curation and crowdsourcing for journalists

Crowdsourcing & Curation of Social Media Mandy Jenkins @mjenkins

#NOHSoc May 2012    

Tap Into the Crowd

What is Crowdsourcing? • When  you  call  on  your  readers/followers  to  contribute  to  a  story  

•  Calls  for  content,  news  7ps  and  story  sources  

•  Can  be  breaking  or  long-­‐term  •  Involve  a  li?le  or  a  lot  of  informa7on  

Before Crowdsourcing • Build  engaged  community  (follow  people,  converse  with  them)  • Build  Twi?er  lists  of  key  sources  for  breaking  situa7ons  • Plan  ahead  when  you  can,  have  a  plan  for  when  you  can’t  • Include  crowdsourcing  in  story-­‐planning  

During Breaking News •  Open  keyword  searches    •  Monitor  key  Twi?er  lists  •  Have  reporter  or  news  org  start  twee7ng  live  to  get  and  share  info  

Find Sources Fast

Breaking News Crowdsourcing

• Say  what  you  know  • Say  what  you  don’t  know  • Say  what  you  want/need  to  know  • Don’t  spread  rumors  • Vet  sources  &  informa7on  • Ask  ques7ons  as  you  gather  info  • RT  with  context,  note  if  it's  verified  

Search.Twitter.Com/advanced Search  by  keywords,  loca7on,  7me  

Search  quickly  -­‐  before  the  stream  is  taken  over  by  reac7on  

•  Search venues on Foursquare.com •  “Mayor” is great source for info

about a business or venue (employee or regular customer)

Search  Nearby  With  Ban.Jo  

Crowdsourcing Everyday

Google Docs

• Gathering info using Forms

• Get results • Results flow into a shareable spreadsheet

Crowdsourced map: Google Maps

Crowdmapping

Free, fast and reader-friendly

All Our Ideas

Feature Example - TBD News Example - HuffPost

Ask Everywhere

•  Print  callouts  (Tell  Us  Your  Story)  •  Social  media  promo7on  (reporter  and  papers’  accounts)  

•  Embeds  into  online  stories  • Word-­‐of-­‐mouth,  IRL  on  the  beat  

Beware B.S.

Check the person's credibility •  Check when account was created. •  How frequent are updates? •  Do they have a photo? •  Do they have friends/followers? Do they

follow? •  Check bio, links •  Check Klout score •  Google name and scam, spammer •  Contact & interview

Follow up on the tip

•  Ask for a phone number and call the person. •  Ask if they witnessed first-hand or heard

about it. •  Ask exactly what they witnessed, how they

saw it and when. •  Ask who else may have the same info.

Check credibility of the info •  Check earlier tweets/updates: Anything leading up to the tip that makes sense?   •  Do follow up tweets/updates make sense in

context?   •  Does it read authentically? Misspellings, bad

grammar, typos can also be a sign of a real person.

•  Corroborate the info

What is curation? (n)  The  act  of  organizing  and  maintaining  a  collec7on  of  media  and  informa7on  around  a  par7cular  subject  or  area.    

Curate Via Your Social Feeds

•  Share relevant info and links from you and others

•  RT others' tweets on the subject (pending verification)

Social Bookmarking

Storify.com

Publish from Curation

Storify

•  Can pull in tweets, public Facebook comments, photos from Flickr & Instragram

•  Pulls in video from Youtube or via some embeds

•  Embeds story previews with links •  Can import other Storifys (or parts of

them)

Use the Storify Plugin

•  Easiest way to save specific tweets and Facebook updates

•  Save specific passages to Storify •  Save stuff for later, for research •  All things saved go to your Storypad

Curate Using Timelines

Dipity.com  

Curate Using Timelines

Timeline.verite.co  

More curation tools • Twi?er's  Tweet  embed  feature  • Chirpstory  • QuoteURL.com  

Mandy Jenkins mjenkins@digitalfirstmedia.com

@mjenkins Blog: Zombiejournalism.com

These slides & more at slideshare.net/mandyjenkins

THANKS!

Step-­‐by-­‐Step  Guide    to  Storifying  

Via  Deb  Petersen,    San  Jose  Mercury  News  

Getting Started

- Go to Storify.com - Create an account. It is easiest to link it to your Twitter account. - Create a profile with your photo and a description of your position/beat at the newspaper. - Pick a topic and get started

Hit "Create Story" to reach this opening page. The searchable content is on the right, and your story is on the left.  

Type the main headline in the top box on the left section, and then type a short story description in the next box.  

You want your first slide to be a photo because this image will appear as its cover. Here, I clicked on the Twitter logo, and "images”.

Pick a photo by clicking on it, and then hold and drag to your story on the left. The cutline of the photo will come along too.  

Add each entry by searching the sponsored providers and dragging your selections to your story.  

Done? Hit the "Publish" button pictured below in blue. (Next to the 'save now" button which you should be clicking as you work your draft)  

Your page will look like this. Notice to the right of the headline, the "embed" button. Click on that.  

Your embed code will appear in a box. Then, click on the 'Notify" button to the right of the published button.  

This is how the cover of your stories appear in Storify. It also tracks the total number of views.