A New York Timescolumn titled, “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?” drew heavy criticism Thursday on Twitter and even spawned a fake account parodying Arthur Brisbane, NYT’s public editor who wrote the piece.
Brisbane asked if hard news reporters should push sources like politicians and companies if they provide the media with information that seems false. In an op-ed piece, Brisbane says, a reporter can call out a lie. But in a hard news piece, he questioned whether a reporter should just report the facts even if evidence points to those “facts” being false.
Brisbane — who is the fourth public editor for The Times and has an extensive journalism career that began in 1976 — wrote a follow-up post explaining what he was attempting to articulate in the original piece, but it did nothing to soothe the annoyance of people on Twitter and commenters who were outraged at his “truth vigilante” question.
A list published Jan. 10 ranks news organizations based on the level of engagement they incite on Google+. Here are the top 10 outlets that garner the most +1s, shares and comments.
A list published Tuesday reveals which news organizations on Google+ instigate the most reactions from their followers. Since Google+ brand pages launched in November, media outlets have been playing around with how to best use the 6-month-old social network.
Based on +1s, comments and shares, The New York Times, Mashable and The Next Web appear to be finding the most success at roping in heavy engagement (see the top 10 and statistics in the gallery above).
Adam Sherk, vice president of SEO and social media at Define Media Group, ranked the top 45 media outlets by using All My +, a tool that analyzes public Google+ data of individual users or pages to spit out engagement statistics, charts and most-popular posts.
Google‘s social network has naturally attracted news organizations that want to interact with readers or gain more eyeballs on their stories, photos and videos. However, not all brands are getting the visitors they seek. Recent data shows that of the 61 companies on the Interbrand Top 100 Brands list that are on Google+, only 13 had followings of 5,000 or more.
Quick Q&A: How The New York Times Manages Its Google+ Page
Never one to be complacent or ignore changes in the social media landscape, The New York Timesposted the rankings on its Google+ page to thank its community and ask for suggestions on how to improve its strategy.
We asked the folks handling NYT‘s Google+ page a few questions to discover what’s working for them and what’s up their sleeves for the future. The publication’s social media editors Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland sent Mashable these responses Wednesday.
Mashable: What do these rankings mean to you and your Google+ audience?
“Our Google+ strategy is to focus on a few key features that make the platform and the community unique: Deep conversation and smart debate, and video hangouts.”
NYT: “Topping the list means our emphasis on selectively choosing Times pieces that are likely to spark interesting conversation, and asking the right questions to kick it off — as opposed to focusing on something like breaking news — may be working. It doesn’t really change how we feel about the community there. Since we started, we’ve been checking in with them and trying to incorporate their feedback into our strategy, and we’ll continue to do so.”
Mashable: If you had to describe your Google+ strategy in a sentence or two, what would you say?
NYT: “Our Google+ strategy is to focus on a few key features that make the platform and the community unique: Deep conversation and smart debate, and video hangouts (we’ve been experimenting with these behind the scenes and will be doing more publicly soon).”
Mashable: How has that Google+ strategy evolved since launching your page?
NYT: “Our strategy has evolved as we’ve heard from our commenters. At first, we were focusing on technology stories. Although those still do really well, we’ve broadened our scope to include other kinds of content our community seems to like: analytical facts and figures, interactive features, surprising photographs. In our first video hangout, we found out that a creative artistic community is thriving on G+ and we’re widening our scope to include more pieces that would appeal to them. We also see how much people enjoy interacting with our reporters and editors in the comments. Expect to see more of that.”
As the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, news websites throughout the world have been organizing social and digital media projects that commemorate the day that changed lives forever.
The event is unlike any other. It touches every community in the country and many across the globe, prompting discussion, emotion and remembrance. For news organizations, it’s an opportunity to inform, engage and, with social media, listen to readers.
Much like the American people did on 9/11, media sites are leaning on each other for support and inspiration. Together they’re developing interactive and informative web projects that tell the story of 9/11 as it’s remembered today.
Here are some of the most notable digital media collaborations commemorating the anniversary.
New York Times & YouTube
Media powerhouses The New York Times and YouTube are joining forces to create one of the biggest 9/11 multimedia packages on the web. The project features original Times videos, standout videos curated from YouTube and reader-submitted videos from the Times community.
Social narrative-building tool Storyful is also a part of the collaboration, helping to curate the best videos from YouTube and the Times’ reader-submission pool. Storyful editorial director David Clinch said he and his team have already delved into more than 100 reader videos and expects they’ll have selected 50 of the best ones by this weekend. Readers were prompted with three different questions about memories of and change since Sept. 11, 2001.
“The range of what we’ve gotten has already exceeded my expectations,” said Alexis Mainland, social media editor at The Times. “I didn’t think we’d get such a variety of people: old people, young people, people of varying backgrounds.”
The Times has done a fair amount of user-submitted video projects but the collaboration with YouTube helped garner far more entries than the site would have gotten without YouTube. “It just gives us a whole ‘nother dimension,” Mainland said.
Yahoo! News & 9/11 Memorial
Yahoo! News and the 9/11 Memorial established an official partnership to create an extensive microsite that showcases a variety of content including photo, video and text stories from both readers and Yahoo! News reporters. The 9/11 Memorial helped provide sources that the reporters used to tell the story of Sept. 11′s 10th anniversary.
“It’s our storytelling expertise and, in many, cases their assets,” said Sam Silverstein, senior director of editorial events at Yahoo! News. “There was a great level of trust they were able to turn over to us in using their materials — and the results, I think, show themselves.”
The microsite has its own tab on the news.yahoo.com navigation bar and incorporates existing site features such as the The Upshot blog and the Yahoo! Contributor Network, which encourages community member contributions. Silverstein said the site has received more than 700 reader-submitted stories and he expects they’ll see at least 1,000 by Sunday. Readers from across the globe are sharing and have talked about all 9/11-related topics from being Muslim in America to soldiers inspired to enlist.
In addition to working with the 9/11 Memorial via storytelling, Yahoo! News also provides a link on the site for readers interested in making a contribution. The company will also be making its own donation to the organization.
Arguably the most amazing contribution Yahoo! is making to the rememberance of 9/11 is its site-wide Digital Moment of Silence. At 8:46 a.m. ET, the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, the site will come to a complete stop. Whether users are browsing the news or checking their email, a page will appear asking them to take a moment out of their online lives to reflect for a full minute.
“It’s a never-been-done-before piece of Yahoo! technical wizardry,” Silverstein said. “The collaboration backstage and the way that Yahoo! has pulled together around this is really heartwarming.”
The Washington Post & PostSecret
Among the The Washington Post‘s web features commemorating 9/11 is a virtual memory wall that showcases reader submissions, including drawings, messages, photographs and collages, that represent their feelings about 9/11. The project is a collaboration with PostSecret, an ongoing community art project in which people mail in their secrets anonymously on homemade postcards.
“We wanted to create a tribute that blends traditional storytelling and digital presentation through the sharing of your private reflections on Sept. 11,” wrote Melissa Bell, a web columnist working on the project.
The collaboration isn’t a formal partnership, but it’s truly one-of-a-kind. Though many news sites are featuring reader memories via videos, photos and blog posts, washingtonpost.com found a creative niche in homemade postcards. Bravo to its web team for taking inspiration from a successful web project and making it work for their community.
NPR & Center for Investigative Reporting
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and NPR have come together to launch America’s War Within, a site that houses an extensive joint reporting project on homeland security and the first 10 years of the war on terror. It hosts in-depth text reports, video, data and graphics as well as a searchable database of homeland security documents.
Reporters worked closely together and each organization had control of the elements it created. NPR focused on its specialty of radio reporting, while CIR contributed expertise in written investigations, video and animations. “Partnerships with radio partners such as NPR and KQED are crucial to our multi-platform distribution model and for telling stories in different ways,” said CIR’s Executive Director Robert Rosenthal.
With many organizations focusing on the memories and the emotions of the day, CIR and NPR’s coverage will be a refreshing and educational way to look at how Sept. 11 changed the United States. It will live on after the anniversary has passed as reporters continue to work on homeland security stories.
What other examples have you seen of media organizations and tech companies joining forces for digital storytelling around 9/11? Tell us in the comments below.
The research and development department of The New York Times has recently been pondering the life cycle of the paper’s news stories in social media — specifically, on Twitter. Cascade is a project that visually represents what happens when readers tweet about articles.
Even now, however, Cascade is more than just a nifty data visualization. Some journalists think it also gives us new ways of to think about and optimize for sharing and engagement on the social web, especially since it helps identify the most influential sharers, the more shareable terms, and more.
Its creators write on the project’s website that Cascade “links browsing behavior on a site to sharing activity to construct a detailed picture of how information propagates through the social media space. While initially applied to New York Times stories and information, the tool and its underlying logic may be applied to any publisher or brand interested in understanding how its messages are shared.”
Here’s what a cascade for a typical article looks like:
For the developers among our readers, Cascade was created using Processing and MongoDB.
Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on five particular stories of interest today.
Amazon Server Trouble Takes Down Reddit, Foursquare & HootSuite
Some of Amazon’s AWS services are experiencing technical difficulties, causing downtime and latency issues with big social media sites such as HootSuite, Reddit and Foursquare.
President Obama Visits Facebook
President Barack Obama discussed the economy, technology, innovation and more during a packed town hall at Facebook headquarters Wednesday.
Mashable Follow, a new social layer at Mashable that lets users follow the topics and people that interest them, officially launched Wednesday.
Further News
Google has rolled out a new and improved version of Google Analytics to all current Analytics users.
Tim Hetherington, Oscar-nominated director of documentary Restrepo, and Pulitzer Prize-nominated war photographer Chris Hondros, were killed in an attack on Misrata on Wednesday.
Amazon.de has launched the German Kindle Store with more than 650,000 titles.
The recent launch of The New York Times paywall has prompted debates about the viability and fairness of paying for news online. Are publications unrealistic about subscription prices? Should the community rally to support journalism? Is it worth paying for?
But the biggest question that lingers in an everyday web reader’s mind is much simpler: “Will clicking on this link bring me to a story?”
Accessing news articles from social media, blogs and other sites has become increasingly common, making an unexpected paywall an unpleasant reader experience. Maintaining the happiness of subscribers and non-subscribers alike has fallen on the shoulders of community managers at these paywalled sites.
“Social media editors may suddenly find they can’t share their paper’s best content via Twitter without reader backlash,” says Chris Snider, a multimedia journalism instructor at Drake University. “So they will have to act more like marketers than journalists, and sell people on why they should pay for that content.”
The social media efforts of these sites differ greatly depending on what access is permitted by the paywall. Here’s a look at digital subscription models of three different publications, and how each affects its community building strategy.
The Dallas Morning News
Dallas’ major newspaper has only seen the beginnings of its paywall’s effect on social media strategy, as the site began charging for digital access a month ago. The model allows non-subscribers to see early breaking news and blog posts, while more evergreen features and investigative pieces must be paid for.
Travis Hudson, a Dallas Morning News web editor, manages the site’s Twitter account and Facebook fan page, where he shares both free and premium content. Like any good social media strategist, transparency is key for Hudson. He designates whether a link is behind the paywall when posting it on Facebook or Twitter.
“When a premium story slips by on a social network without the premium labeling, we hear about it quickly from people irate about clicking a link and being unable to read beyond 50 words,” Hudson says.
The site’s community growth is no longer seeing the moderate upward trend it had before the premium content initiative, he adds. @dallas_news now ranks ninth in follower count of U.S. newspapers on Twitter, according toThe Wrap. The site’s Facebook fan page is ranked 57th among U.S. newspapers in terms of Likes, says Snider, who tracks the Facebook growth of newspapers.
Still, Hudson says the change hasn’t been as severe as he was expecting. “It’s a struggle when I’m unable to utilize some of our best content to build and drive traffic to the masses,” he says. “But I think it can be compensated by the variety of content available for free, like our visuals, blogs, breaking news coverage and more.”
The Economist
Unlike The New York Times and Dallas Morning News, international affairs magazine The Economist made changes to its paywall that increased the range of articles non-paying visitors may view. Previous pay barriers prevented visitors from accessing articles either from the latest edition, or from editions that were more than a few months old. Now readers can see a fixed number of articles across the site each week before having to subscribe. The paywall only applies to articles printed in the weekly magazine, while web-only content — such as blogs, multimedia and interactive features — remains free.
The change has been a positive one for many visitors, says Mark Johnson, The Economist‘s community editor. The community has grown on the site itself through comments and reader-focused features, such as polls, debates and live discussions. Social media helps the site reach subscribers, regular readers and new readers by the means most convenient to them, while providing an opportunity to spark discussions around The Economist‘s coverage areas.
“Readers who are empowered to participate are likely to spend more time with the site, return more often and become more active advocates of our work,” Johnson says.
With the metered model, Johnson and other web producers can share any articles on social networks without experiencing the backlash of readers’ inability to access the site. Perhaps more importantly, they’re able to bring in more traffic.
“Referrals to the site from social networks, and the pageviews generated by such referrals, have grown almost every month since our social strategy began,” Johnson says. “Nor is this growth slowing. If anything, it’s speeding up.”
Honolulu Civil Beat
Online-only local news site the Honolulu Civil Beat is coming up on the one-year anniversary of its launch. Though content is and always has been free through email, the site initially gave only partial access to visitors who came through social networks. Beginning January 2011, however, all visitors can read all articles until they visit regularly enough to be asked to become a member.
“We figured, if they’re reading us that much they would be happy to become a member, and we’d be happy to have them,” says Dan Zelikman, the Civil Beat‘s marketing and community host.
There is no specific threshold number. Rather, the site runs a custom program that asks a reader to subscribe based on how often and how much he or she reads. “Basically, if you read a couple of times a week, it will take a while before we ask you to register,” Zelikman says.
Reading access aside, the Civil Beat‘s subscription model fosters community by only allowing members to comment on articles. In addition, subscribers experience the site without advertising, a perk that’s particularly popular with the community. “They feel that we are here to serve them 100% — and they also like the banner-free site experience.”
Zelikman uses Twitter and Facebook to engage readers by accepting reader content submissions, livestreaming events and facilitating discussion.
“Social media gives us instant feedback on what resonates with our readers,” Zelikman says. “We are very happy with the warm welcome we received in our community. Since launch, new readers keep coming to the site.”
Conclusion
With community stewardship as a central tenet of journalism, any news site that has a paywall — or is considering one — should keep the social reading experience at the forefront of its strategy. The frustration of clicking a link that leads to inaccessible content will turn readers away, often leaving them with harsh feelings toward the site. Gradually assimilating readers to a site’s breadth of content will foster loyalty, and, in turn, build a stronger community.
Interested in more Journalism resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.
Alexander Hotz is a freelance multimedia journalist and public radio junkie based in New York City. Currently he teaches digital media at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Follow Alex on Twitter at @hotzington.The July 25th release of 92,000 military documents by the site WikiLeaks dominated the news cycle, but many critics dismissed the leak as inconsequential. By the end of the week Frank Rich summed up the sentiment of many of his colleagues.“They are historical documents describing events largely predating the current administration,” Rich wrote. “They contain no news. They will not change the course of the war.”Regardless of the content, it’s clear that WikiLeaks’ partnership with The New York Times, Der Spiegel and The Guardian was unprecedented. Never before had a private organization provided multiple mainstream media sources with access (albeit embargoed) to classified government information. This new strategy marks a shift not just for WikiLeaks, which has been leaking classified information since 2005, but for whistle blowing in general. In a nutshell, the latest leak from WikiLeaks signals a seminal change for investigative journalism.
The Old Way
Prior to last week’s leak, there were two paths that any would-be whistle blower could follow. The first was to approach a news organization with information and hope they bit. Daniel Ellsberg famously did this in 1971 when he handed over the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times.The second model was pioneered by websites like WikiLeaks and Cryptome, both of which were inspired by the InternetInternet’s freedom of information culture. Under this system, an organization like WikiLeaks is given a document by an anonymous source. After encrypting the files to ensure that the source cannot be traced, the information is published online. Initially, WikiLeaks’ Editor Julian Assange hoped the public would sift through the documents to find the story. But Assange quickly realized that most people don’t enjoy combing over spreadsheets.While some of WikiLeaks’ biggest leaks -- like Sarah Palin’s e-mails, the 9/11 pager messages, and the classified footage showing two Reuters’ journalists killed by a U.S. Apache helicopter in Iraq -- reached the public, other leaks went largely unnoticed. Clearly something needed to change.
The New WikiLeaks / Mainstream Media Model
The new collaboration model between prominent publications and WikiLeaks is a tactical marriage. WikiLeaks needs the press so that its leaks can rise to the top of public conversation. The press can use WikiLeaks for its unparalleled scoops. Furthermore, because WikiLeaks isn’t entirely understood or trusted by the public, a partnership with established news sources like The New York Times gives its leaks legitimacy. This “asymmetrical journalism,” as David Carr calls it, is a natural evolution for WikiLeaks.Under the WikiLeaks-MSM model, WikiLeaks hands over classified information to select publications. While WikiLeaks investigates and verifies the document(s), the MSM is also given time to dissect the information and come to its own conclusions.
What’s Next?
Despite the media hype surrounding this latest leak, it’s uncertain whether this model is sustainable. The New York Times’ editor Bill Keller had a public disagreement with Assange about the way the Times presented the information. Assange argued that the Times undersold the story, while Keller made it clear that he doesn’t entirely trust WikiLeaks.Keller is right to be cautious about WikiLeaks since it is so new, but it would be unwise for him to burn a bridge with Assange. After all, to WikiLeaks’ credit, none of their leaks have been proved false. What’s more, Assange claims that WikiLeaks has access to a treasure trove of scandal-worthy information.The Afghan War Logs may not be as monumental as the Pentagon Papers, but assuming there is news to be broken – it’s best if WikiLeaks and the press are on good terms.
Now more than ever, traditional media outlets are embracing social media as a way to generate story ledes, increase site traffic and create conversations with readers.Over the past decade, we've witnessed a growing shift in readership and advertising dollars from traditional media (print, radio, and broadcast TV) to online outlets. This year, when the Newspaper Association of America released the numbers on advertising expenditures for 2009, we gawked at the 27.2 percent decline in advertising from 2008. Over the past year or so, we've also chronicled how traditional media outlets are going social and using online video to engage new audiences.Most recently, we've watched as news organizations discovered new revenue models to replace the losses they continue to face. The New York Times, for example, is set to introduce a paid model for content on nytimes.com starting in January 2011. While The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times already offer online subscriptions.At Social Media Brasil, the largest social media conference in Brazil, I spoke about six social media tips for traditional media outlets looking to either initiate or evaluate their social media strategy. Each tip is general enough to apply to any news organization, but can be tailored to fit a particular company as well. Check out the embedded presentation below for an overview and read on for a more thorough look at each tip.
.
1. Share Content
The first step to using social media effectively is sharing your content. Begin by taking an inventory of the type of content your company produces. It is important to be as efficient as possible in repurposing content. The idea is to promote the articles, videos and photos that you currently produce, instead of creating new content specifically for your social media presence.If you are an online news site, you will have an endless feed of articles and blog posts, but you may also have an array of video and photo offerings. Once you have a grasp of all of the various types of media that your site produces, you're ready to take a look into which social media platforms may be best for you.Most brands should start with Twitter and Facebook at a minimum. Both platforms can easily be set up for manual or automated updates. As a start, use these platforms for sharing links to your most recent articles or blog posts. If you also produce videos and photos make sure you share those too. For video producers, YouTube is an obvious option, as it's the most popular online video community in the world. Depending on the type of videos you produce, you may find a valid fit on Vimeo, Hulu and Blip.tv, among others. And for photos, Flickr is the go-to service. Just make sure you are following their terms of service, as brand promotion can be a touchy subject within the Flickr community.Keep in mind that users react differently to various types of media. You've probably noticed this on your website, and it certainly applies to media posted on your social sites, as well. Diversifying your content can help you get a better idea of which type of content does best or promotes certain actions (comments, shares, click-throughs, etc.) on various social platforms. As a starter, test the grounds to see how your Facebook audience reacts to different types of posts, including status updates, photos and videos.
The New York Times does a great job of not only diversifying which platforms they are on, but also mixing up their content. You can find The Times on Facebook (where they have over 30 fan pages), Twitter (where they have over 200 feeds), YouTube, Vimeo, Foursquare and Flickr. Because they have a range of content types, they are able to serve up videos, photos, tips, discussion questions, and simple updates across the social sites that they are active on.Figure out your audience's preferences and needs when it comes to frequency and timing. When posting, try not to overwhelm your audience with updates that are too frequent or lengthy, and make sure you're updating at times when your readers are most active. When it comes to timing, look at your audience's behavior patterns. When do they comment or click-through to your site most? If you plot out the number of comments and click-throughs by the hour for your Facebook page, you'll see a pattern. Concentrate your efforts in the hours where users are more active.Lastly, keep your updates short. Get inspiration from Twitter's 140-character model. You have a limited amount of time to catch a reader's attention. Make it quick and include a link to the article or post. For keeping it as short as possible, use a shortened URL, using services like bit.ly or ow.ly.
2. Curate Conversations
Some brands look at social media as a way to simply promote their content. While it's a great way to promote media, it's so much more. When evaluating the effectiveness of your social media strategy, you should be able to at least answer one question: What value are we bringing to our audience?In fact, you should be able to answer that question with every strategic business decision you make, above and beyond social media. If you can't answer that question or your answer seems a bit shallow, you should rethink your strategy.Naturally, your audience craves the latest news, not just from you, but from around the web. It's not enough to simply self-promote, as eventually your audience will need to go elsewhere for news. It's impossible to create all the news, so why not curate it?
Strive to be the news source with the go-to list of top sources for particular coverage areas. Create Twitter lists for important topics in your industry, or for breaking news events. Many news sites, including The Huffington Post, CNN and the New York Daily News, are on the ball with Twitter lists. Check out Mashable's Twitter List Directory for a look at some of the top lists in specific categories, including Tech & Science, Sports and Business.Once you have the hang of Twitter Lists, try pulling the data into a visualization on your website. For example, The New York Times features its curated lists on nytimes.com/twitter. And on Mashable, we integrate an entire Twitter List Directory within our site. Take inspiration from these curation ideas and brainstorm how your site could begin implementing valuable resources like these.Another way to curate news is to share breaking news and interesting articles from other news sources on your social sites, giving appropriate credit, including @mentions on Twitter and Facebook. After all, what's more important: providing your followers with a timely update or waiting until your writers have a post on the story? Once again, it's about creating value for your fans and followers.
3. Engage Audiences
It's important that traditional media outlets continue to push the envelope and strive for true audience engagement by asking and answering questions. It is human nature to answer a question when it is posed, so start asking questions with each of your posts and see what type of feedback you get. Most likely, users will be intrigued to answer your questions and add their opinion, especially if they feel that you truly care. A few media outlets have realized that questions lead to responses. On Facebook, CNN seems to make it a point to ask a question with posts that may elicit widespread response. With nearly a million fans, they seem to be doing something right.Read through user comments and respond to particularly insightful ones. Most news sites already do this on their websites, especially if they employ a comment moderation team. It's strange that this type of interaction hasn't already been fully translated into the social world. This type of engagement is a good step in the right direction.
4. Promote Your Presence
Just like all brand initiatives, social media campaigns and strategies need to be promoted. Often times, brands entering the social media space have the Field of Dreams misconception, "If you build it, they will come." Unfortunately, social media doesn't work that way. You have to put time and effort into building an audience.Think about the ways you currently promote house projects. You probably have a mix of web, mobile, e-mail and social media marketing options set aside for house advertising. Don't forget to take advantage of these promotion opportunities. On-site opportunities include embedding buttons, links, and widgets to promote your presence, as well as building micro-sites to showcase your full social presence.Click through my embedded presentation above for a full section on promotion examples. The promotion section of my presentation was the heftiest, as I feel that this is the area that most traditional media companies are lacking. Because a lot of brands have seemed a bit uncomfortable with the social space, they have been reluctant to promote, in order to reduce liabilities and possibly embarrassment. Now that they are warming up, media companies should begin to see the wonderful advertising opportunities available. If you build it and promote it, they will come.
5. Customize the Experience
Every social site comes with a set of defaults -- make it your practice to know the options and customize as necessary. Deviating from the defaults makes your profiles appear to be more professional and allows you to create a cohesive look and feel across social platforms.Start with avatars, backgrounds and layouts. ESPN, for example, recently had a World Cup theme on its YouTube channel to tie into this year's biggest sporting event. It was a simple customization, but it got the point across that ESPN planned to dedicate the channel to World Cup news during the event.Once you have a custom appearance, look into creating a custom user experience. Are there apps or features that you can implement for added value? As a starter, brainstorms ways that you may be able to add customized Facebook Tabs to your profile using apps that your readers would find useful.
6. Track Everything
No matter where you are in implementing a social media strategy, tracking should be a priority. Without analytics, you cannot make informed decisions. With proper tracking though, you'll be able to decide what type of content does best on certain social platforms. Furthermore, if you're incredibly motivated, you even have the opportunity to monitor optimal conditions down to the smallest details, such as time of day, day of week, length of post, type of post, and even the topic of the post.For starters, try using the options that come built-in to each social site. Some are free, such as Facebook Insights, while others come with paid accounts, including Flickr Stats and Vimeo Plus Stats. If you are a copyright holder on YouTube, you can even try the YouTube Content Manager, which includes lots of data on video performance.When sharing links, make sure you use a URL shortener that counts clicks. Use the dashboard on bit.ly, for example, for a quick pulse on which links are doing best, but add on your own tracking codes for better analytics. Many Twitter clients, such as Hootsuite, CoTweet and Seesmic come equipped with or can be configured to accommodate a URL shortener.If you already track using the built-in options and find them to be lacking, you may want to explore social media management tools, such as Radian6, Postling, Vitrue and SocialTALK. These are all enterprise-level tools built specifically for brand management on the social web.If your analytics team is up for pitching in, consider creating your own customized tracking system, integrated with your current site analytics. Some common web analytics tools include Webtrends, Coremetrics and Omniture. Most large companies use one of these analytics tools, and all three already offer some type of social media analytics. But most likely, these products will need to be tweaked to fit your needs. Luckily, most social sites offer an API, so that developers can built off of data. Make sure your developers have access to and are well versed in the APIs for social sites that your company uses. Meet periodically to explain needs and brainstorm solutions.
Your Tips
Everyone has an opinion, and we would like to hear yours. What are your social media tips for traditional media companies? Let us know in the comments below.
For continuous World CupWorld Cup coverage, check out MashableMashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games.The New York Times has added another World Cup visualization to the mix with its “Top World Cup Players” feature that resizes players based on the amount of buzz they’ve received on FacebookFacebook during a given day.Launched earlier today, the visualization includes a slider that lets you jump from day-to-day of the World Cup and see which players got the most buzz, as measured by the amount of status updates, wall posts and likes that mention their name. You can also sort by country, player or buzz rank.Not surprisingly, the results correlate fairly closely to the given day’s action on the field. Today, for example, players from the Netherlands and Brazil are biggest, as they played a game this morning. The Times offers explanatory text for each day though so you can quickly figure out how the player sizes came to be. In all, it’s another fun and visual way to see what’s been happening in the World Cup.Check out our gallery of other World Cup visualizations below:
World Cup 2010 Replay
The Guardian has put together an application -- World Cup 2010 Twitter replay -- that creates high-speed replays for each World Cup match. Prepare to be amazed as you relive the entire game through Twitter animation. Action is portrayed via topic bubbles that enlarge as conversation swells on Twitter.
The Guardian set out to let people "see the roar of the crowd passing through Twitter." They certainly succeeded on their mission.
2010 FIFA World Cup Live Tracker
The Live Tracker application is like an ongoing World Cup analytical dashboard with visual stimuli. The tracker bears a striking resemblance to Sprint's Now Network site and includes blocks of World Cup trivia -- think total whistle blows, number of saves, cumulative worldwide audience, goals scored and even vuvuzela noise levels -- that football fans the world round will love.
This visualization may be a little heavy on Castrol promotion, but it's hard not to get excited when presented with these interesting factoids.
South Africa 2010 Twitter Buzz
CNN's Twitter Buzz application is unbelievably simple and yet absolutely stunning. The application tracks World Cup tweets by teams, players and topics. You can check out the current flow of tweets or scroll through the past 24 hours.
Given Twitter's recurring issues, one can except the Fail Whale to hinder the sheer awesomeness of the visualization from time to time, but CNN has created their very own amusing "Fail Ball" for you to look at during Twitter hiccups.
LivePitch for iPad
About a month ago, Mint Digital released a concept for an iPad app that would visualize match play by mapping ball possession on a digital football field. Just yesterday their vision became a reality when LivePitch was released as a free iPad application.
The application is designed to compliment your World Cup viewing experience as a second screen. You can watch in real-time as possession changes from player to player via the interactive football field. Stats-aholics can also dive into the Stats tab or select individual players for detailed and real-time player data on passes, goals, tackles and shots.
Calendar World Cup 2010
The Calendar World Cup 2010 turns the massive event's schedule into a wheel of visually stimulating information. Simply move your cursor to hover over a date, city or team and you'll get a glimpse at the associated matches.
Calendar World Cup 2010 by MARCA.com is simply a colorful way to keep track of the overwhelming schedule, but it's also proven quite popular with over 176,000 likes on Facebook thus far.
World Cup Match Tracker
As part of their World Cup coverage, the New York Times has created a match tracker application to supplement their Goal blog. The application boasts impressive minute-by-minute data overlaid on a soccer field so you can visualize passes, goals and shots for the duration of the game.
If you're feeling lazy, the Overview tab will breakout game data in a nifty line graph. You can also check out player rankings for touches, passes, goals, fouls and balls won. It's fantastic to behold and super fun for stats addicts to toy with.
Total Football 2010 for iPhone
If you're total nerd for World Cup game data then Total Football 2010 for iPhone will more than satisfy your match analysis cravings. The $2.99 app is worth every penny as it presents advanced statistical analysis for head-to-head comparisons between teams or players, all with visual finesse. Stats include shots, passes and tackles with users able to look at a game in its entirety or use the slider to pinpoint a particular moment for a more focused perspective.
Given that updates are in near real-time, you can also use this app as your play-by-play cheat sheet for games that you're not able watch on television. There's even a 'Player Influence" feature for identifying the players making the biggest impact in a particular match.
Online-only local news site the Honolulu Civil Beat is coming up on the one-year anniversary of its launch. Though content is and always has been free through email, the site initially gave only partial access to visitors who came through social networks. Beginning January 2011, however, all visitors can read all articles until they visit regularly enough to be asked to become a member.
Interested in more Journalism resources? Check out 
