Poynter. » Community Engagement

How to respond when the Internet calls you names

Shawn Williams — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:52:42 +0000

@shawnpwilliams Yeah, you’re a dumb n****r.

When I read these words written by a stranger last week, I wasn’t sure how to react. It wasn’t the first time I’d been called the n-word, but it was in a place that… Read more

4 ways Muni Diaries readers document San Francisco bus riding

Eugenia Chien — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:35:51 +0000

Complaining about riding the bus is sport in San Francisco. So when we started Muni Diaries, a website documenting stories that happen on public transit, there was a high chance that our website could devolve into a cesspool of whining… Read more

How to use Urtak, a collaborative polling tool, to increase reader engagement

Shane Snow — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:45:56 +0000

A week before Thanksgiving, conservative news site TheBlaze.com posted a story about whether retail stores should be open on the holiday. The post received more than 120,000 responses in less than two days, reaching 140,000 by the end of… Read more

7 steps for building an effective community management plan

Shane Snow — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:27:41 +0000

The growth of social media in newsrooms has sparked the need for community managers — people who are responsible for regularly interacting with a site’s audience and executing a community growth strategy.

The challenge with a new profession like community… Read more

7 ways to get your audience to participate in mobile mapping projects

Jim Colgan — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:00:02 +0000

News organizations are increasingly involving the community in their reporting and trying to figure out which approaches work well.

One way to get your audience involved is to combine the ease of mobile texting with the visual appeal of… Read more

California Watch’s engagement efforts show staffers what hard-to-reach audiences want

Phuong Ly — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

California Watch’s stories about earthquake safety problems in schools reached hundreds of thousands of people through a statewide network of radio, TV and newspaper partnerships.

But the ones most affected by nonprofit news agency’s investigation were the ones least… Read more

Barroom meetings one way St. Louis Beacon engages people where they really are

Mallary Jean Tenore — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:39:01 +0000

When the St. Louis Beacon launched three years ago, its staff made a conscious effort to get out into the community. They wanted to engage with readers not just online, but in person — at museums, coffee shops and… Read more

In the trenches of La Mesa local Web wars, a former journalist is born again

Chris Lavin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:56:21 +0000

Just over a year ago, amid the blood-letting in the American newspaper business, I lay awake in bed and realized that for the first time in more than three decades, I was no longer a journalist.

Former reporter, former editor,… Read more

Highlights from SXSW: 7 steps to building trust and credibility with an online audience

Damon Kiesow — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:09:07 +0000

Doreen Marchionni spent the last four years studying how journalists can boost their credibility and engagement with digital audiences. She found the simple secret: Interact online and be human.

However, she says, it takes more than simply having a Twitter… Read more

How a small Arkansas TV station uses Facebook, Twitter to drive audience to newscasts, website

Regina McCombs — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:18:54 +0000

KAIT-TV in Jonesboro, Ark., is a small station with a large social media presence.

The station, which is in the 180th television market (out of 210) in a metro area with a population somewhere around 150,000, has… Read more