Using the new Facebook features for journalism: timeline profile, subscribe and share

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Ever been driving down a new road and suddenly found you’ve caught up with the construction team?

That’s the sensation I’ve been getting using Facebook in the past couple of weeks

The Facebook construction team is laying down the social media equivalent of hot tarmac as fast as they can, but public launch has been delayed, and the cars are backing up impatiently, wanting to use this new stretch of road.
A lot's changed on Facebook.
You may have heard about Facebook Timeline, which replaces the old style profile.
If you haven’t don’t  worry.
We’ll cover it.
And we’ll look at the new ways a journalist can use this new-style timeline profile in conjunction with a fan page – like the ones we built in Masterclass 34
The developments mean you now not only have a place for your journalism - your fan page -  but also a more personal space for you as a journalist - your new-style timeline profile.
Because, while you can still invite fans to like your page, you can also now invite people to subscribe to your updates on your new-style timeline profile.
And you can now divide your Facebook community into distinct groups – not unlike the Circles concept on Google+ –  and post different content to different groups.
If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is!
But it also gives us a lot more potential for using Facebook for journalism.
So we’ll run through all the new stuff, and demonstrate how it can be used.

Fortunately, none of those changes invalidate anything we covered in Masterclass 34's Getting started with Facebook section.

But, just to check you are up to speed, and ready for this masterclass on Building Proficiency with Facebook, here’s what we covered in Getting Started:

• Opening a Facebook account

• Setting up a profile page for you as a journalist and a separate Facebook page for your journalism. (One quick point: profiles are now called timelines)

• Posting content to Facebook – and what works best

• Gaining friends on Facebook, and finding people to invite to view your page

• Promoting your Facebook page with a content-rich widget on your website

• Posting content on Facebook – what works best

• Finding and researching stories on Facebook

If you need to fill in any gaps, and you are registered with MMJ, you can catch up on Getting Started here.

Here’s what we'll cover in the following modules: 

• The new Facebook: creating a timeline as your public profile

• The new Facebook: using the 'share' feature

• The new Facebook: the 'Subscribe' feature

• The new Facebook: Profiles with subscribers, pages with fans

• Creating a rich content hub on your Facebook Page

• Using Facebook Page Insights to evaluate and improve your performance

• How Facebook rates you and your content using EdgeRank - and how to boost your post ranking

• Should you use Facebook as your main social platform?

• Exercises, projects and further MMJ resources

Next: Creating a timeline as your public profile

How to take your use of social media to the next level: three linked masterclasses for journalists

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We're going to be running a series of MMJ masterclasses for journalists on building proficiency in social media over the next few weeks

They follow on from our masterclasses on Getting Started in Social Media

Here's a quick preview of our programme of learning:

These linked masterclasses form the second of three co-ordinated learning programmes and are part of a comprehensive guide to the use of social media for journalism
They fit into the second level of tuition at MMJ, the one called Building Proficiency
As such they sit alongside the other subjects that you'll find at the Building Proficiency level in the textbook and on this companion website.
This tuition is currently available exclusively on the website, but will be adapted for inclusion in future editions of the MMJ print and ebook.
After a few days free-to-air it will be available only to registered users of MMJ. The benefits of registration are outlined here. To register, you need to buy the textbook, in ether paper or ebook form.

Here are our learning goals: To develop and enhance the professional presences you have established for yourself, and/or the titles you work on, with the following social platforms:

• Twitter
• Facebook 9including all the recent developments on that platform)
• Google+
• You Tube

And to explore the benefits of building presences on other social platforms including:

• Foursquare
• Instagram
• Digg
• Delicious
• Friendfeed

To demonstrate how to optimise your use of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube in regard to:

• The design and branding of your presence on each platform
• Promoting these social media presences on your websites and blogs
• Using a range of tools to optimise your effectiveness on them
• Managing your social media accounts efficiently using a range of tools

To further develop your ability to use social media for story finding and research, and in identifying contacts and experts, through the use of  more advanced social media search tools.

Social media for reporting

A number of recent masterclasses have looked at how to use social media as reporting tools

Because of that, we aren't covering that topic here.
If you are registered with MMJ you can use these resources to gain a full, up-to-date guide to using social media for reporting:

• Live blogging and real-time reporting
• Curatorial journalism
• Location-based content for local journalism

Exercises and projects

The final units in each of these three, linked mastercalsses hold a series of exercises, designed to enable students to research the use of social media; and projects, designed to enable groups of students - or individuals - to hone their skills as social media journalists.

Further learning programmes

There is a Getting Started learning programme here
A further programme at the Professional Standards level is in the schedule. Check here for news of it.

LIVE from October 14: Masterclass 37: Building proficiency with Twitter

Why you should register with MMJ

When you register for Multimedia Journalism: A Practical Guide you get three things:

• Full access to the website that complements the print / ebook textbook.

• Unrestricted access to fortnightly masterclasses on the latest developments in social, mobile and multimedia journalism

• Membership of the MMJ community – a supportive group of journalism students, journalists, educators and leading industry figures

Why do you need all that?
Because to really master multimedia journalism as a discipline you can’t rely solely on a print or ebook.
While the static text is invaluable as a means of understanding the essential, unchanging principles of journalism, you can’t fully grasp elements such as video, audio, and social media from text alone.
So the principles discussed in the book are demonstrated on the website, with illustrations in the appropriate media.

There’s another reason the online access subscribers get is so essential: the world of mobile, social, multimedia journalism is changing fast.

Only on the website can we can make sure things stay bang up to date. And we do, revising content regularly with the latest information, demonstrations and case studies.
And the online masterclasses cover new areas of journalism as they are developing. So you get detailed, practical demonstrations and tuition on the very latest developments.
Non-subscribers are only allowed access to each new masterclass for a few days. Subscribers have unlimited access to this invaluable learning and teaching resource.
So, for example, we covered using Google+ for journalism within days of this new social platform being launched in restricted beta. And offered 150 invitations to join it to MMJ subscribers.
As an MMJ subscriber, you can ask us to cover the areas of journalism that are most important to you. If there’s something you want to see included in the masterclass programme, let us know and we’ll do all we can to include it in the masterclass schedule.
And if you need help, we’re here for you. Contact the author, Andy Bull, via the contact buttons on the site, or @andybull on Twitter.

The benefits of adopting the book for your course

Many educators around the world have adopted the MMJ textbook and companion website as a set text for their journalism courses.
They are core members of the MMJ community, and as such are offered whatever level of support they would appreciate, such as:

• free consultancy on syllabuses,

• guest lectures either in person or via Skype, and

• mentoring for students.

If you’re still undecided about subscribing, feel free to get in touch, via the Contact buttons or @andybull on Twitter, to discuss your requirements.

Twitter widget embed example

Seven essential tools for visual storytelling - previewing the new MMJ masterclass

It’s now very easy for us to bring really engaging visual storytelling techniques to our reporting

A number of great apps and tools let us use the full range of media

They let us geotag what we are creating – which means we can put it on a map

And some of them let us broadcast these great visual stories direct from our smartphones.
We’re going to look at a range of the latest apps here.
They don’t all do everything I’ve mentioned.
Some are great for live reporting, others are best at other things
At building mapped, multimedia travel features, for example
Or creating timelines

So here’s a quick introduction to the apps and tools we’ll be working with

We’ll look at:

• Meporter – for live, multimedia, geotgagged reports filed direct from the scene of a story
• At Intersect – for multimedia, mapped stories rooted in place and time, and which can intersect with other stories in the same place. (It’s actually a lot more straightforward than it may sound)
• At iMapFlickr –which turns Flickr pictures into a journey told on a map
• At Gowalla – a check-in site which has just reinvented itself with a focus on travel and storytelling
• At Foursquare – another check-in site which is also developing its capacity as a storytelling paltform
• At Dipity, which is great for creating embeddable timelines fast
• And at Vuvox, which lets you create really professional timeline visualisaitons without having to learn Flash or Photoshop.

Those last two items have been picked up from a session we did in the MMJ summer school a couple of months ago. They’re added here to give an added dimension to our discussion and demonstrations of visual storytelling.
Some of the other tools we’ve looked at before, either in masterclasses or in the MMJ textbook. We’re returning to them now because there’s new stuff to be said – and new functionality to explore.
The whole subject of visual storytelling is a big, and fast moving one. There’s a good deal of other information on it elsewhere in the MMJ website and in the paper or ebook textbook. So we’ll finish up with a screen of links to other relevant tuition.

Next: Meporter; live, multimedia, geotagged reporting from your smartphone

Previewing Masterclass 35: Getting started with RSS feeds

 

This masterclass is again set at the Getting Started level of MMJ's three-level learning programme.

Below is what the intro screen for students will say. There's a link at the bottom into the tuition.

A journalist is only as good as their sources

And building those sources is a vital part of becoming an effective and professional journalist
Some sources are individual, face to face ones.
The people you come into personal contact with in your day-to-day work. Or who you talk to by phone.
But we can also tap into sources online, and reach people, and information streams, we can’t easily get to in other ways.
With the growth of online publishing via specialist blogs, and the use of social media, the importance of monitoring these information sources has become huge – it’s one of the cornerstones on which you’ll build your career as a journalist.

RSS as social media

We looked in the last masterclass at how social media can be a valuable source of stories, contacts and tools for research.
We also looked at social media as publishing platforms, or distribution channels, for our journalism.
Now we add to that with a look at using RSS feeds to the same ends.
We’ll start from scratch, looking at what RSS feeds are, and how to set them up.
And we’ll look at how to use them most efficiently, by combining the sources you want to keep tabs on into folders.
We’ll also look at something Google calls bundles, which turn a whole bunch – or bundle – of individual RSS feeds into one big aggregated one.
These bundles can be a great resource for you, and for others. So they’re something you can share with your community.
Which brings us to publishing. We’ll also look at how you can set up RSS streams to distribute your breaking news and other information.

Next: What RSS is and how journalists use it