If you want to reach your audience, they tell us, you have to engage them with social media like Facebook and Twitter. But how can you tell how well your efforts are working? Denise Graveline offers a few pointers on her "Don't Get Caught" site: "Google Reader is my go-to RSS reader, and I use it to monitor selected Twitter posts, as well as feedback and engagement on my Facebook pages." Also recommended: Tweetdeck, Favstar, CloudMagic and TweepsMap.
Technology
"We have the statistical methods of social scientists, the mapping tools of GIS, the visualization arts of statistics and graphic design, and a host of skills," writes Troy Thibodeaux on the Poynter web site.
Even if you couldn't attend last month's Online News Association conference, you can absorb much of its content from the web. The conference web site has video from some sessions, Twitter streams from others, and handouts from a few. In addition, see this report from 10,000 Words on data visualization, or this on the meeting's "top takeaways". Also, David Skok on what it all means for journalists.
Steve Buttry compiles a list of his own handouts and more than two dozen contributions from other journalists on the ins and outs of using Twitter in the news business. They include a story about NPR’s Andy Carvin, who runs what Columbia Journalism Review called "the world's best Twitter account." Also: "How Twitter saved my career" and "Twitter for local news journalists."
Twitter fear continues to run rampant in many newsroom, writes Mallary Jean Tenore at the Poynter Institute. That's a shame, she continues, because even the most hide-bound reporters can use Twitter to their advantage — for finding sources, connecting with an audience, generating story ideas, and combatting misinformation. "The trick," Tenore writes, "is to look at Twitter not as a distraction but as a way to enhance their ability to report and share news."
The popular hosted blogging site has several tools for making updates with a smartphone or tablet, according to this post from the 10,000 Words site. You can call in and post a voice recording on your blog; you can add your location to your blog posts; you can post via text message. And for $5 per month, you can subscribe to a service that lets you add video players to your blog and post videos as long as two hours from your phone to WordPress and other platforms.
The U.S. Postal Service may be going broke, but a bigger problem for busy people today is managing their email, Sam Grobart writes in the New York Times. Grobart offers five tips for staying afloat in the inbox flood. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by e-mail folders and labels," he writes. A better alternative: Master your email service's search system to find old messages and contacts in a hurry.