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Hit Search Guide – Online Journalism : 6 Key Skills Of The Digital Journalist

By Andrew Redfern @ 6th January 2010 12:54 pm

The rise of the online journalism one of the aspects became particularly noticeable in 2009 and looks like a trend that will continue into 2010.

The ability to source information quickly and push out to worldwide audience with shocking immediacy has lead to journalists becoming much more efficient and copy is written much closer to a particular event.

With the rise of the online journalism; Hit Search have produced a list of digital tips that will help traditional journalists in the scary world of online.

1) Twitter – The micro blogging site is perfect for the budding journalist, for sourcing business contacts to finding people to talk about your topics. Twitter will also provide great insight into what the public are talking about on an hourly and basis.

Examples of UK journalist on Twitter are as follows

BBC
Rory Cellan-Jones – http://twitter.com/ruskin147
Declan Curry – http://twitter.com/declancurry

The Guardian
Kate Bevan – http://twitter.com/katebevan
Dave Hill – http://twitter.com/DaveHill

The Telegraph
Shane Richmond – http://twitter.com/shanerichmond

2) Facebook – Facebook has over 350 million active users all of which in true Facebook style have something to say and the sheer volume of groups online is becoming a great resource to test the pulse of the nation. Facebook groups make the news on regular basis – just today ITV reported of a newly formed group opposing the Wootton Bassett protest march. Traditional journalists are already using Facebook to gather data for stories and it can be a great way to research the reputation of a brand or topic. Use Facebook’s search function combined with a RSS feeds for Facebook to steal a march on your competition.

3) Groups and Forums – Whilst there is a massive number of people using Facebook and other social networks Web forums should not be ignored and can a rich vein of content in niche area. Take for example one of the biggest Parenting network in the country MumsNets.com. MumsNet boasts over 1 million registered “mums”, so powerful in fact that both Labour and the Conservatives have provided interviews in recent weeks to boost their election campaign.

4) Hot Topics – As a journalist you always know what are the growing trends from the general public but there are some great online tools that will help quantify this. For example the trends report below shows the scale of searches for Gordon Brown and David Cameron in the last thirty days; and allows the savvy journalist to writing about rising trends and quantify the size of small topics.

5) Different Content Formats – The digital journalist should be not only conform table in written text but should look at developing this format into more engaging media like video and speech. voice podcast and online videos are an increasing elements in journalism and something you need to add to your portfolio

6) Embrace Technology – With all different elements mentioned above are bound by one single body, the ability to react and change to new technological developments in the world of journalism. Setup your own blog and work out what stories work best and why they worked; blogs can be setup easily and freely @ WordPress.com and require little technical knowledge.

Subscribe to YouTube channels in your specialist areas and get familiar with who are the most popular people posting. Research audioboo.fm, a Audio Blogging website which is perfect starting place for distributing the spoken word.

Would you like to know more about these subjects? Contact Hit Search on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world, make sure you become visible.

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