Journalism Next: Chapter 11: Building a Digital Audience for News

1. Journalism Next: Chapter 11: Building a Digital Audience for News Cindy Royal, Ph.D Assistant Professor Texas State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication croyal@txstate.edu www.cindyroyal.com www.onthatnote.com tech.cindyroyal.net twitter.com/cindyroyal facebook.com/cindyroyal

2. Building a Digital Audience • If journalists write great stories, but no one reads them, how will journalism survive? • Good writing is still the foundation. But it's not enough. • Make smart business decisions based on data Tracking content Web analytics Search engine optimization Effective headline writing Distribution through social media

3. Measuring Journalism • What gets measured gets managed • Essential to competing in data-driven world • Track. Measure. Adapt. • Decide what to track (stories, blog posts, slide shows, videos, podcasts, news updates, Twitter, Facebook, retweets, replies, user-generated content) • Set benchmarks • OKR – Objectives and Key Results • Make judgments based on historical data/future goals • Track your audience – use analytics

4. Identify Key Data Points • Pageviews • Visits and unique visitors • Engagement and referrers

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • How search engines work • Spiders/robots • Indexing • Queries • Google juice – Google gives more importance to a website that links to it • Keywords • Search-engine friendly headlines/content

6. Grow Audience with SEO • Content is king • Linking is queen • Make sure links make sense • Use title tags • HTML Meta tags • Effective headlines • Keywords, keyword, keywords

7. Use Social Media as Distribution Channel • Blogs • Flickr, YouTube • Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest • Reddit, Fark, Stumbleupon • Increase social capital – becoming the trusted center for a community • 2-way conversation • Puts human face on journalism • Track, measure, distribute, adapt

8. Other articles • Analyzing Data is the Future for Journalists – Tim Berners-Lee • Future lies with journalists who know their CSV from their RDF, can throw together some quick MySQL queries for a PHP or Python output … and discover the story lurking in datasets released by governments, local authorities, agencies, or any combination of them – even across national borders. • Analyzing data • Innovation happening outside news orgs – Wikileaks • Data-driven journalism is the future

9. Other articles • News As User Experience, Royal • News in a participatory culture • Expectation of participation • Q&A with Pilhofer, NYT and Herman, Storify • Engaging Users • Building Community • Fostering News Innovation • Academic Programs • Reference to Long Tail - niches

10. Entrepreneurial Journalism • By Mark Briggs, same as our textbook author • DavidsonNews.net • “Journalism is an entrepreneurial venture. We’re not the future, we’re the present of local journalism.” • Don’t wait for an epiphany • Elements of innovation • Creativity • Risk • Hard work • Optimism • The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity

11. Entrepreneurial Journalism • How do you teach innovation? • Starting a business • Market Research • Competitive Analysis • Product, revenue, distribution plans • Good reporting leads to better business. Why do people need this? • Difficult for large organizations to innovate • Innovation strategy • Make it a priority • Make failure acceptable • Set goals • Be agile • Infrastructure – communication, tools, accountability

12. Entrepreneurial Journalism • See innovation as a product • Stop planning and start doing • Practice innovation – innovation events andcontests • Be an intrapreneur – make innovation happen inside a large organization • Kill the cash cows • Reboot your brain • Stay under the radar • Be prepared to be considered a troublemaker • Innovation does happen at big news companies • Bring startup culture to newsroom (or any job) • Demos, not memos – make something! • Orgs looking for innovative spirit more than experience