Journalism.co.uk’s top 10 stories on Facebook in 2011

Guardian’s n0tice launches Facebook sharing app

May 1st, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in Handy tools and technology, Hyperlocal, Social media and blogging

Online noticeboard n0tice has launched a Facebook sharing app, allowing users to “amplify activity” and spread posts virally.

The Guardian set up n0tice as a platform to utilise developments in social, local and mobile. It allows hyperlocals to brand their own noticeboard and keep 85 per cent of the revenue generated by charging for small ads.

A blog post published today states that n0tice’s new Facebook app allows users to automatically post content to their Facebook activity stream.

n0tice will automatically update your Facebook page when you follow people and noticeboards, star things you find interesting, or post reports, events or offers to n0tice. The app does not share passive actions to your Facebook page such as what you are reading on n0tice.com, only explicit actions that you trigger such as following, posting, reposting, and voting.

The n0tice app for Facebook will help spread things you are doing on n0tice further around the world and help others to discover what’s happening.

Tags: Facebook, n0tice, Online social networking, social media

Tool of the week for journalists: Muck Rack

April 5th, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by James Chapple in Handy tools and technology, Social media and blogging, Tool of the Week

Tool of the week: Muck Rack

What is it? A site that aggregates Twitter and social media feeds for thousands of professional journalists.

How is it of use to journalists? Journalists often break or share vital information first through social media. Muck Rack allows you to monitor trending topics among journalists in real-time. Its aim, according to Muck Rack’s creators, is to deliver “tomorrow’s newspaper to you today”.

Launched in 2009, Muck Rack now draws content from thousands of journalists who use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other sources to break news on a daily basis.

Built around a central directory of verified professionals, Muck Rack now boasts an extensive directory of top journalists from around the world which can be searched by name, publication or even beat.

Professionals only need a valid Twitter account to apply for verification, although the process is heavily vetted to ensure certain standards are met such as relevance of tweets or posts and consistent activity.

The site also emails out a daily analysis of what journalists are saying called the Muck Rack Daily, which is pored over by its editorial team.

Muck Rack dovetails well with previous Journalism.co.uk tool of the week Press Pass, which organises journalists by beat, media outlet or region.

Tags: aggregation tools, Facebook, LinkedIn, Muckrack, social media, social media feeds, Twitter

Economist seeks to build relationships with 1m Facebook fans

March 29th, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in Paid-for content, Social media and blogging

The Economist has today announced that it has clocked up one million fans on Facebook.

The fans come from 180 countries, with the largest number living in the United States, followed by India, the UK, Pakistan and Canada, the Economist states in a release.

Last week Nick Blunden, global publisher, digital editions told the Guardian’s Changing Media Summit that “people want to belong and we can monetize that”.

It’s about building relationships on Facebook and monetizing outside.

On the subject of charging for access to content, he said that people will pay for the experience of “being informed”.

Today’s release states:

The Facebook community regularly discusses, debates, comments and share posts, with those regarding world leaders and international events generating the most responses. One of the most popular posts of all time focused on the Economist’s 2009 “The Man Who Screwed An Entire Country” cover and received over 130,000 likes in just a few days.

The Economist states that it “reaches over 3.5 million people through all of its social media properties, including 2.1 million individuals on Twitter and 400,000 users on Google+” and a “growing global circulation” (now 1.5 million including both print and digital), according to figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

The news outlet is now asking readers how they consume the title’s content.

To mark the milestone, the publication has asked its Facebook community to tell or show how they consume Economist content. Fans have been posting their experiences and photos, which include reading indoors, outdoors, by the pool, floating in the dead sea, on tablets and even reading in diapers for one young adopter, aged 13 months.

Tags: Economist, Facebook, social media

Social predicted to overtake search as Guardian traffic driver

March 21st, 2012 | 7 Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in Search, Social media and blogging, Traffic

The Guardian’s Facebook app has been downloaded eight million times since it was launched six months ago, seeing around 40,000 downloads a day.

Speaking at the Guardian Changing Media Summit, Tanya Cordrey, director of digital development at Guardian News and Media, said the news outlet has been “blown away by the results”.

The “frictionless sharing” app works by readers opting in to share all articles they read with their Facebook friends, generating more traffic for the news site with “no editorial curation”.

She later explained that the Guardian has generated more money through ad revenue from the app than the news organisation spent on building it.

Six months ago months ago Google provided 40 per cent of the Guardian’s traffic. The launch of the Facebook app resulted in a “seismic shift” with social exceeding search as a driver on several occasions in February (see above photograph).

Cordrey predicted:

It’s only a matter of time until social overtakes search for the Guardian.

She said that the audience becomes more global everyday, providing “an amazing opportunity to learn about this new audience”.

It’s the audience we want to learn about rather than the platform [Facebook]

Readers are in “habitual grazing mode”, Cordrey said, traffic peaking in “the middle of the afternoon”.

Addressing those who believe the app has implications for privacy, Cordrey said “we are acutely aware of the critics” but readers are not being driven away or removing content they have read from their Facebook timeline.

“Once people have it, they use it,” Cordrey said, explaining “only a tiny percentage of people” have taken up the option of hiding their reading habits.

Earlier in the day Karla Geci, strategic partner development for Facebook said that it would be “just weird and awkward to read a whole article inside of Facebook”, saying Facebook’s role is enabling “distribution and discovery” rather than taking traffic away from publishers.

Asking herself if frictionless sharing “is creepy”, Geci said:

People are quite interested in being an influencer in their circles. Sharing what you are reading is something you did any way.

Tags: Facebook, Guardian Changing Media Summit, social media, The Guardian

App of the week for journalists: Social Searcher, for searching Facebook

March 21st, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in App of the Week, Search, Social media and blogging

App of the week: Social Searcher

Phones: Android

Cost: Free

What is it? Enables you to search Facebook without logging in

How is it of use to journalists? This Android app by Social Searcher allows you to search Facebook posts, groups and pages without logging in to Facebook.

The app allows you to open links from search results in your Android web browser, sort search results by date/time, sort search results by number of “likes” and filter by country.

Tags: Android, app, Facebook, social searcher

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – using Facebook interest lists

March 13th, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by Rachel McAthy in Social media and blogging, Top tips for journalists

A new feature announced by Facebook last week was Interest Lists: “an easy way for journalists and other people to curate feeds around their beat or topical coverage area.”

According to Facebook’s announcement journalists can create lists of pages and people around topics of interest, which could be a reporter’s patch or niche.

You will start to see updates that highlight posts from the list in your News Feeds and others will be able to subscribe to the List as well. This makes keeping up with news that interests you even easier.

See the full announcement here.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

Tags: Facebook, interest lists, journalism tip, social media, tips

Facebook: Guardian app has 3.9m monthly active users

March 2nd, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in Social media and blogging

The Guardian has 3.9 million monthly active users, over half of whom are under 25.

Facebook has today published a “spotlight” on the Guardian’s app on its developer blog.

The app has had more than six million installs, suggesting that more than half of those who have opted in use it regularly.

The Guardian’s app, which launched at September’s Facebook f8 conference, encourages “frictionless sharing” and those who opt in to the app to allow their Facebook friends to see what they are reading.

Less than two months after the Guardian’s app was released, the news outlet said the app was delivering an additional one million hits per day.

As well as encouraging younger readers, the Guardian’s app is also giving older content a new lease of life, as Martin Belam, one of those working on the app at the Guardian explains in this blog post.

Tags: app, Facebook, The Guardian

New York Times gets new-look Facebook page with timeline of 160-year history

February 29th, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in Social media and blogging

The New York Times is among several US media outlets to adopt a new-style Facebook page.

The page makes the most of the timeline feature, adding photos and anecdotes from the Grey Lady’s 160-year history, inviting readers in to the newsroom.

Announcing the timeline on its Facebook page, the New York Times says:

We’re pleased to introduce our timeline, which highlights select moments from our 160+ year history. Come into the newsroom on the night of the 1928 presidential election. See our reporters at work during the 1977 blackout. You’ll even find a guest appearance by Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s. We plan to update our http://www.facebook.com/nytimes timeline frequently with key milestones from 1851 through the present. Take a look and let us know what you think.

The new-style pages were announced by Facebook today, already adopted by US TV show Today and People, and were among a number of features released at the Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) in New York City.

Facebook describes the layout, which “includes a cover photo, larger story sizes, better tools to manage a page and more”, as designed to “help business and organisations better share their story and connect with people”.

Update: There are a couple of handy posts on how to create a great news-style Facebook page and timeline for your news organisation. Here is some advice from Lost Remote and here are a few tips from Zombie Journalism.

Tags: Facebook, facebook page, New York Times

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – How to check the score of your Facebook page

January 20th, 2012 | No Comments | Posted by Sarah Marshall in Social media and blogging, Top tips for journalists

You can check the score of your Facebook page using EdgeRank Checker.

There is no charge to run a score search and find out the best and worst days for your Facebook page.

You can find out more on EdgeRank, Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm, by reading our guide on how to best post news on Twitter and Facebook. Tip number five explains how EdgeRank filters your fans’ newsfeeds to give them the news that Facebook thinks they will be most interested in

You can become a fan of Journalism.co.uk on Facebook.

Tipster: Sarah Marshall

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

Tags: edgerank, Facebook, facebook page, social media optimisation