15 for '15 online
DESCRIPTION
Fifteen things today's online news staff should think about and do for 2015 — or before. Updated and revised from the 2014 edition.TRANSCRIPT
Logan Aimone, MJE Permission granted for educational classroom use only.
http://slideshare.net/loganaimone http://loganaimone.com
15 for ’15 Improving your online
news operation this year
O N L I N E E D I T I O N
15 for ’15: Online Edition
Why try?• Improve constantly. Every year, every month, every
week, every story.
• Experiment. What you do, and how you do it, should be in flux. Figure out the best practices for your site.
• Engage. Better content yields an engaged audience. You want both.
15 for ’15: Online Edition
Try some new endeavors to improve your online news operation. !
You don’t have to try all 15 at once, but you can get started right away.
15 for ’15: Online Edition
No more issues.• Think online first. Don’t save things for the paper.
• The website is live. Update it frequently (like, every day).
• Don’t just dump your print content online. Post when stories are ready.
• Nobody cares about your PDFs.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Go get the audience.• The audience is well beyond your school/student body.
• Attract them through social media promotions and referrals, commenting and contextual linking.
• Share more. Make it easy.
• Referrals matter.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Be the #1 news source.• Your role on campus is to inform your audience, not just to
write stories or take photos.
• You have a responsibility — an obligation, even — to take that seriously and to do it well.
• Your audience needs you to tell the story in a truthful, authentic way.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Cover your school.• Cover things your audience likes — and needs.
• More recreation and leisure (horseback riding, boating, hiking, etc.), video games and student views.
• Less rehashing of world events, parroting professionals and prognosticating about college/professional sports.
• When you commit to a category, you’ll create content for it (health, fitness, finance, consumer news).
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Use print + website.• Don't assume the audience is reading both.
• If coverage spans both platforms, make sure a reader can catch up through a printed summary or a digital sidebar.
• Use website for updates between printed editions.
• It’s not just about a story page. Social media posts contribute to communicating to the audience. Consider using Storify.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Provide context.• Tag or categorize related stories.
• Use contextual linking, which aids the reader who might be coming late to a story.
• Use mug shots and pull quotes. A sidebar can also add a list of facts or summarize past coverage.
• Use short links, which are based on the database, not the initial URL. Kill the “http://domain.com” for internal links.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Use the platform.• Tell the story in the most appropriate format.
• Embed video and audio clips, images and multimedia pieces to enhance the story for the reader.
• Don’t just upload the JPEG file from your paper. Make the image come alive online.
• Take advantage of free multimedia resources like Prezi, ThingLink and Infogr.am.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Do more lists.• Listicle: A simple, arbitrary grouping
Example: “18 selfies with dogs”
• Definitive list: All-encompassing inventoryExample: “The 43 best moments from Homecoming 2013”
• Framework list: Only exists to structure a narrative; number is arbitrary — whatever it takes to organize/tell the storyExample: “36 reasons why you should volunteer for the Red Cross”
• More info here, here and here.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Tell us about you.• Include staff profiles with useful information and clear,
professional mugshots that fit the space provided.
• Put your policies, awards, practices and interesting trivia in the “About” section where people can find them.
• Provide the name of school and physical address.
• Make it easy for visitors to contact you, even with a generic “contact” email. With a form, make sure a confirmation is sent when the form is submitted.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Engage your community.• Allow and encourage comments. Develop a policy.
• Develop a robust and appropriate conversation with your audience via story comments and social media. Interact.
• Ask followers for story ideas, tips, sources, submissions and feedback on how you are doing. It’s a two-way conversation.
• Nerd alert: Use Akismet (free for nonprofits; flags spam). You’ll be glad you did.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Try new social media.• Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, Reddit.
• Each has a distinct audience.
• Discover the journalistic use for things your peers are already using.
• Anticipate what's next: Snapchat? Pop? Something else?
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Know your audience.• See what people are searching for, how they got to the site,
what they are spending time with.
• What’s popular? Why?
• Use them as a classroom motivator. Can you get more visitors? Can you increase acquisition from certain platforms?
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Audience experience.• Is the site responsive for mobile and tablet readers?
• Focus on the content, and make it great.
• Have a well-designed UI.
• It’s about the UX!
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Details matter.• The home page is your dashboard.
• Reconfigure based on the news of the day. You have to manage the site every time you post, including balancing widget lengths.
• Showcase the most important stories in the carousel, not just the most recent. Help the reader see what matters.
• Only use a Twitter feed that compiles tweets or mentions or is specific (sports scores, other interesting links).
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Design the story pages• Because of referrals and social media, readers land on the
story page first.
• Less hub-and-spoke navigation to/from home page.
• More inter-category clicking.
• Make it easy for the reader to find information and understand the story with context and navigation.
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15 for ’15: Online Edition
Remember the audience.• Doing a good job means thinking about what the reader
needs and using tools to meet those needs
• It doesn’t mean just providing a digital versionof the printed newspapers.
15 for ’15: Online Edition
Thanks!Questions? [email protected] @loganaimone http://loganaimone.com slideshare.net/loganaimone