Most of us know the heavy-hitters in the social news sites world: Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious. These sites help attract attention and often provide traffic and links to web content, giving content creators access to a much bigger audience. If you’re a newbie to the social news sites game, Dosh Dosh, an internet marketing, blogging, and social media blog, provides an in-depth beginner’s guide with tips on how to choose the right sites for your goals and what to do once you’re there.
While the entire article is chock-full of great information, one statement in particular struck a chord with me: “Users are given the editorial power to influence the visibility of content.” Setting aside the fact that some users try to violate the sites’ Terms of Service by “gaming,” or manipulating the popularity of content to increase its visibility, all social news sites use an internal algorithm to determine the relevance of each story. Factors range from votes to the discussion surrounding the story.
In other words, you choose the content with the most prevalence on the site.
As a journalist, I see a similar to the shift in what is deemed “newsworthy” in mainstream media. Historically, readers didn’t choose what stories ended up on the front page of a newspaper or as the lead story on a TV broadcast — journalists were the “gatekeepers,” people charged with telling the stories that matter to the people within their readership. This responsibility was never taken lightly, but more and more — specifically since social media has entered the scene — I see the empowerment of readers, users and viewers.
Stephen Clark of Detroit’s WXYZ-TV recently began conversing with viewers on Twitter using the #backchannel hashtag. All of a sudden, people began to get excited about broadcast news again because an anchor took it upon himself to respond to their comments in real time. Clark then took it a step further and asked people to videotape themselves talking about stories that matter to them, which, if compelling enough, will be used as content on WXYZ.com and on air.
At CNN, “iReporters” are invited to take part in the news gathering process to “help shape what CNN covers and how.” They believe that by allowing users or citizen journalists, as they’re often referred to as, to tell the stories, they get a deeper understanding of what’s going on and learn about issues important to their audience.
I think this shift is an important one, whether you’re a social news site or The New York Times. So I’m curious: What other examples have you seen of news organizations that are adopting this new way of doing things?
Post by Erica Finley, senior journalist at The Urbane Way and @Erica_Urbane on Twitter. At The Urbane Way, we specialize in social media marketing and PR and lifestyle branding. How can we help you?
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