Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Be Careful Student Sports Reporters, Your School May Have an In-Game Tweet Limit

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 13, 2012 | 4 Comments »

Journalists are currently abuzz about the University of Washington men’s basketball team– not for its play but for how it’s allowed to be covered.

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Athletics officials at the school recently told a local sports reporter to stop live-tweeting so much during an early season game.  The weird warning revealed a new official rule instituted for all live coverage of UW games by outside press– 20 tweets tops at basketball games and no more than 45 tweets during football games.

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Hmm.  The restriction, known formally as a “live coverage policy,” is apparently similar to those being enacted or considered by other sports programs at colleges and universities nationwide.  On spec, it seems to be an attempt to have more netizens check out the school’s own live online coverage.

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It is also undoubtedly a larger push to control as much of the in-the-moment media coverage of its teams as possible, in exchange for reporter access to the fun and games.  As former sports reporter Brian Moritz confirms, “Yes, every reporter who gets a press credential signs a release that includes the rules. No, none of them ever read it. Seriously, when’s the last time you read the terms and conditions when you update iTunes?”

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It is the latest sports reporting body blow at the college level brought to light this semester, including increasing limits on reporting on team practices and student-athlete injuries.  Heck, University of Kansas head football coach Charlie Weis does not believe the KU student newspaper should provide any negative coverage of his dismal gridiron squad at all.

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So, big question of the day: Does your school have a social media policy for live sports coverage?  And bigger question: What other limits, if any, do sports reporters at your news outlet face, especially when covering your school’s A-list players and teams?

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Controversial NextGen Journal Piece: ‘Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25′

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 23, 2012 | 1 Comment »

A provocative piece published late last week on NextGen Journal arguing all social media managers should be under 25 years old has stirred incomparable levels of rancor and commenting.  NextGen founder and editor-in-chief Connor Toohill confirms it is the most controversial post appearing on the site since its inception in fall 2010.

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In the piece, fresh University of Iowa graduate Cathryn Sloane contends social media is a phenomenon embedded most intricately within the DNA of teens and young twentysomethings.  Their innate knowledge of its ins-and-outs, according to Sloane, makes them “the ones who can best predict, execute, and utilize the finest developments to come,” including in the workplace.

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As she writes, “I do commend the way companies . . . have jumped on the social media bandwagon and recognized that it is the best way to connect with people nowadays.  Yet, every time I see a job posting for a Social Media Manager/Associate/etc. and find the employer is looking for five to ten years of direct experience, I wonder why they don’t realize the candidates who are in fact best suited for the position actually aren’t old enough to have that much experience.”

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From her perspective, individuals middle-aged and older do not fully understand what they’re doing on social media.  In her words, “No one else will ever be able to have as clear an understanding of these services [as younger people], no matter how much they may think they do. . . . To many people in the generations above us, Facebook and Twitter are just the latest ways of getting messages out there to the public, that also happen to be the best.  The specificity of the ways in which the method should be used is usually beyond them, however.”

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Soon after the piece appeared online, readers began fighting back.  As of this morning, roughly 450 comments (and thousands of replies and ‘likes’ for those comments) have been posted– many written by ‘older’ individuals belying the naivete or inaccuracy of Sloane’s assessment.

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Two examples:

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In a follow-up post acknowledging the piece’s virality and controversy, Toohill confirms it even divided NextGen’s editorial board.  But he reasons it is still a sentiment shared by many young people and deserves to be considered.  As he writes, “In conversations across college campuses and with young professionals, these ideas often come up: that young people naturally grasp social media more effectively, that members of our generation are best suited to fill positions in the rapidly expanding social media profession, and that employers too often value prior work experience above all else.

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A separate rebuttal from social media guru and University of Maryland prof. Mark Story lays out several points he feels Sloane glossed over or left out.  Among them, as he explains to Sloane directly, “[Y]ou confused familiarity with using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter with the ability to turn that into offering actionable, solid communications advice for internal or external clients.  There is a BIG difference between posting Facebook Timeline updates and telling General Motors what to do with their own social media presence in the midst of a crisis.”

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Student Social Media Directors, Check Out Michigan Daily’s Citizen Journalism Tool #MichLinks

Posted in College Media, Journalism, New Media, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , on March 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Student news outlet social media directors, take note: a reader engagement exercise potentially worth emulating is now in its third month of operation at The Michigan Daily and seemingly finding success.

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As the Daily explains to its readers, #MichLinks is a “citizen journalism tool that compiles reporting about Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan.  If you find an interesting piece about the city of Ann Arbor, college life or the university, send a tweet with the hashtag #Michlinks for a chance to be published on our website. . . . #Michlinks was inspired by Propublica’s social networking tool #Muckreads.  Similar to #Muckreads, the goal of #Michlinks is to use social networking to enhance your access to reporting about our community.  Though the Daily will contribute a number of interesting pieces to #Michlinks, your participation is key to its success.”

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It is a wonderful social media daily drill for four reasons:

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1) It provides an impetus and an organized system for staff to keep track of related stories reported by other news media.  Every day, the Michigan Daily has forced itself to keep up with what its local competitors and the national media are saying about Michigan Wolverines and people who love them.  It’s something that student news teams should be doing anyway, but as I’ve seen firsthand, regular, full-on media monitoring often gets tossed in the coulda-woulda-shoulda-will-do-more-next-semester pile.  #MichLinks though is public and daily, making it much tougher to procrastinate about or overlook.

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2) It enables easy-breezy audience involvement and a true feeling of reader contribution.

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3) It provides a public, easy-to-spot avenue for PR peeps and marketers to promote news, and a confirmation for the Daily staff that the news the paper is promoting is at least worthwhile enough to have been featured in a reputable outlet.

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4) It is a manageable means of providing a fuller, richer body of content online, giving readers one more reason to turn to the Daily site first for all related news.  A little aggregation atop tons of original reporting is ethically A-OK.

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Georgetown Voice Helps Start High-Profile Snowball Fight

Posted in College Media, Magazine Journalism, New Media, tagged , , , , , on February 28, 2010 | 1 Comment »

When is a snowball fight also a social media revolution? On a wintry day in Washington D.C., one ambitious George Washington University undergraduate employed Twitter and The Georgetown Voice student newsmagazine to help spread the word about a snowy battle “that would eventually be referenced in one way or another by the Washington Post, LA Times, U.S. News & World Report, NBC DC, and a host of campus media outlets.”

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In an exclusive e-interview with Campus Overload, a fantastic new online addition to the Washington Post run by education reporter Jenna Johnson, GW’s Kyle Boller explains:

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The day before the snowball fight, I sent a tweet to @GtownVoice, Georgetown’s student magazine and blog, and suggested the idea. About 46 minutes later, they replied and planning began. We created an event page on Facebook and spread the word on Twitter. Within 24 hours, about 600 students from both schools had RSVP’ed (that number would eventually rise to 850 by the time of the event). . . . There is no doubt that the #gwgusnowdown was historic, as was the snowfall that made it possible. Hopefully, though, students from both schools will hold on to the greater messages of the event. One of those messages is that when organizational skill meets the power of social networking anything can be accomplished.

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In the fierce, snowy combat, GWU prevailed.  Here is a Voice battlefield report: “Due to the lack of depth on the Georgetown side, the fight quickly devolved and most Hoyas were trudging back to campus with triumphant shouts from GW in the background within a half an hour. Other students report that GWU continued pelting GU until they were out of range, even as they removed their wounded from the battlefield.”  (Click the screenshot below to watch video of the fight.)

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Twitter Takes the States, Plurk Rules in Southeast Asia

Posted in College Media, Journalism, New Media, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2009 | 9 Comments »

An excellent recent post by CICM intern Lauren Rabaino reveals in pie chart form what those of us following student media’s attempts at Twitter have long known: Is quality tweeting taking place?  Not so much.

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Two-thirds of the 50 college media Twitter accounts Rabaino looked at are either solely serving as tiny-url advertisers for stories on the outlets’ sites or saying nothing at all.  The Daily Tar Heel‘s recent tweeterific real-time coverage of a campus bomb scare at UNC is proof that Twitter *can* be harnessed as a news tool at the student level.  Is it happening in any sustained sense as of yet?  I am a follower of most of the accounts cited in the Rabaino breakdown and I can safely say the answer is a resounding no.

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Now here in Singapore, Twitter is about as relevant as a winter coat.  The student-age social media elite of S’pore and Southeast Asia instead are (at times quite rabid) aficionados of a competing microblogging service: Plurk, the “social journal for your life.” I recently dove into the Plurk-osphere and want to boldly declare: It is FAR superior to Twitter in a number of ways.

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Chief among them: It cuts down on the overwhelming randomness of Twitter-mania, providing a clear-cut timeline to follow and the ability to respond to specific plurks, building a much stronger sense of community.  In this latter respect, student bloggers here use the service to hype their posts and create quite a following, in part because they are able to communicate directly to their friends/fans much more conveniently than via the big T.  Also, an honest confession: I find Plurk simply to be a lot more fun than its chief competwitter.

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What do you think- Twitter or Plurk?

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