#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk: Using Facebook, Twitter and Storify for political coverage
Free online tools and social networks are being used around the world in journalism, from students to startups to national news organisations.
If you’re doing political coverage in any capacity at any level, Poynter’s Mallory Jean Tenore has some great tips for using Facebook, Twitter, and Storify.
Here’s one tip for each. See the full list on Poynter at this link.
Gauge how open/accessible politicians are. Republican State Rep. Justin Amash was one of the first legislators to post all of his votes on his Facebook Fan Page. What does this level of transparency say about a politicians’ willingness to be open with voters?
Dig up the past. One of the limitations of Twitter’s built-in search tool is that it doesn’t let you search for tweets from months and years ago. But there are other Twitter search tools that do. Topsy, for instance, lets you search for tweets from as far back as three years ago. To do this, go to Topsy’s advanced search page and where it says “Search a specific type,” click on “tweets.” This tool is good for seeing what politicians tweeted at a particular time in their campaigns.
Storify
Highlight voters’ reactions/politicians’ posts from various social networks. Storify is a great tool for organizing social media stories because it enables you to pull together Facebook posts and tweets and add context to them. Several news organizations used Storify last year on Election Day to highlight voters’ voices.
Similar posts:
- #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – use Topsy to search the social web
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- #Tip of the day for journalists: Using Facebook to find stories
- #bbcsms: Storify summary of the BBC Social Media Summit
