Journalists have to market their work in social media

Versión en español aquí.

A young acquaintance was applying for an online reporting job at an internationally renowned news organization.

But the interviewer did not focus on the job candidate's articles. He wanted to know more about the metrics of audience engagement with the candidate's stories -- time spent, social sharing, search traffic.

How had the candidate used social media to capture readers? How effective were the tactics? What measurement tools had he used to gauge effectiveness?

In other words, did this job candidate understand how to capture and interact with the audience on the web?

Know the Hispanic audiences -- all of them

Versión en español aquí.

Tony Morejon likes to tell the story of a community outreach program that failed because the government agency in Tampa, Florida, did not understand differences between Hispanic groups.

Tony Morejon: "All Hispanics are not alike."

The government wanted to offer health services to the Mexican immigrants who work on local farms. But instead of hiring Mexicans to do the surveys and health screenings, as Morejon recommended, they used their own employees, mainly Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The reasoning was that since the employees spoke Spanish, they could persuade the Mexicans to enroll.

It didn't work, said Morejon, Hispanic community liaison for Hillsborough County. The Mexicans politely declined to volunteer information about household health issues. Even though the outreach workers spoke Spanish, the Mexicans perceived them as authority figures to be feared rather than trusted.

Journalism marketing for Colombia, via Silicon Valley

At National Congress of 8,000-member Periodismo de Hoy

About 90 would-be journalism entrepreneurs signed up for a workshop I gave recently in Medellin, Colombia.

The focus was on how to make a journalism website financially sustainable. We did some exercises in marketing, in analyzing web traffic and presenting to investors.

Like most journalists, this group had never been taught a couple of important business concepts:

• The journalism we want to create may not be the journalism that anyone wants or needs. In other words, think first about the audience. Create a community. Build that community around high-quality journalism content. Without a community, there is no business. 

News entrepreneur advises, 'Don't think about it - do it'

Olga Lucia Lozano, creative editor
of  La Silla Vacia

Versión en español aquí.

The cofounder of one of the most important investigative journalism sites in Colombia, La Silla Vacia (The Empty Chair), has some advice for those who are thinking about creating their own website, app or whatever:

"Don't think about it, do it. Doing things is the best way to learn. To try means to fail. To fail means to learn."

Olga Lucia Lozano, creative editor of La Silla Vacia, recently shared what she has learned in the nearly five years of working on the site during a "Journalism Hangout" (in Spanish, she comes on at the 30-minute mark).

'Journalists need to educate themselves to stay relevant' -- Esther Vargas

Versión en español aquí.

Esther Vargas is a force of nature. She is social media manager for a news agency of the Peruvian government, she teaches at the Catholic University of Peru and she is a tireless promoter of education for journalists through her website, Clases de Periodismo.

The home page of Clases de Periodismo

She and her team of four dedicated collaborators compile the latest news and courses of interest to journalists and share it all through social networks such as Facebook  (54,000 "likes") and Twitter (@cdperiodismo 109,000 followers).

In addition, Clases de Periodismo -- "The Virtual Journalism School of Latin America" -- attracts 10,000 visits a day and generates enough revenue to pay salaries to its staff. The leading traffic source is Mexico, followed by Spain, Colombia, Argentina and her native Peru.


The financing model

The site has low costs. There is no office. The staff meets in cafes or Vargas's home. "We finance the site with workshops, consulting work and social media work for various companies and events," Vargas said in an interview in Puebla, Mexico, where she was giving a lecture. 

Why investigative journalism is good business

Versión en español aquí.

I may have misled people for the last few years by saying that investigative journalism is not a business but a public service.

Other people -- namely Felix Salmon, Jeff Bezos and four journalists cited by Journalism.co.uk -- are reminding me that investigative journalism does, in fact, have commercial value.

First, Felix Salmon, the Reuters blogger. He made the case in a recent post that while investigative journalism may not produce the web traffic of popular topics, a media organization reaps intangible but valuable benefits. 

For example, advertisers will see that a site is a serious news outlet "and be that much more willing to pay premium rates to advertise on the site as a result. Readers who like having fast news during the day like having meatier stuff to read over the weekend," Salmon says. 

What journalism schools can and can't teach students

Versión en español aquí.

A master's degree in English literature might not seem an ideal preparation for a career as a business journalist. Actually it served me well, for all the reasons given by advocates of a liberal arts education. 

But my own experience seems to have little to do with what the journalism job market is seeking today.  Should we be improving students' minds and souls or helping them get a job? 

These days I advise students to be practical. Employers and recent graduates are telling me that the current job market demands that job applicants know:

• Multimedia storytelling skills. Producing slideshows with sound, shooting and editing video and photos, writing for the web.
• Data and statistical skills for storytelling. Collecting, editing, analyzing and interpreting data to produce compelling interactive maps and graphics.
• Audience development skills (formerly known as marketing and circulation) such as managing online communities, interpreting data on audience behavior, crowdsourcing for information, interacting with the audience.
• Basics of programming. How to create compelling pages that attract web audiences.
• The business of media. Journalists can help a news organization generate revenues without compromising their ethics, and today that skill is more important than ever.