User Content
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This document discusses strategies for news media organizations to engage with users online through commenting, social networks, and user-generated content. It provides best practices for managing comments to facilitate rather than dictate dialogue. Free and paid tools are presented for adding commenting and polling functions. The use of social networks to promote content and crowd source is covered. Challenges and opportunities around user-generated content and the "Huffington Post method" of professional front pages with user discussion on secondary pages are also summarized.
User Content
- 1. User Content: Andrew Chavez Associate Director / Digital Initiatives Texas Center for Community Journalism New Media for the News Media Workshop March 11 to 13, 2009 at the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism Meeting the user halfway
- 2. Why do it? “ Nobody would tolerate if, at the end of ‘Meet the Press,’ a bunch of weirdos stormed the studio and started screaming weird racist stuff. They’d call the police.” — Ken Layne , editor of the Wonkette
- 3. Types of user interaction Commenting Polls Social networks User content E-mail newsletters Author information/photos
- 4. Commenting and User Feedback A good newspaper is “ a nation talking to itself.” — Arthur Miller
- 5. Best practices for managing the “commentocracy” Set enforceable standards Differentiate between opinion and dangerous content Make users part of the policing Facilitate, don’t dictate the dialogue Be ready for some criticism
- 6. Inserting comment functions Built-in functions Scalable Easier to manage/moderate Free online tools Manually inserted Can’t always be retroactively managed Rely on outside provider
- 7. JS-Kit Provides comments, ratings and polling functions for your site using Javascript Only charged for high usage and special features Can be styled to match the rest of your site $0 Price tag: Must know how to embed code Have access to your page’s HTML Skills needed
- 9. Who is using them Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press
- 10. How you can use them Crowd sourcing Ask your readers for ideas “ Friend” and “Follow” your sources, readers Personify your staff Post pictures from around the newsroom Promote your site content (most important) Use status updates and microblogs to link Create “events” and “evites”
- 11. User Content “ User-generated content is all the rage, but most of it totally sucks.” — Jonah Peretti , co-founder of the Huffington Post
- 12. User content Gives your readers ownership Diverts traffic from other content-sharing sites Gives you a “virtual staff” You can’t be everywhere Frees your staff to focus on what they’re best at Is FREE
- 13. How to do it E-mail submissions Linking Users submit content to other sites and you link to them Decreases bandwidth costs Built-in system Keeps users on your site May be expensive to set up Increases bandwidth costs and required technical skills
- 14. A few examples Pet photos Halloween costume photos (with directions on how to make them) Favorite recipes (as text or video) Money-saving tips Photo contests Restaurant reviews
- 15. The Huffington Post method: the “mullet strategy” from co-founder Jonah Peretti BuzzFeed says it’s “business up front, party in the back” “ The mullet strategy invites users to ‘argue and vent on the secondary pages, but professional editors keep the front page looking sharp.” “ The mullet strategy is here to stay, because the best way for Web companies to increase traffic is to let users have control, but the best way to sell advertising is a slick, pretty front page where corporate sponsors can admire their brands.”