Who’s the audience?Participatory Journalism class expands
the life cycle of a community’s story
Joy Mayer | @mayerjoy | [email protected]
⋙100th anniversary of a bizarre high school mascot
⋙Plenty of coverage planned. But who’s it for? And how do we make it social?
⋙Let the community know what you’re working on.
⋙Invite them to participate — and to invite others to participate
⋙Watch for what users say, and follow up leads.
⋙This one led to a story we weren’t planning to write.
⋙Run highlights from social comments in the “From Readers” section
⋙Roll these out early, and tag Facebook participants when their comments publish.
⋙Run highlights as print teases throughout the week leading up to the big package
⋙Who would most enjoy the content?
⋙Where do they already get and share information?
⋙How could we take our content to them in those places and on those platforms?
Talk concretely about the audience.
⋙Post in Facebook groups where alums spend time. Also with school-related Twitter accounts.
⋙Make a flier with coverage highlights. Take 500 copies to a home game.
⋙Include a url to track. How many people consume full content based on handout?
⋙Sell an ad on the back to the school’s booster club.
⋙Provide Snapchat coverage from the game. Reach the young audience where they are.
⋙Healthy web analytics across the package, with high percentage from Facebook.
⋙Participation and buy-in from community throughout the process.
⋙A truly social life cycle for this community story.
⋙The main crowdsourcing Facebook post reached 15,000 users.
⋙We made $150 selling an ad based on customized distribution.
⋙Track url from handout. More than half of recipients went to website.
Then ask: What “worked”?
If it works, repeat it. If not, don’t.But treat it all as an experiment.