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So now I want to give you five strategies for having a healthy community that
interacts with what you're doing because, let's face it.
I don't want to be a journalist,
you don't want to be a journalist if nobody is in there with you.
So, the first strategy we need to use is we need to be conversational.
I don't just mean in terms of your writing, I don't just mean that.
Your writing should be conversational.
One trick we use to make sure that our writing sounds conversational is after
we write a piece we read it out loud to see what it sounds like.
If it sounds like a conversation, if it sounds like the way I talk,
then I feel that's pretty good.
But having a conversation means inviting people to talk back to you.
And that's the second point, be conversational.
Think of your community as somebody you're conversing with,
not somebody you're blaring at.
And have a conversation with them, so that they respond to you.
First, be conversational, second invite them.
Third, they respond to you and when they respond to you acknowledge their response.
Acknowledge their response.
Hey, I'm talking to you, talk back.
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This can be if you're lucky enough to have this problem.
It can take up a lot of your time as you respond to all these people
who are talking to you about your message.
After all this is your passion, this is the thing you're doing.
Some places will automate it so that an automatic response goes up,
people can tell.
You can tell when something's automated and not human.
Some places will set up reward systems for frequent commenters to get stars or
to reach higher levels.
But we need to, after we have been conversational and invited people, and
they've responded to us, we need to acknowledge their response.
The fourth thing I want you to talk about, and maybe this will blow up your mind,
I don't know, for this one you need to be happy.
[LAUGH] Be happy if people in your community are talking to each other and
not to you.
That's part of the way social media journalism works,
you are not the boss of anyone, I am not the boss of anyone.
I am creating a place where they like to be, where they can have a conversation.
That means I want them to cross talk and tell each other what they are thinking.
Even if I'm not involved in the exchange.
This is a healthy sign, not a bad sign.
It's sort of like you created a party and they want to be at your party, and
they're talking to each other.
When you have a party you don't have to be in everybody's conversation.
You might be in the kitchen cooking,
in social media journalism cross-talking is a healthy thing.
The last thing, the fifth thing that we really want to think about is we're
hosting these parties, these conversations, these journalistic
exchanges is we need to be in charge of the environment.
Sometimes that means we need to set up some ground rules and establish them.
You're all familiar with trolls online.
People will go in and try to mess things up for other people.
It's a constant balance between,
do I let unmoderated comments just flood in to my blog or do I moderate things?
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Can I use the community to discourage people who want to mess things up?
But that's the fifth thing we really need to look at, is how,
now that we've created this new media, multiple direction conversation.
How do we keep it civil, constructive, in a place where people want to stay,
that's one of our challenges.
Thank you.
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Joanne GerstnerSports Journalist in Residence
Eric FreedmanInstructor
Joe GrimmInstructor
David PoulsonInstructor
Jeremy SteeleSpecialist
Lucinda D. DavenportDirector & Professor
