Tag Archives: Twitter

Tool of the week for journalists – Playground, to monitor social media analytics

Tool of the week: Playground, by PeopleBrowsr.

What is it? A social analytics platform which contains over 1,000 days of tweets (all 70 billion of them), Facebook activity and blog posts.

How is it of use to journalists? “Journalists can easily develop real-time insights into any story from Playground,” PeopleBrowsr UK CEO Andrew Grill explains.

Complex keyword searches can be divided by user influence, geolocation, sentiment, and virtual communities of people with shared interests and affinities.

These features – and many more – let reporters and researchers easily drill down to find the people and content driving the conversation on social networks on any subject.

Playground lets you use the data the way you want to use it. You can either export the graphs and tables that the site produces automatically or export the results in a CSV file to create your own visualisations, which could potentially make it the next favourite tool of data journalists.

Grill added:

The recent launch of our fully transparent Kred influencer platform will make it faster and easier for journalists to find key influencers in a particular community.

You can give Playground a try for the first 14 days before signing up for one of their subscriptions ($19 a month for students and journalists, $149 for organisations and companies).

Jodee Rich, the founder of PeopleBrowsr, gave an inspiring speech at the Strata Summit in September on how a TV ratings system such as Nielsen could soon be replaced by social media data thanks to the advanced online analytics that PeopleBrowsr offers.

 

Playground’s development is based on feedback from its community of users, which has been very responsive. Ideas can be sent to contact[@]peoplebrowsr.com or by tweeting @peoplebrowsr.

Rippla, a site to monitor the social media ‘ripples’ of news stories, launches

Rippla has today launched as a site to track how news stories are shared via social media.

Take a look at the home screen and you will see stories generating the most shares on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and bit.ly.

The site has been created by journalist and political blogger Sunny Hundal who told Journalism.co.uk Rippla “scrapes news feeds from the UK’s 10 biggest news sites and then ranks them by popularity across social networks. It measures how many ‘ripples’ they’ve created.

The second great feature of this site is the widget, which allows you to enter the URL of a news story from your site and see the social media “ripples” it has created.

Hundal said he created the site for two reasons:

First, I want to track how well media organisations do on social media. The site updates and collects the data every hour.

Second, the longer term aim is to provide people an opportunity to consume content based on what their peers are sharing / reading, rather than simply based on what the newspaper front-page offers. As you know, patterns of media consumption are changing and we think this is the way its all heading.

The site will be in beta for some time while bugs are fixed and functionality is added.

Tool of the week for journalists – WhenToTweet

Tool of the week: WhenToTweet

What is it? A tool that allows you to work out the best time to tweet

How is it of use to journalists? 

Automated tweets or those reporting breaking news cannot be timed. But when is the best time to engage with your followers and get noticed on Twitter?

In a recent interview for a podcast on how to best time your tweets, Leo Widrich, co-founder of Buffer, a platform that allows you to queue up tweets and post them at optimal times, explained that it is best to tweet when there is a lot of chatter.

When the most traffic happens and when the most tweets go out its the best time to tweet, which is sometimes counter-intuitive.

This tool works by both by monitoring the performance of your past tweets and tells you when most of your followers will be online. The best time for @journalismnews to tweet is 11am, according to this tool.

For more Twitter advice see 10 technical Twitter tips for journalists.

Ten technical Twitter tips for journalists

So you think you know Twitter? But do you know how to archive tweets, set up an RSS feed of a Twitter stream or have private group chat?

Here are some practical, technical tips to help you:

1. Learn to love Twitter’s own advanced search. Since being updated earlier this year, Twitter’s search options have become much more powerful than they once were. You can use the advanced search page, but it’s worth learning a few shortcut commands you can use on the Twitter homepage. For example,

Type to: in the search box on Twitter’s home page to get messages sent to you or to a particular username.

Find local tweets using near: and within: This is a tip sent by journalism student Jeroen Kraan @KraanJ when we were discussing Twitter tips on @journalismnews.

There is a list of more Twitter advanced search commands here.

2. Search tweets using Topsy. Topsy is Google for social media, a search engine that allows you dig part way into the unimaginably vast Twitter archive.

3. Get to know other search tools. Search tweets using Snap Bird. This is a really handy tool that allows you to search a user’s timeline or your own account. Try PostPost to search and “strip search” your timeline. PostPost will ask for your email address, send you a link and then you can dig deep within your timeline, searching for a specific hashtag or user.

4. Set up an RSS feed. You can set up feeds of your own or any other user’s Twitter updates.

To add a feed of tweets from a user copy and paste the following, replacing xxxx with the user name.

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/xxxx.rss.

This method doesn’t work for Google Reader but is compatible with RSS readers such as NetNewsWire.

To set up a keyword RSS feed use the following URL, replacing Journalism.co.uk / journalism jobs with your search query.

http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=journalism.co.uk

http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=journalism jobs

There’s also this really handy tool from Sociable.co. This allows you to set up an RSS feed for a username, Twitter list or keyword.

5. Archive your tweets. You can archive a hashtag or tweets sent from your account or another user’s account using Twapperkeeper. This is a particularly useful way if you want to search for a tweet you sent some months or even years ago.

6. Verify tweets. The HoverMe browser extension for Chrome is useful for verifying Twitter sources. Once installed and you hover over a Twitter profile photograph, you can see what other online accounts that user has and although not fool-proof, it will give you some idea of whether they are a real person with LinkedIn, YouTube and Delicious accounts and, helpfully, a Klout score, which measures online influence.

7. Here’s a tip for TweetDeck users who share the management of a Twitter account. One limitation of TweetDeck is the inability to be able to create a column of tweets sent from your account, something you can do in other applications such as HootSuite. The workaround is to set up a new Twitter account, follow the one (or more) account you manage and set up a TweetDeck column for “all friends”. This is our solution at Journalism.co.uk, where several people respond to tweets.

For this to work you must always use a character before the @ as tweets beginning @username can only be seen by people who follow you and that person.  For example, use .@joebloggs and not @joebloggs when writing tweets that begin with a username.

8. Have private, group chats by starting tweets with !b. New Twitter tool !blether allows you to start a group, private chat with people who follow you. After authenticating this tool you can use !b at the beginning for a tweet to begin a conversation. Useful for chats during conferences.

9. Monitor Twitter lists. How often do you make use of other people’s Twitter lists? Journalists seem to frequently overlook these existing lists where people have already done the legwork for you in terms of collating lists of useful people to follow. For example, a journalist following a story such as an uprising in an Arab country, a financial story or celebrity gossip can simply follow a list someone else has created.

Did you know that Journalism.co.uk has Twitter lists for UK regional journalists, UK broadcast journalists, UK press public relations, UK consumer journalists, etc? Send us a tweet if we have missed adding you to the correct list.

10. Familiarise yourself with how to read and send tweets via SMS. You never know when you might need to send or read a tweet via SMS. Even if you have a smartphone you may find yourself unable to use a 3G or WiFi signal. The number you need to save in your contacts is 86444 (for UK Vodafone, Orange, 3 and O2 customers). (Other country codes are listed here.) The command you need to remember or to save is ON. Text ON to the above number and you will be able to follow the commands to receive and send tweets. Meanwhile, only website https://gambletroll.com offers honest reviews and the latest news from the gambling world

Helpful links:

Media release: StumbleUpon is most important content sharing site for Mail Online

This Mail Online article was the most shared, the Searchmetrics study found

Fifteen times more links to Mail Online articles are shared worldwide via StumbleUpon than on Twitter, according to a study by Searchmetrics.

During the six month period analysed, just over half (50.78 per cent) of links to Mail Online articles were shared on StumbleUpon, with Facebook activity (likes, shares and comments) accounting for 45.87 per cent and links on Twitter just 3.21 per cent.

More than half (56.77 per cent) of the Guardian’s social links came from Facebook, with StumbleUpon accounting for 31.35 per cent and Twitter 10.98 per cent, according to the study.

In a release, Dr Horst Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics said:

Some people we have shown this data to have been surprised at the volume of links generated for UK newspapers on the StumbleUpon social bookmarking site. This is a very popular site globally and the links could have been generated throughout the world from English speakers who use StumbleUpon.

The most frequently shared content on the Mail Online was said to be an article (with images) about the earthquake in Japan which had been shared 392,521 times on the monitored social sites. The Guardian’s most frequently shared content was reportedly a humorous quiz discussing quotes from Muammar Gaddafi and Charlie Sheen.

The Mail Online’s top three most frequently shared articles:

1. The big pictures: The moment Japan’s cataclysmic tsunami engulfed a nation = 392,521 links

2. Amy Winehouse, 27, found dead at her London flat after suspected ‘drug overdose’  = 253,561 links

3. Robber who broke into hair salon is beaten by its black-belt owner and kept as a sex slave for three days… fed only Viagra =

252,650 links

The Guardian’s top three most frequently shared articles:

1. Charlie Sheen v Muammar Gaddafi: whose line is it anyway? = 363,938 links

2. Detroit in ruins = 210,468 links

3. Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media = 187,987 links

The Mail Online and the Guardian are the most visible UK newspaper websites on social networks such as Facebook, StumbleUpon and Twitter, according to a separate 10-week study by Searchmetrics, which analysed how often content from 12 leading newspaper sites was shared on six popular social networking and bookmarking sites.

Mail Online came out on top, with links to its pages being shared 2,908,779 times a week on average. The Guardian came second with an average 2,587,258 links being shared on social sites every week.

The Searchmetrics study monitored links shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Google+ over a period of 10 weeks.

Average social links per week of UK newspaper websites

Seachmetrics’ CEO Joepen added:

Social news – that is news and articles that are shared or recommended by your friends and followers on social sites – is potentially an important source of traffic for online news sites.

It’s worth noting that search engines, such as Google and Bing are starting to include popularity on social networks as a factor when judging the quality of web pages and how they should be ranked in search listings. So it’s important for news and other web sites to build and monitor visibility on social sites if they want to rank highly and attract visitors via search.

The data for the study was taken from the global social media database which Searchmetrics operates to power its online software tools.

Tool of the week for journalists – Trendsmap, for tracking conversations in your area

Tool of the week: Trendsmap

What is it? A tool that maps Twitter trends in real-time.

How is it of use to journalists? Reporters can follow trends based on a subject or location.

The map option (as shown in the below Trendsmap of Brighton) allows you to see what people are talking about in a particular area in real-time, making it a handy tool for local reporters.

The list view of keywords and hashtags (shown below) is also a good way of finding sources in an area and connecting with those people.

There are limitations, however. Mapping relies on tweets being geolocated and as the majority of people choose not to share their location, it greatly reduces the number of tweets picked up by the tool.

Trendsmap also has custom trends pages, such as this one for Formula One. Journalists writing about specific subjects such as sport may find these pages useful.

As well as acting as a tool to hunt for stories and trends, journalists can also use it to help them when sharing their stories via social media. For example, adding a relevant hashtag to a tweet can increase its reach as more people find it and share it.

Sky News’ @fieldproducer ranked most influential UK journalist on Twitter

Sky News digital media editor Neal Mann, aka @fieldproducer (right), at Journalism.co.uk’s news:rewired conference in May. Image: Mousetrap Media

Sky News digital news editor Neal Mann (@fieldproducer), is the UK’s most influential journalist on Twitter, according to a new survey.

A study of more than 330,000 tweets by social media site Tweetminster and PR firm Portland found that Mann had retweeted and been mentioned 100,000 times between June and September, according to a Guardian report.

The Guardian’s media news site mediaguardian.co.uk (@mediaguardian) came second in the rankings, with Guardian News & Media editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger (@arusbridger), BBC presenter Andrew Neil (@afneil), and the Guardian’s main news feed (@guardiannews) making up the rest of the top five.

Channel 4 News economics editor Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) and presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) are 11th and 12th respectively. FT digital media correspondent Tim Bradshaw (@tim) came in 19th, and the Independent’s foreign editor Archie Bland (@archiebland) was 20th.

Accounts belonging to the Guardian or Guardian writers took nine of the top 20 places.

Telegraph writers took four places between 20 and 30, with blogs editor Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) 25th, and 10 places in total.

Other notable entries include the Independent’s Johann Hari (@johannhari101), who has gone from being a prolific tweeter to rarely using the social network after facing allegations of plagiarism beginning in June.

Every account in the top 50 belongs to someone who writes for a major news outlet. (The total here is 51 as Jonathan Freedland (@j_freedland) works for both the BBC and the Guardian.)

The Guardian: 17

The Telegraph: 10

The BBC: 8

Channel 4 News: 5

The FT: 4

Sky News: 3

Indy: 3

The Times: 1

See the full top 50 on Guardian.co.uk.

Steven Morris: How I tweeted the Vincent Tabak trial

The Guardian’s Steven Morris has an insightful post up today on how he went about tweeting from the trial of Vincent Tabak for the murder of Joanna Yeates.

With the attorney general reportedly considering a contempt prosecution against someone who tweeted about Tabak’s interest in pornography, which had been banned while the case was active, Morris’ post is a timely look at the dangers of posting live to the social network in real time. (That said, the only contempt prosecution brought so far in the case has been over stories printed in newspapers).

Making sure coverage made up of necessarily self-contained 140-character tweets is both legal and, in a case like that of Yeates, sensitive to younger followers or family, is no mean feat, Morris’ post highlights.

He doesn’t just look at the dangers though, which inevitably are more scrutinised, but also the opportunities. Opportunities to provide detailed, live coverage alongside a traditional newspaper report.

It turned out that the Twitter format – 140 characters a tweet – was not as problematic as it might seem. Reporters are used to transforming long-winded sentences into pithy paragraphs. The format seemed to work particularly well for courtroom exchanges. Here are some examples taken from the heart of the case: Tabak’s six hours in the witness box.

“Prosecutor asking why Tabak wanted to kiss Joanna Yeates. ‘It’s nice to kiss someone’ – Tabak.”
“Tabak: I didn’t want to hurt her, I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t want to cause her any harm.”
“Prosecution: Were you looking in her eyes? Tabak: I can’t remember.”

But what of the dangers? When you tweet, no second pair of eyes is looking at what you write before you send it. It is all down to you. Members of Tabak’s defence team certainly monitored tweets carefully and, no doubt, would have made great play if something prejudicial to their client had crept out.

See Morris’ full article on Guardian.co.uk at this link.

Tool of the week for journalists – TimeKiwi, to create social media timelines

Tool of the week: TimeKiwi

What is it? A new tool to turn tweets, blog posts and Instagram photos into a timeline. Add a Twitter handle, a Tumblr, WordPress and Posterous blog and an Instagram account and TimeKiwi will mash them into a combined timeline.

How is it of use to journalists? For storytelling. The tool allows you to demonstrate how a story has progressed. The tool does not require you to authorise the app so you can add any Twitter handle to see how that person’s tweets have played out over time.

Take this example of a timeline of canon Dr Giles Fraser who resigned from his role as chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral last week over plans to forcibly evict Occupy protesters. Adding his @giles_fraser handle allows you to show his tweets as either a vertical or horizontal timeline.

The free version of TimeKiwi cannot be embedded so it is of limited use in telling a story on your site but you can still share links to created timelines. A “business” version is in the pipeline which promises an embed feature and custom views which could be of particular interest to journalists who can then show mapped out tweets and blog posts within a news story.

This TimeKiwi takes in the @journalismnews Twitter account and the Journalism.co.uk WordPress blog.