Confession: I sometimes pick up my phone, check Facebook, close the app, then open it again without realizing what I'm doing. I even sometimes open Facebook on my phone when I have it open on my desktop right in front of me. Sadly, Facebook isn't even my favorite social medium. I prefer Twitter and probably use it more. I couldn't even … [Read more...]
Live Tweeting: How to Get the Most Out of Conference Attendance
There are at least 75 noteworthy professional conferences hosted this year for journalists and journalism educators. Those are journalism-specific conferences. That number doesn't even include conferences in related disciplines like public relations, social media, marketing, or blogging. There are hundreds of conferences a year in just this one … [Read more...]
11 Ways to Use Instagram for Student Media Promotion
If you could reach more than half of our audience with a single tool, you'd be crazy not to use it, right? Which makes me wonder why college media staffs aren't bear hugging Instagram for being an amazing content promotion tool. More than 50 percent of adults 18-29 reported in 2014 that they used the photo sharing app, according to the Pew … [Read more...]
How News Media Should Use Facebook
The best advice I can give journalists right now is a phrase I tell my students not to say—"use social." Using social media to reach audiences is an important takeaway from the 2015 State of the News Media report. Pew Research Center researchers compile the data and issue the report each year. The findings are based on data from the previous … [Read more...]
Fabulous or Fail: My Class Facebook Group Experiment
I used Facebook groups for the first time this semester as a method of communicating with my students. The experiment had mixed results, with the groups working best in my public relations class and upperclassmen being the most active participants in all three of my classes. I've used a combination of Desire 2 Learn, free WordPress sites and … [Read more...]
Nerd Note: Writing about Media
Media are supposed to report the news, not be the news. But every once in a while you find yourself writing about them anyway. When you do, a question is likely to arise about whether media is singular or plural. In other words, for example, do you write "media is" or "media are" when you're writing about media? The answer is pretty simple, … [Read more...]
Quotable: Arianna Huffington on Social Media
"Social media are a means, not an end," Arianna Huffington. I recently finished reading Arianna Huffington's book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder. I loved the book and all of Huffington's wisdom on why it's important to build a life that's more than just rushing from one … [Read more...]