Smash Summit

Photo: cogdog

Editors have long been used to handing down their platitudes to the masses but today they are being forced, sometimes kicking and screaming, to enter a new era of interactivity — and accountability between author and audience. Do they get it?

Using Twitter as a “barometer of interest” in topics.

One editor at a huge women’s publication (with over 4 million readers), who writes for print and does occasional web extras, says the publication has active Facebook and Twitter pages. She doesn’t use it to report stories or contact readers directly, but, “I look through them to get ideas of what our readers are interested and asking about to get ideas of things we should cover.” Since so much conversation now takes place on social networks, they are a natural place for editors to look for topics for articles. But shouldn’t they go further? The ease with which you can contact sources, explore alternate points of view, and interact with readers is unprecedented. And editors should use all of the tools at their disposal. Even if that means giving up a little bit of their traditional control.

Using social media like the rest of the world: as a promotional tool.

Many forward-thinking (too often web-based) publications have a full-time community editor or partnerships editor who mainly seeks to promote content on the web through Facebook, etc., but sometimes that task falls on the editors themselves. Says one former Time.com editor: “If you ask me, it’s a bit like we’re becoming PR people for ourselves, which isn’t necessarily a good thing/bad thing, but it’s definitely transforming the job description.” If you don’t believe in what you are doing enough to promote it yourself, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Yes, the role of editor is changing but editor’s have always been charged with representing their publication. It’s just that there are now more channels to represent in.

Using followers as a way to source articles.

Not so long ago, I (a mostly travel and food writer at a national publication) was writing a travel piece about taking family road trips I wanted to find people who had recently planned a trip, so sent a shout out to our Twitter followers. The response was amazing, at least 20 people who wanted to share their experience in an interview, but more impressive was the immediacy. A few people were currently on road trips, so I got to check in with them along the way and gauge their moods. I think it really added something to the piece to describe a scene when it was before their eyes instead of lodged somewhere in the memory. Think about how useful this can be. Over time, you’ll develop a whole community of followers that you can call upon as sources for future articles. They’ll feel more engaged — with you, and with your publication.

Using all social media as a necessary adaptation (or not!) to the very way people get information, i.e. bringing people information where they want it.

One senior editor at a large web-based parenting magazine expressed her frustration at how little her colleagues knew—or cared to know. “I was shocked at not only how little some of my colleagues knew about the Internet and social media, but how reluctant they were to learn — as if this medium didn’t matter. This attitude was especially surprising among my younger colleagues, for whom it was likely that they would one day soon have to pursue a job in online media, because, let’s face it, print isn’t growing. With the economy tanking and many print pubs going out of business, I think many journalists are being forced to (finally) get web savvy.” It’s a case of eat or be eaten and I’m starting to hear the refrain from the movie Jaws in my head. All media either is now, or is about to become social media. So either swim with the rest of the social media sharks by learning how to use these new tools or find yourself bloodied and battered on the old media beachhead.

By Laura Sullivan