Course Outline: Social Media

Journalistic Social Media  is a two day course, designed to bring writers and editors up to speed on the latest techniques in using social media in their work.

The course will cover:

• The inverted pyramid of social media

• Understanding the psychology of social sharing

• The different styles of social media - and what they offer

•  Which platforms to chose, and how to optimise your content for it

•  Working the social media beat: building contacts online

•  Creating content for social media

•  Finding and researching stories on social media

•  The basics of social media verification

•  How to chose between native content for social media, and linking to your one site

•  Tools, tips and techniques

Details:

This two day course will cover the critical skills you need to make the most of social media as a working journatlist. With social media now the dominant referral source of traffic of many publications, understanding how the make the most of it is vital for any journalist.

There’s a great deal of underlying psychology and technical knowledge need to maximise your performance on  social media, from understanding how the Facebook newsfeed algorithm works, to understanding the psychology of social sharing, and how to encourage people to share your work.

But social media is more than just a promotional tool. It’s also a vital networking tool and a source of great stories. The course will cover the interplay of these three pillars of journalistic social media in depth, and we’ll explore how to use different social platforms to meet each of these goals, with plenty of real-world examples and exercises for the participants.

The days will balance theory with plenty of practical work, and will conclude with action plans for each participant to take back into their jobs.