Zombie Journalism: ‘Interacting with the audience as a news brand’

Using social media to talk to an audience is what this blog post was all about.

Social media allows brands to interact with consumers.

Mandy Jenkins had some interesting tips.

Here are my thoughts on them:

• Responding — I know you’re always supposed to respond. I hadn’t really thought about direct messaging someone other than getting their contact information. Although this is kind of difficult when doing it just because you’re shy about talking to them because in order to direct message someone, you have to follow them.
• News tips — I knew that after you get a tip from someone you should verify it with them and re-tweeting it afterwards.
• Ask for help — Asking your followers for media about a scene works if you have a large audience. I don’t really have one. Sometimes this has worked for me, especially when it was a current issue like when I was researching DC Fashion Week or GMU football.
• Be thankful — Give credit when credit is due. You can do this on social media sites and within your story or multimedia.
• Questions — It makes sense to respond as quickly as possible since everyone expects instant contact. It’d be polite to tell them if you were finding someone to answer their question.
• Criticism — I didn’t think you should always address it, even to say if you are passing it on but it makes sense. So does not getting into fights and going offline if it goes to far.
• Corrections — I was surprised at how you should correct a factual error in a tweet. Instead of deleting the tweet, you should correct it in a follow-up tweet.
• Start the conversation — Asking questions to your followers sounds a little silly if you feel like you have none but adding a hashtag can help people find it.
• Responses — I didn’t think of re-tweeting a good response with a link with what it’s about it.