Boss suddenly telling you to tweet and you're baffled by what the heck that little blue bird is on your screen? This is a workshop i held for newsroom employees feeling that pressure.

1. 1
9 Sept. 2014
ONE-DAY SOCIAL MEDIA CRASH
COURSE FOR JOURNALISTS
LED BY: CARL V. LEWIS (@CARLVLEWIS)
PREPARED FOR: MORRIS NEWSPAPERS
Morning, 9 a.m.
After breakfast, we’ll head into the conference room to talk strategy, and I’ll go over
your initial assessment. I’ll also give you all the social logins for you to grab
analytics from and place in a dynamic Google Sheet.
10:00 a.m.-noon:
Why does social media matter and how do I do it? And what the heck
do I do with Twitter?
This first session will debunk the notion that "social media is for kids" and
emphasize the importance of professionals of all ages, especially in journalism,
having a significant presence on social platforms. It will include specific examples of
how individual journalists have used social media not only to do their job better, but
to brand themselves and their news organizations. Lastly, we'll briefly go over the
basics of how each of the major social platforms are used, including Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram, Vine, etc. (and maybe LinkedIn).
The first session would also focus on using Twitter as a tool for real-time,
multimedia reporting, finding and following relevant sources, interacting with
friends and colleagues and promoting their own or their colleagues' journalistic work
in a conversational and engaging tone. It will cover the basics of hashtags and
mentions, the importance of Twitter lists, how to use link shorteners and what every
journalist should include in their Twitter bio. We'll also look at a few apps that make
Twitter easier to use, including the official Twitter app and Tweetdeck. We'll use the
hashtag #SMNsocial to report from the event in real-time and subsequent
workshops.

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2
1:00-4:00 p.m..
Ethics and Errors; Visual storytelling through social
media; Using social media to find, follow and quote
sources.
We'll look at some of the basic ethical guidelines for Twitter reporting, including
what to do when you make a mistake and how to correct it ethically, as well as what
types of content are appropriate for a professional Twitter account. We'll also help
participants answer the question of whether they should have a separate
professional and personal Twitter account, and whether they should include SMN in
their handle (the best answer is a single account and including SMN, which can
later be easily changed if they move to a different job).
This session would hone in on Instagram, Vine and YouTube as powerful platforms
for sharing real-time photo and video that help convey a story and can be
incorporated into a larger narrative online and in print. Video and photo doesn’t
have to be hard or require expensive equipment to include on the web.
How to use Twitter and Facebook to find out news before anyone else and how to
find, follow and interact with current and potential future sources. Also, how to
incorporate tweets into stories by sending the embed code to
online@savannahnow.com.
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