Social Media landscape in 2015:
Active users:
- Facebook: 1,366,000,000
- Twitter 284,000,000
- Instagram 300,000,000
- Google Plus 343,000,000
- Snapchat 100,000,000
- WhatsApp 600,000,000
Source: Statistia
Social Media Revolution 2015 (commercial angle)
Media on Social Media
Background article Washington Post on the use of Snapchat by media
BBC Training: Social Media Newsroom (video)
Social Media Research & Verification
BBC Academy on social media verification (video)
Tools
How to write a catchy headline
Suggestions for effective teasers
- Put together a content plan
- Keep it short
- Emotional appeal
- Highlight example/fragment/quote from article
- Ask a question
- Create curiosity
- Continuity (updates)
- Use relevant #hashtag
- Informal language/simple
- Visual content
- Add multimedia content
Speed vs accuracy
Emergent.info is a useful real-time tracker of online rumours set up by Craig Silverman (Poynter Institute) who edited the Verification Handbook. A good tip from Craig:
“In some cases, you can best add value by waiting and choosing not to give breath to a claim. Take time and see if you can be the person to turn up a key piece of evidence for or against it. If others are already propagating a rumor, the opportunity for capturing pointing traffic diminishes. Take an approach to move the story forward and you’re more likely to be rewarded with traffic”.