his grandmother’s basement, every time.
Wired is Popular Geek Mechanics anyhow.
@discreet_chaos… people HAVE figured out how to make twitter a two-way conversation. You’re out of the loop if you don’t know how…
@elisha – It’s only a “conversation”, if both sides are reading. That would work for a group of real-life friends, but for instance, I doubt the Denver reporter who was assigned the unfortunate task of twittering a kid’s funeral was reciprocating and reading all of his “friends”, much like TVNewser is only “following” 17, while 947 are “following” them and I sincerely doubt CNN’s Rick Sanchez is actually reading the 17,964 that he lists as “friends” (and I equally doubt that the 17,000 are also “following” each other)
OK – After glancing at the FAQ, I see that now you might be able to force people to see your replies, if they use Twitter as an interface, but my point about choosing to read and the fact that no one else can see your replies still holds. As Frank says; Blogging is just another webpage and it can be found by anyone. Comments are usually threaded with the original post, while Twitter requires something different and most people will never see anyone else’s comments.
I find that I read a lot of blogs but I’m blogging less now that I like using the micro format that Twitter provides.
I don’t think that blogs are going away any time soon, but I do think that many people abandon their blog when they fail to get traction and lack of comments. The pro’s are attracting consistent readers now, and the amateurs have faded and shifted their time elsewhere.
As our attention span decreases, Twitter, FriendFeed, and other services like these will increase in popularity, leaving behind an audience who used to look forward to the connecting in the blogosphere.
Blogging, micro-blogging via Twitter and Live Blogging … they’re all different CMS’ that can be used to reach out to community members of all varieties of attention spans … some want a headline, some want a whole story, some want to chat in real time as the event unfolds.
Using a combination of the three you have the potential to satisfy everyone’s interests.
@ Jason DeRusha: Nail on the Head. I can’t agree more than you can’t force people to blog if they have nothing interesting to say. Quality over quantity.
never liked the term “blog” anyway.
but the idea of instant publishing (like #3 frank says) is far from dead.
Great thoughts…and just to be clear I think blogs will be around for a long time. And if Wired would admit that if we listened to Wired for all of our business plans we would have been out of business a long time ago. (Granted if we listned to TV news for my life plans…I would no longer be drinking coffee or diet coke or using sweet and low…but I would be drinking a glass of red wine every night.)
Zeb pointed out that he likes to only get the headlines and a quick couple lines. I think there are some blog readers that would allow you to do that and I would rather leave that up to the user. If it makes it better maybe offer two feeds a summary feed and a full feed. But there a too many people who don’t want to click on every story they want to read and would rather skim
I’m curious if a user asked “What’s the difference between the blog content and the rest of your content?” What would you answer?
Matt: The rest of my content is UPSTAIRS in storage! If IT goes then I’M in storage!