Social Media: How to create a strong online presence, what precautions to take and what happened with Catherine Deveny
This chapter will explore social media applications and what resources are available to you (at no cost) to create a strong online presence for your journalistic endeavors. It will also discuss what precautions you need to take in forming this presence, as everything you write will remain in online search engines for years to come. And with this in mind, I will also discuss the recent Twitter incidence with Catherine Deveny and offer some first hand insight into why she was sacked – from Catherine herself.
Why is an online presence vital?
- Show off your work, market yourself
- See what others are writing/discussing/thinking
- Assist your research skills, interview possibilities and job prospects
- Create a online CV for prospective employers
- Stay up to date with new technology, sites, software and media personalities
- Embrace the notion of “do what you do best, and link to the rest” (Jeff Jarvis)
What precautions need to be taken?
- Data will stay online for years to come
- Pretend someone who hates you is reading your tweets/blogs/comments and write as if it will be used against you!
Social Media is the perfect tool to show off your work and create a strong online presence which also allows you to join important online communities, keep up to date with the industry and create your own persona as a writer or as Jason Whittaker from Crikey says ‘create a brand for yourself’. And best of all it is all free!
HOW TO GET STARTED
Stephen Quinn is Assoc. Professor of Journalism at Deakin, Geelong, Australia and a freelance Journalist and Mojo. In this video
Stephen provides some important tips and details which social media applications you should be using NOW to improve your online presence and employment prospects in the media industry.
This interview was conducted via conducted via Skype and recorded it with a demo version of Call Recorder v2.3.10. The file from this recording is then transferred directly to a movie file in your chosen destination on your computer. I then uploaded my interview video file to my Postperous account http://filethis.posterous.com/ which automatically auto posted the link and description to my Twitter, Facebook and other personal blogs. Due to these functions, the finding of Postperous, which this report is posted on, is without a doubt the most useful social media tool, particularly as it makes you appear as if you are posting on numerous sites throughout the day, even though you are simply adding posts on the one site.
The main suggestions from Stephen were to use: Twitter, Linkedin, Skype, Delicious, Postperous, Blogging platforms, Google apps such as Buzz (a version of Twitter type application) and photo galleries such as Flicker, video editing programs and audio programs such as Audioboom.com (which can be updated via your mobile or web).
A great site that explains each of these tools and many more can be viewed here: http://www.quanrel.com/top-social-media-network-sites/
The main incentive for mastering these social media tools is the fact that to be a journalist in today’s media market, you must be entrepreneurial, market yourself by creating a brand for yourself, in addition to actually writing articles! And social media is a great way to find people to interview, request information from your followers and people you are following regarding interviews and leads for stories and it is a great research tool on trends and society
Case Study
Jeff Jarvis is a great example of how to use social media effectively to market yourself and create a strong online presence to gain employment. He is a media commentator, media adviser and paid blogger (last year he made $20 000 US from advertising alone on his blog). Why?
He is knowledgeable on his chosen subject, - you need to find your own niche market which you can write comfortably about or that you are interested in. Your best writing will always come from areas of interest. He is energetic, he markets himself effectively and he writes a minimum 2 blogs per day. Look at his followers: 43, 029 and his recent tweet that markets his latest book. Of course, you don’t always do this, it will become boring and people will not follow you, so you also need to retweet interesting comments/articles that you read, post videos, links and other information from yourself and others. This way you can build your community of contacts and followers effectively
HOW TO CREATE AN STRONG ONLINE PRESENCE AND WHY YOU SHOULD DO THIS
Jason Whittaker, Deputy Editor from Crikey and prominent freelance journalist, writes a great summary of his presentation at the Walkley’s MediaPass Student day in May 2010.
Jason has created his own prominent online presence in the media world and he admits that this is how he got his job at Crikey. He also offers some great tips and tricks in navigating through the social media applications on offer (primarily with Twitter and blogs) in order to participate in the media communities and to start branding yourself as a writer. He states you need to be “using social media as a tool to engage with the industry and promote your work. I absolutely know it to be true.” And here are his thoughts regarding his presentation on creating an online presence, which was sourced from his blog and discussed in my blog,
So I want to talk about the relationship between PR and journalism. Not as you may think. I want to talk about why journalists need to engage in their own PR. How, increasingly, you are all brands that must be marketed and commoditised. How you have to sell yourself, blatantly, shamelessly, in a market that is ruthlessly competitive.
Now, let me state one thing up front. I hate PR. It’s a dark art performed by many slimy practioners. And I only say that half-flippantly. But your ability to sell yourself — to devise a PR strategy, even — to win employment is crucial. You’re going to have to get your hands dirty.
The good news is the Internet and social media puts all the tools you need at your fingertips. But doing it well is a real challenge, and doing it badly will do untold damage to your reputation and employment prospects. It’s a fine line.
Getting your work read and seen is crucial, and ever-more-so in a greatly diversified and fragmented media environment. Fewer of you will have photo by-lines in the Herald Sun, or stand-ups on the nightly news, and fewer people will be seeing them anyway. At least initially you’ll be filing for online student publications, you’ll be writing for your own blogs, you’ll be pitching stories to be paid as a freelancer. You’ll be working on mediums and publications that don’t necessarily come with built-in audiences. The onus, at least partly, will be on you to go and find them. To build audiences for your writing. And, importantly, making sure the right people are reading.
Twitter is a great start. You need to be on Twitter. Trust me. I was a cynical as many of you know doubt are. It truly is white noise so much of the time. It’s dull people doing dull things. None duller than me. But as mass media goes it’s almost all that’s left. And anybody who you will ever want to employ you is reading and participating.
It’s the place to start to build your online reputation. Don’t treat it solely as a feed for shamelessly promoted links — nobody will follow you. It needs to have personality. It needs to be provocative and funny and engaging. You need to be following interesting people, re-tweeting interesting things, posting interesting information. And always, always, it needs to make you look eminently employable.
Use it to build your contacts list. Link it to your online profiles and work portfolios. Use it to drive people to the platforms you’re using to market your brand and publish your goods.
You should have a blog. There’s no excuse. When nobody will employ you, when nobody will publish your work, everyone can self-publish. Use it to compile any student or freelance work. And write well, write provocatively, write passionately about the things that interest you. Passion breeds the most compelling writing. It puts your best foot forward.
I got my job at Crikey because I nagged the powers that be to the point of annoyance. But also because they knew me. I existed in this sphere of media influence that is quickly developing online. They might have followed me on Twitter, they might have read my blog, they might have seen the online publications I was writing for; they saw me engaging with their products and participating in their community. I simply wouldn’t have got the job without it.
You cannot afford to be outside this community. You need to be incredibly, shamelessly conspicuous. You need a beachhead, a brand, a presence. And when everyone else finally catches up and joins you in the pool, you need to be more professional and, yes, more popular than anyone else. You need to sell yourself harder and faster than the rest.
At least for the moment, you need to be really good at PR. Don’t be ashamed.
And Jason also suggested in his presentation, the following tips for marketing your blog:
- Sell it! Tweet it to people you want to read it
- Advertise on google, to get more traffic to it
- Cross-link it to other blogs
- Think commercially
- You cannot just put it online, you have to market it
- After Jason himself caused problems in his employment with PPL when he wrote a blog on the management of New Limited being incompetent, he now states that this was “dumb” and he should not have written that, at that time. Read more in our Precautions section below.
Case Study
Tom Cowie set this site up http://tomwantsajob.wordpress.com/ and his subsequent Twitter @tom_cowie during an internship at Crikey. As the name of his blog suggests, it was created, solely for Tom to get a job. As described in http://www.upstart.net.au/former-upstart-editor-tom-cowie-wants-a-job/
Tom Cowie, former editor of upstart, has taken the idea to the next level with his new blog Tom wants a job. The blog, which was conceived by Tom in the wake of his internship at Crikey, will detail the ins and outs of his hunt for a job in journalism.
The blog will act as a diary, attempting to document life after uni for Tom as he goes through the processes of searching for an elusive job in print, radio, television and online journalism. Tom wants a job will also act as an experiment, investigating the possibilities of building a personal brand through blogs, social media and the digital grapevine.
The applications, the interviews, the knock backs. Tom’s life will be laid bare in what he calls a “part online documentary, part shameless self-promotion”. Be sure to check in regularly to see how he is progressing down the rocky road to gainful employment.
Tom’s blog is called Tom wants a job. You can also follow Tom’s journey on Twitter and Facebook, and hear him talk about his quest on the episode five of upcast.
And as of today, he is now officially employed as a full-time junior reporter at Crikey. As he states,
It only took three years of tertiary studies at La Trobe University and 38 days of social media campaigning.
Therefore, this case study clearly shows that creating an online presence and as Jason Whittaker suggests “shamelessly” marketing yourself will undeniably lead to work, so get started today…after you read the important precautions section below!
PRECAUTIONS
With all these new social media tools and recent headlines on Catherine Deveny’s sacking from The Age it is important to analysis the do’s and don’ts for these applications and know the implications that can occur if you plan on working professionally in the media industry, particularly a mainstream publication or even for the government or for any other organization or individual that may not appreciate your style, commentary or opinion now or in twenty years time.
The following tips were collected from our interviews and should be considered when developing your online profile:
- With Twitter, the out of context is everything in excess of 140 characters so be careful on Twitter and other platforms. Stephen Quinn.
- Pretend someone who hates you is reading your Tweets and imagine if they were used against you. Stephen Quinn.
- Graduating students beware: everything is archived (even web-based email), so “assume that somebody who doesn’t like you is reading it”. President Obama recently warned final year students in the USA that if they want to work in public politics, they need to be careful because in 30 years it can be dragged up to attack them
- Default settings on Facebook are public, so you must change to them to private
- Knowing how precarious your online presence is requires reflection and ethical queries daily
- As stated, “This week's witty truism on Twitter is that the social media platform Facebook is for your school friends and Twitter is for the people you wish you went to school with.” LINK
- So know your target audience and write appropriately in relation to who you want to impress and how you want to be perceived
- Louise Connor, from MEAA comments that Twitter is about momentary thoughts of people and can be read as a comment on its own, without the opportunity for further explanation and larger contexts
- At the time of writing, the thought process of what your writing and the possible consequences must be in your head and you must acknowledge that it could come back to you at a later date. Jason Whittaker.
- Sure you can choose to write what ever you want, but consider your stance and accept it if it comes back to you. Jason Whittaker.
- The microphone is ALWAYS hot — everything you say and do could be used as evidence. Never forget that. But don’t be afraid of it. Jason Whittaker.
Case Study: So what happened to Catherine Deveny?
If you have not heard that she was recently sacked from The Age due to her Twitter comments on the Logies night (and contributing factors discussed below), you clearly do not have an online presence and should carefully follow the previous steps before you read on…
I did not say you would like her but if you are conversing in the media communities and engaging with online forums you would certainly have heard her she was and what happened recently on Twitter. Here is the story from Catherine herself:
How her career at the AGE began and ended:
Ø She asked for work at the Age after working on ROVE and other freelance jobs. She was offered a temporary column commenting on TV for 4 weeks and the last column was writing on the Logies (which she has done every year since). At the end of this contract she was offered an ongoing column and she was later moved to Opinions section where she was a columnist for 10 years. She wrote her controversial commentary on the TV industry and other topics as she states, “all I can do is tell the truth”.
Ø When she was offered the ongoing job in the opinions section she stated to the editor,
“I’m just a suburban mum”
The editor replied, “perfect, the suburban perspective“
Catherine responded, “but I don’t even read the newspapers, I skim the headlines from international papers online”
The editor replied “perfect, the global perspective”.
And Catherine jokes, “yeah the suburban, global perspective, a real niche market.”
- Throughout her time at The Age, she was spoken to about swearing on Twitter and asked to “stop ranting” – which Catherine highlights is a term only used for women. Later she was also banned from writing about the Catholic Church or atheism (she only wrote 12 out of 600 columns on Atheism, which The Age or perhaps their vested interest in the Catholic Church, led them to a decision that this should also be banned from her allowable writing topics. She was also banned from writing on Anzac day and what it represents (but she notes a man was allowed to write on it in the same week Catherine had requested to air her opinions, in the opinions section about what she thinks Anzac Day stands for and how if Political Leaders want to start wars they should be prepared for them and their sons to be on the frontline). She also had a fairly long-standing pay dispute after her wages were cut by 40% for performing the same tasks.
- Thus, Catherine believes her Twitter case from the Logies was the perfect excuse for them to sack her. She started her writing at The Age with the Logies and ended with the same commentary (and contributing factors) leading to her sacking. “The Age was leaned on very heavily by the Catholic church to have me leave” since her recent stand-up show on Atheism and her ban in Mildura from talking about religion and pedophilia cases in the Catholic Church”
So of course, this leads me to ask, what should upcoming writers talk about if the current environment is so fearful?
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