Fear, a lack of vision, laziness, and a failure to recognise and keep up with changing audience behaviour, are among the most common reasons for media organisations becoming irrelevant and struggling.

Continually monitoring how content is being consumed by the audience, and responding quickly to technological and market opportunities, is essential.

There are four typical scenarios facing media organisations

The four attitudes to digital news production, news gathering and news dissemination are digital denial, digital parallel, digital enhanced, and digital first.

Some media managers refuse to accept that there is a digital audience which needs to be served.

Others become digital evangelists who make production decisions that are not always backed with firm business logic.

Some prefer to focus on the old ways of working, and give little consideration to the digital audience and market.

Of course, each newsroom will have a different approach, based on local business logic, legacy issues, and political and cultural factors.

However, one fact is clear; without a converged/integrated newsroom, it’s difficult to make the most of the digital opportunities that might exist.

And although the essential elements of newsroom convergence might be similar for all news organisations, each solution has to be crafted according to local needs, based on solid business data that informs and justifies every suggested change.

Please refer to our training module “Creating a converged/integrated newsroom delivering content to multiple devices”.

Let’s look at the four typical scenarios. As you do, try to work out which scenario best describes your media house.

Digital denial

This is when there is no clear vision from the senior management about why newsroom convergence/integration is important, which often results in there being no buy-in from senior editors, and resistance from many.

There will have been a failure to invest in the digital technology required to produce content for use on multiple platforms/devices, and there will be little awareness of audience needs and changing audience behaviour.

Management and staff are stuck in a time warp, bogged down with legacy issues, doing what they have always done, and living in a false comfort zone.

Digital parallel

This is where management acknowledges the digital needs of the audience but fails to realise its importance.

They will usually ask a couple of people to build a website and upload video from its main TV shows.

This operation will often not be connected to the newsroom. It might even be on a different floor. There might be little to no editorial supervision.

At times the online version will be a copy and paste version of what was broadcast, there will be no added value in terms of interactive assets that help explain the stories. There will be no user engagement.

The result will be a rather dull repetition of the TV output, often text heavy, updated once or twice a day, and offering no compelling reason for the audience to visit or return.

Digital enhanced

In some cases there is an online, multimedia and social media team embedded in the newsroom made up of trained journalists who are part of the news operation. In these cases the on-air, online and mobile versions are all linked.

There will be an attempt, often made during the morning meeting, to select the top three stories that require some added value online in terms of timelines, interactive maps, infographics, fact boxes, comments etc.

The source content will be much the same, but the user experience will differ depending on the platforms used by the audience.

Social sharing and encouraging the audience to comment will be a central part of this strategy.

There will be a healthy buzz in the newsroom. Journalists will be keen to see how the audience responds, and, after monitoring that interaction, will use the material to build on the interest generated.

As a result new angles will come to light and be developed. The output on all platforms/devices will feel fresh, relevant and timely.

Digital-first

This is where the newsroom operates around a central superdesk or hub acting as the main command and control unit for all output.

There will be shared forward planning. Stories will be created in advance for all output areas with carefully planned cross-promotion.

Interactivity will be dynamic, meaning that it will be controlled and updated from the newsrooms central database.

It will be built into detachable, shareable and embeddable multimedia assets, rich in links to background information, which the audience can take away to their own preferred social media space in order to extend the conversation.

That total user-engagement will be monitored by the social media team and fed back into the news production process so that the output continually reflects the changing needs/concerns/questions posed by the target audience.

The digital-first converged newsroom will work closely with business development, technological development, and sales and marketing to ensure that any opportunities are fully exploited for the benefit of both the audience and the brand.

Digital evolution

All four models exist today in varying forms. Some media organisations, sadly, make a start on introducing convergence and then give up.

They sometimes blame the technology rather than their own inability to adapt. And there will be those who take comfort in retreating back to the known and dragging others with them.

But the challenge for media managers is massive. To survive they need to ensure that they have a plan for remaining relevant to changing audience demands while protecting their existing business.

The best strategy for survival and prosperity is a fully converged/integrated news operation delivering content to whatever device the users turn to for information.

The principle is clear – but news organisations should accept that there is no quick out-of-the-box one-size-fits-all solution.

Yes, it is possible to learn from what other organisations have tried successfully. But every media business has its own particular problems and opportunities.

They will need a bespoke strategy, tailored to their exact situation, in order to meet the changing needs of their own target audience.

The post Newsroom evolution from digital denial to digital first first appeared on Media Helping Media.

Does your media organisation have a social media strategy. Does it reach out and connect with your audience? There are many ways media organisations respond to social media, but here are three.

Media Helping Media recommends the third and final attitude in this list, but first check which one fits your media organisation and then think through what are can do about it.

1: IGNORE = the broadcast or publish at model

Attitude

• Social networking is a distraction that has nothing to do with traditional media.
• It is a plaything for trivial exchanges and is not for journalism.
• Keep out. Our content is our content. We know best.

Policy

• We will refer to a social network trend in a story but only as an illustration and only if supplied in wires copy.
• It’s our job to provide information. We are the professionals.
• If there is a piece of user-generated video, an image or a comment on the wires, we may refer to it or include it, but, come on, we are journalists and they are just amateurs.
• We’ve been trained, and we have standards – they haven’t. Keep them in their place.

Guidelines

• Stick to the wires, press releases and getting our own reporters to cover diary events and our correspondents to cover their specialisms.
• Don’t be distracted by the social media noise out there.

Result

A we-know-best attitude that fails to acknowledge changing audience behaviour and sees the audience as consumers rather than part of the news process. While this is going on, an increasingly informed and influential middle media is taking over the role of informing the public debate with people-focused stories published on blogs and distributed via the social networks that reflect diversity of opinion and offer perspectives which are often lacking in heavily-controlled news environments.

Prognosis

This model is in its death throes or already dead.

2: EXPLOIT – the engage-with on our terms model

Attitude

We realise social networking is popular, we understand the benefits of viral marketing and distribution, and we see it as a way to disseminate our material to a wider audience. Our sales and marketing department is on the case. Every now and then we are happy to refer to social media in our bulletins and stories, and sometimes it might be part of a story, but only in terms of showing a trend or in cases where social media offers access to voices we would not normally reach.

Policy

• Keep social media elements in the “and finally” part of the bulletin.
• If presenting on camera and talking about social media, offer that smile, nod and wink to suggest it’s all a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously.
• When reporting on radio, make sure there is a tone to your voice that indicates to the audience where the line exists between the facts we have uncovered and the information that has been found via social media.

Guidelines

• Our use of social networking must be on our terms only.
• When referring to social media be sure to attribute any information as unconfirmed and ensure there is an element of doubt until we can confirm with two independent sources.
• When inviting social networking participation on any story, whether in the form of comments or forum discussions etc, be sure to keep control of the agenda.
• Only invite user input on the stories we want covered and only publish the comments which fit in with our view of how the story should develop.

Result

Containment, with a firm grip on the amount and scope of social networking in output. Regular references to social media as a phenomenon and an increasing awareness of its use as a possible newsgathering tool, but the main thrust of output is still based on wires, diary events and reporter/correspondent input from newsroom meetings, their contacts and their specialist beats.

Prognosis

This “engage with on our terms” model will work well as a part of a transition from the “broadcast/publish at” model, but is not a recommended survival strategy.

3: EMBRACE – the let loose to hold tight model

Attitude

We see social networking as central to all we do. By tapping into this rich vein of stories, perspectives, and first-person witness and thought we are able to enhance our output. This enriches our news and current affairs and highlights real concerns. It adds genuine comment and ensures that our output is relevant and revealing.

Policy

• There must be a social networking element in all stories.
• If we don’t reflect what is going on in society we are limiting the scope of our coverage and reducing our relevance to our audience.
• We must view all bloggers and social networkers as potential stringers.
• We must monitor social media at all times and build a new network of trusted contacts who we can turn to and who can turn to us.
• We need to get to know the network of contacts belonging to those social networkers we turn to the most and build on that, too.
• Crowdsourcing is using information, or effort, contributed by the general public. We must harness this resource.
• Ideally, we must aim to move away from a wires-led and events-led news agenda and shift the focus over to the audience.
• All our content is there for our users to take away to their preferred social networking space where they can interact with their contacts and add their own context and analysis – and we must always look for ways to bring this back into our newsgathering and news production processes.

Guidelines

• No story is complete without a social networking element.
• In a breaking story situation, where we are feeding the social networks with updated information, we must be sure to be part of, visit and tap into those networks to monitor the discussion and reflect that in our output.
• We must not rely just on pushing our updates to Facebook and Twitter. We must be part of the social media conversation so that we can stimulate the debate, ask questions, find answers and uncover new information.
• All journalists must have social networking aggregation tools on their desktops and monitor updates at all times.
• As with all information, we can refer to it but confirm it only when we have two independent sources.

Result

• Fresh, relevant, user-focused news covering the issues that concern the target audience and wider audience.
• A rapid growth in viral news distribution (the audience sharing the content for us), brand influence and trust.
• Increased traffic back to the news website.
• Increase in fans on the media organisation’s Twitter page, Facebook page, YouTube site and all other social network sites – again with associated increases in traffic to all the brand’s online properties.
• Most importantly, a welcome to the social networking party – not as a gate-crasher, but as an informed source of information.

Prognosis

A healthy strategy, adapting to changing audience behaviour, letting loose of content to hold tight to the audience, while, at the same time, reflecting the priorities, concerns and thinking of that audience.

The post Social media test for mainstream media first appeared on Media Helping Media.

Social media is an increasingly disruptive force on the media landscape. It challenges traditional, mainstream media to reconsider how they operate.

Social media often releases information about which mainstream media might not have been aware, and information that mainstream media might have tried to ignore.

It can offer a wider, more diverse perspective on life than that covered by traditional media.

It challenges mainstream media’s editorial standards, and makes editors think again about their values and ethics.

It offers mainstream media opportunities to tap into conversations, learn about social change, and connect with those who were previously out of reach.

It provides a direct link from a media organisation to a connected, empowered, and active audience, and, in doing so, totally changes that relationship.

And yet, surprisingly, some media organisations fail to take social media seriously, or, perhaps worse, totally misunderstand what it’s about and, therefore, respond inadequately.

An empowered audience

In an earlier module we looked at the importance of “Identifying the target audience and its information needs”, then we considered “Adapting to changing audience behaviour and monitoring the market”.

Those modules looked at who makes up the target audience, the issues that concern them most, the devices they use to consume and share news, and how they interact with news.

We then looked at how a media organisation should adapt to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by changing audience behaviour in our module entitled “Newsroom evolution from digital denial to digital first”.

Now we look at what a social media strategy could mean for a media organisation.

But first, let’s look at how we got to this stage in media’s development.

Media evolution

The media is in a constant state of change, or at least it should be.

Technological advances result in changing audience behaviour resulting in altered attitudes to how news is consumed and shared, which means that a media organisation can’t afford to stand still.

Innovation is needed, but only if it makes business sense.

There have been many stages of media evolution over the years, below we look at three. The “broadcast AT or publish AT” model, the “engage with on our terms” model, and the “participate in” model.

Broadcast AT and publish AT model

This is the model where the broadcasters and publishers thought they knew best.

They would broadcast and published programmes and information to a passive audience who consumed what they were given.

There was no interactivity, and the output reflected the choices made by the journalists, not the audience.

This resulted in a limited perspective of society, usually representing that of the owners of the media organisation, the state, or the editors and journalists who were producing the content.

That model is dead.

Engage with on our terms model

In this model, mainstream media offered limited interactivity. It could be in the form of studio debates, vox pops conducted in the street, or, in the case of print, letters to the editor.

Some media organisations had websites, and would run polls and invite comments, but these were usually heavily pre-moderated and monitored, and were about issues that the broadcasters and publishers wanted to discuss.

Audience participation was carefully controlled, with the audience selected based on a journalists assessment of the public’s value to the story.

That model is in its death throes. Now we are in the ‘participate in’ model.

Participate in model

The ‘participate in’ model is where audience engagement is part of the editorial proposition.

It’s where stories are built around the issues the audience is discussing in the street, in their homes and on social media.

Please refer to our modules entitled “Identifying the target audience and its information needs” and “Establishing a market differential with original, in-depth, issue-led journalism”.

It’s about having an active unit in the newsroom who use social media to monitor what the audience is saying, share stories from the newsroom, stimulate a debate, and then watch that debate develop while feeding those developments back into the news production process.

This strategy will not only bring a media organisation closer to its audience, but it is also likely to increase engagement around the content being produced, while, at the same time, winning audience trust.

It will mean that output will be enriched to reflect audience concerns.

What is required

A modern media organisation needs to have a social media editor, or at least a member of staff whose job it is to monitor social media. Ideally, they will be sitting at the central superdesk in a converged newsroom. Please refer to our training module entitled “Convergence, roles and responsibilities and workflows”.

The social media editor or producer has an important role to play. They will:

• attend all the main news meetings.
• be called on to contribute ideas based on what the target audience is discussing on social media.
• use desktop tools, such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to monitor audience groups and key words in order to track story developments.
• be expected to be offering news alerts when news breaks on social media.
• stimulate the conversation of the day based on the main news stories being produced by the converged newsroom.
• monitor that conversation and feed updates back into the news production process.
• ensure consistent cross-promotion between news and programmes via social media.
• monitor any UGC (user-generated content) in terms of images, video, sound and graphics submitted by the audience.
• suggest story treatment ideas based on the results of their social media monitoring.

Smart media managers will realise that for the news to truly reflect the concerns of the target audience they will need to exploit the opportunities and benefits of social media, and not see it as an unwelcome distraction.

And if you are thinking in terms of a wider reach via social media on new, continually-developing platforms/devices, you will be helping to ensure that your media organisation is always responsive to new revenue-generating opportunities.

The post Social media in news production and news dissemination first appeared on Media Helping Media.