Social Media and Thought Leadership

What's a Thought Leader?

An individual whose passion, creativity and innovative ideas lends them expertise in a subject area where they can drive conversation and lead by example.

Before Everything: Audience

● Who is my audience?● What do they want?● When is my audience online and how

can I best reach them?

On Being a Social Journalist

8 Simple Rules of Social Interaction

1. Respond to replies, comments and questions (especially questions) everywhere

2. Be transparent in all you do

3. Ask for help when you need it

4. Be thankful

8 Simple Rules of Social Interaction

5. Make corrections quickly and publicly

6. Address criticism without spats

7. Be consistent

8. Don't just push your content out

Twitter for Journalists

Powered by followers

You follow

They follow

Who you should follow

● Your competitors (& other bloggers too)● People in your field of interest/beat● Popular people in your local/topical

Twittersphere● Those who reply to you● Those who re-tweet, share your links

Finding who to follow

● By subject/location: Twellow.com, Wefollow.com

● Muckrack.com (for finding journalists)● Look at others’ follows/followers● Spy on Twitter lists ● Listorious.com

Search for Follows & Content

● Search by keywords, location, time● Reach out for more info● Follow who you reach out to

Acts to Follow

Questions to ask yourself

● When and what do I retweet? What does a retweet mean from me?

● When will I use hashtags?

● How conversational will I be?

Making Time

● Check in, don't stay on all day

● Use live tweets as notes

● Get alerts about your mentions and watched keywords

■ SocialMention.com■ TweetBeep

FacebookBeyond 'Just Friends'

Facebook Subscribe

● Largely made for journalists

● Share with people

who aren't friends

● Follow updates of those you aren't connected to

Optimizing your profile/page

● Publicly identify yourself, where you work and what you do

● Be easy to find, set up a vanity url at facebook.com/username

● Tweak all privacy settings to your liking

Target updates

Public Updates

● Crowdsource your stories

● Share behind the scenes photos and insights with readers

● Ask questions/solicit feedback

● Post your stories and those you're reading to generate discussion

Be yourself!

Wording Matters

● Posed Questions +64%● Call to read or take a closer look +37%● Personal reflections +25%● Clever, catchy tone +18%

% more feedback over averageSource: Facebook

Images Matter

Timing Matters

● Post late in the week and on weekends● Post throughout the day● Test and see what works

Act to Follow: Nick Kristof

Google Profiles

If you have a Gmail account, you have a profile. Make it sparkle.

Build Your Niche

Your Blog is a Showcase

Keys to Good Blogging: Voice

“Blogging is not a graduation speech, it’s a conversation with someone at the grad party.” - Roxanne Hack

Keys to Good Blogging: Frequency

Keep your name out there by blogging often - daily if possible.

Keys to Good Blogging: Media

●Video/Audio●Photos/Slideshows●Graphics●Embedded social elements●Source documents●Maps●Data

Cultivating community

● Engage in your comments

● Pose questions in your posts, maybe end posts with a question

● Crowdsource in your posts - ask for information for future posts from your readers

Growing Your Blog's Readership

● Link to related blogs & comment there

● Use proper SEO

● Promote using social media - multiple times

● Make sure it is shareable

Curate Your Expertise

What to Curate

● What you're reading to inform your work

● Tweets, Facebook posts and other content from other sources and your readers

● Items you may want to blog about

● Stuff to read later

Social Bookmarking

Storify

Using Your Social Streams

Crowdsourcing Tools

Google Docs

● Gathering info using Forms

● Get results

● Free word processor/Excel/Powerpoint

Crowdsourced map: Google Maps

Crowdmapping

Free, fast and reader-friendly

All Our Ideas

Feature Example - TBDNews Example - HuffPost

How Do You Measure Success?

Blog: Traffic, link-ins, comments

Twitter: Followers is part of it - Twittercounter.com

Retweets and mentions - Tweetreach.com

Facebook: Shares, comments, subscribers and likes (in that order)

Klout is but one measure

Reputation Management

Find out what people are saying and address it head-on

Set Up Google Alerts

google.com/alerts

Eliminate results from your company site:

"first last" -yoursiteurl.com

More alerts

Video alerts

RSS feed alerts

Social mention reports

Put Yourself Out There

Live Chats

Twitter Chats

● Pick a topic and hashtag

● Advertise in advance

● Join in on and learn from other chats

● I recommend Tweetchat, but you can use your own client too

● Pitch a panel or talk at conferences in your subject area or for journalists

● Talk to local organizations or organizations in your subject area

● Make videos

● Get on TV

Public Speaking

Engage in Real Life

● Go to meetups and conferences in your subject area

● Host your own meetups

● Hold office hours

Mandy Jenkins

Twitter: @mjenkinsZombieJournalism.com

Find these slides at:slideshare.net/mandyjenkins