How local news organisations engage communities with social media
Social media is often viewed as the enemy of local news and for good reason: sites such as Facebook benefit enormously from being able to share journalism for free on their platform, sucking up advertising money that would previously have gone to news organisations themselves.
Yet while the internet has created huge challenges for traditional news outlets, it has also provided the opportunity for new hyperlocal websites and community funded journalism projects to thrive. Despite the challenges it brings, many local news organisations — both legacy and emerging — are experimenting with how social media can be used to better interact with their audience in a way that wasn’t possible before.
We spoke to two journalists, Mary-ann Astle from StokeOnTrentLive and Rachel Hamada from The Ferret and Bureau Local, to learn more about how they are using social media to better engage with the communities they serve.
Mary-ann Astle, Executive Editor (Digital) of StokeOnTrentLive
StokeOnTrentLive is the fifth fastest growing site in Reach PLC and is the digital news channel of The Sentinal, a daily newspaper first published in 1854. The site’s Facebook page has over 100,000 followers, and hosts six different Facebook groups, the most popular of which is a travel and traffic update group. The organisation also has a big presence on Twitter, where they share articles and breaking news, and Instagram, where they share images from around their patch.
Why is social media important for StokeOnTrentLive?
Social media is an important part of what we do at StokeonTrentLive — it not only allows us to reach our audience — and generate page views for the site — but it’s a valuable communication tool which allows interaction with readers pretty much 24/7.
Facebook, for example, has become a brilliant source for tip offs. If there’s armed police in a street, a building on fire, a helicopter flying over houses or any type of incident involving the emergency services, it’s a pretty safe bet that several members of the public will have messaged our StokeonTrentLive Facebook page to alert us.
This gives us direct contact with our readers, pretty much instantly, at times when our news reporters are on shift and, given that they work shifts spanning 5am to midnight, it means we’re always alert to breaking news. Social media has brought journalists closer to their audience and allows a dialogue that previously wasn’t really possible.
What channel is most important for you and why?
In terms of return on page views from social media, Facebook remains our most dominant social platform — generating several million page views every month.
We’re also active on Twitter and Instagram — and we are seeing growth in those areas — but for sheer scale Facebook can’t be matched. But I do wish they’d stop tinkering with the algorithms so much…
What channel(s) would you like to experiment more with?
We’re active on every channel we wish to be.
How does a local news organisations like yours use social media differently than a national organisation?
Being a regional site, we heavily emphasise just how local we are — indeed our hashtag is #localandproud.
We are not after a worldwide audience, we want a local and loyal audience. Readers who come back to us again and again — because we’re writing about what matters to them. We are all about local. I can’t stress that enough. The vast majority of our journalists — including every member of our senior team — are local to North Staffordshire.
We work really hard to engage with our readers, to respond to their suggestions, comments, queries and complaints, and to ensure that 99 percent of what we publish is local and relevant to them. Unlike some other media outlets, every day we publish things like charity appeals, lost pets, 100th birthdays and beautiful pictures taken by our readers.
We do Facebook live broadcasts from school events or from backstage at the theatre on the opening night of panto. It’s good, old-fashioned community journalism which is really well-received on social media.
What advice would you give to other local new organisations looking to improve their presence on social media?
There’s no ‘one size fits all strategy’ for social media — the approach for one site might not work for another. We’re growing rapidly on all social media platforms and it’s because we listen to our audience — which means we know what they want.
Every journalist at StokeonTrentLive understands the important of social media and the value of using it to create a relationship with their audience.
Rachel Hamada, Co-founder of The Ferret and Community Organiser for Bureau Local
Launched in 2015, the Ferret is a non-profit media cooperative set up to investigate public interest stories in Scotland. Aside from their public Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, they also run a private Facebook group for Ferret Underground members, a community that can be joined via text message.
Bureau Local is part of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a non-profit news organisation focusing on public interest journalism both in Britain and abroad. Launched in 2017, Bureau Local has created a network of UK-based journalists, technologists and citizens who perform collaborative investigations, revealing stories that matter to local UK communities.
Why is social media important to what you do at the Ferret and Bureau Local?
Social media is important in both jobs as it’s a key way of building awareness and support, networks of communities and sharing stories. It shouldn’t however be a replacement for meeting people and getting out into communities in real life. It is a good place to seek amplification for our stories outside the traditional media world. It can — if used thoughtfully — also be a way to reach different communities from our usual audiences, and to grow.
What is the most important channel for you and why?
Different channels for different purposes — though it’s essential not to become too dependent on any. I personally prefer Twitter as a medium, but professionally it depends which communities we are trying to reach. At The Ferret have tried to ensure we put consistent, regular content on Facebook and more recently Instagram but interestingly more of our referrals now seem to come from Twitter.
What channel(s) would you like to experiment more with?
Google Docs! I say that as a joke as it’s apparently where teenagers are chatting online… But in reality, in both my organisations we love to collaborate, and this is one of the best ways. Having said that, I would personally love to have more channels that were independent of big corporate owners such as Facebook and Google, but we do need to be where people are.
At Bureau Local and the Ferret, how do you use social media differently than a national organisation would?
At The Ferret I built up our social media from scratch, although we all contribute to it now. Key to our development in the early days was our persona — serious investigations but irreverent image/humour. We think that this really worked in our favour — some of our content is pretty heavy and serious, so the ferret avatar and regular GIFS helped to offset that and leaven things a bit. It was also memorable and stood out in a timeline.
We also run Ferret Underground, which is a scheme for people who are interested in the kind of stuff we write about but who aren’t yet members. People who join that get our newsletter, join our community Facebook group and get access to more free articles every month. We hope that in time many of these folks will see the value and become members.
At The Bureau Local we have used Twitter threading and moments to produce a narrative of an investigation — from our recent Sold From Under You council sell-off investigation to our Dying Homeless work. As a small organisation we don’t produce the volume of social media output that some of our bigger peers do, but this method frames our stories in a compelling way and allows us to share our work effectively — people can come in at the entry point of the thread or moment and then be taken through the story as it unfolds, as our local network members report from their areas, and as reaction and impact is created.
What advice would you give someone looking to start up their own hyperlocal news site?
Spend lots of time and energy developing the site itself as this is YOURS. Yes, develop a social media presence and output too — but remember that the rules can change anytime and platforms can disappear. Don’t become reliant on social media, use it as just one strand in a wider plan. However it’s a great place to link up with local interest groups, businesses etc and to build yourself information sources and a profile quickly.
Building Twitter lists can be an effective way of following what is going on and listening to local voices — and do ask questions. You can also, on Twitter, see who other key people in your area are following to source key contacts. Before you start on social media, make sure you have a memorable name and brand.
Originally published at www.interhacktives.com on March 22, 2019.
