The new era of Journalism.
By: Serena Soroka
Tags: Blogging Tips, Twitter, Microblogging, Instagram, Facebook

The new era of Journalism.

How many times have you clicked off an article because you didn’t want to sit for hours reading? In contrast to popular belief, a long article is not always the best article; according to research 75% of people would prefer to read a story that is under a thousand words. People have become accustomed to reading shorter articles as the new age of ‘Microblogging’ has arisen.

What is Microblogging?

“Microblogging allows users to publish and share brief updates for real‐time and asynchronous communication with no more than 140 characters. Users may explore, follow, reply or forward each other’s posts, allowing interactions and collaborations to take place among people from virtually any corner of the world (Java, Song, Finin & Tseng, 2007).”

Essentially, a Microblog is just a small piece of writing that is used on social media platforms to gain audience interaction; it became popular when the new rise of social media began, as journalists and writers could use microblogging as a tool to engage with readers quicker. Microblogging can also be used to promote longer articles on journalists blog pages to keep them informed of new uploads, just like I did when promoting this blog on Twitter.

When to use Microblogging?

• To promote your full article on social media, to catch readers attention.

• To report on live events that need constant short, snappy updates.

• To share personal opinions on matters that are reflected in your article.

• To gain followers on your social media platform, so in turn, they read your blog promotions, which will increase engagement.

• To share image/videos that you may not include in your blog.

Microblogging Sites.

Facebook

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites. On Facebook, you can create a personal or professional profile which allows you to share a ‘status’ where you can post text updates, photos and videos, which are all uploaded to your page. You can even create specific pages, which allow you to focus on specific topics, for example, I created a Facebook page to help promote this very blog, focussing on social media and political matters.

Facebook enables readers to ‘comment’ back on your posts, with their own opinion and views, which in turn, increases your engagement. You can do almost anything on Facebook, from selling a product, to sharing live videos; it is a great platform for sharing content and gaining reader interaction, that can really help promote your articles.

Instagram

Instagram takes the visual aspect of journalism to the next level; the social media platform is used to post photographs with a hefty two thousand characters caption, with each individual post. Instagram helps capture the reader’s attention with visually appealing images, which entices the reader to click the link to the article.

Instagram can also be used as a platform where you can collect research for articles and news stories, as you can post polls and questions on your ‘story’, enabling you to hear directly from your viewers. Similar to Facebook, you can comment on other profiles posts and stories, which further allows readers to stay interactive with your work.

Twitter

Twitter has been a microblogging site since it was first created as a platform. It is one of the most popular microblogging sites, as it allows you to publicly share your views and opinions on important and unimportant matters. On the social media site, you create a profile where all your tweets are saved, and readers can scroll through all of your previous tweets. Tweets can include images, videos, links, GIFs and text, each tweet containing just under three hundred characters.

Features of Twitter:

The main features that helped improve my reader engagement on twitter were:

The #hashtag.

To efficiently use a #, hashtag a word in your tweet that is ‘trending’ on twitter. By using the hashtag, it puts your tweet into a category, and when users of the social media site, use the search engine to read tweets on specific matters, your tweet is more likely to be read.

I used various hashtags whilst tweeting, in order to increase the level of engagement. By using hashtags on relevant words in my tweet, my engagement increased. After viewing my twitter activity, I found that on tweets where I didn’t use any hashtags, 67 people had viewed my tweet, however, when I used a relevant hashtag, my views increased to 141; which shows that when using relevant hashtags your level of engagement will increase.

Polls

Using polls on twitter is another great way to collect research for your articles. I conducted a research poll to find out the amount of people who used social media as a form of news reading, I then used the data collected from these polls in my ‘The Role of Social Media in Journalism’ blog post.

“Microblogging made it easy for the audience to ask questions, have discussions, share resources (Ebner, 2009b; Ross et al, 2011) and create shared comments on learning materials (Ebner, 2009a).”

When using polls on Twitter, engagement is likely to increase, as it is a quick and easy way for readers to share their opinions with a click of a button.

What are the benefits of Microblogging?

Many people, especially those who voice their personal opinions and views on twitter are already microblogging, without even realising. Microblogging is key to building connections with your audience; frequently posting on all social media platforms is vital in promoting your business, microblogging allows you to share your content faster, with a place for your audience to interact with your articles.

Furthermore, it is a quick and easy way for you to provide content for readers to keep them interested until your next article is published. Microblogging also allows you to post in real time, reporting on events that are happening live, including breaking news. This allows content to stay relevant to the reader.

Although there are many benefits to using microblogging, there is only a limited amount of characters that can be used, especially on Twitter and Instagram, which limits what you can share to the audience. Microblogging can become ineffective when pumping your social media sites full of ‘thin’ content, posting about irrelevant things that loses the reader’s attention and causes them to no longer engage with your tweets.

Overall, microblogging has increased my social media engagement which has helped my blog to gain more readers. Microblogging is a key tool to use when writing a blog; after using this tool first-hand, I have realised how important social media is in the new age of journalism.

So, before I go too far over 1,000 words and you click off this article, make sure to let me know what you think about microblogging, and how it has helped you on my Twitter.