Reflection on Niche Strategy

As this was the first blog I have ever written my initial strategy was reasonably non-specific.  At the time of writing, I was still unsure of how to use many of the tools and therefore unsure of how they might fit in with my blog.
I broke down the purpose of my blog into two main areas;

• To highlight current issues of importance for women
• To provide a focus for feminism in Cardiff

On reflection, I have probably focused too heavily on the first point, and have made my blog less specific to Cardiff than I would have liked.  Just under a third of my total posts [9/32] were specific to Cardiff.  As a result many of the posts tended to revert to comment on national issues.  While I always intended some of my posts to do this, I think a few more pieces of local and original journalism would have enhanced the blog as a whole.

I used more tools than I had initially set out in my strategy.  This was because I had limited knowledge and experience of tools before I began the project.

Facebook, and to a certain extent Twitter, were key to attracting traffic to the blog.  Facebook was the single largest referrer, sending about 1/5 of users.

Though I did try and utilise Twitter as part of my strategy, I think I probably could have done more to extend my network.  Though I have tried to follow other feminist blogs on Twitter and commented on some articles, I could have made more direct contact to try and engage more.

I experimented with other tools such as storify to try and present things in different ways.  I felt the tool was quite limited in use and disliked being unable to embed it directly into my blog and so only used it once.  Only a small proportion of those who looked at the blog post with the storify link actually clicked on it to see what this about.  Despite this,   the post was the fifth most read post overall, so perhaps I should have tried to overcome my problems with it.

I did try and use polls but with slightly limited success.  When I did use them, I had between 10 and 21 responses, though the posts generally were read by significantly more people.  The starkest example of this was a post which had 269 views but only 21 readers voted in the poll.  This shows a certain lack of engagement with readers.  However, polls had more responses in later posts so I feel they will become increasingly more valuable in the future.

I also used tools such as youtube, soundcloud and photograph slideshows to try and make the blog more interesting.  Though pictures were certainly an integral part of my blog, I could have used video and audio more, though I felt when I did use them they were quite effective.

My initial aim of blogging three times a week was achievable during the first term, but as other pressures have mounted has become much more difficult.  I posted most frequently in November, when I was still trying to establish my blog.  I felt posting more regularly [up to five times a week] helped it attracting people’s attention, and encouraged them to come back.  I haven’t found this level of work sustainable, and am now struggling to blog more than once a week.

Though I still think three times is probably the preferable number of times to blog in a week, I also realise time constraints means this is unlikely.  I do intend to keep blogging however, though probably at a reduced rate.

Search engines are increasingly becoming a key referrer of traffic.  While initially most traffic was coming directly from links I had posted on Facebook, Twitter and other blogs, now more is coming from Google.  A number of key terms are being used to find my blog and these link to a number of different posts, showing reasonable use of SEO.   The most commonly searched terms have been “vajazzle“, “Black Friday 1910” and “hooters Cardiff“.

Probably because of its search engine optimised title, my post Vajacials, vajazzles and vatooes – where does it stop? was my most viewed post.  It had over 150 views coming just from search engines, and 292 in total.

I think one area I have been quite successful in is using current events to explore different issues.  For example, during the protests in Egypt I posted about FGM in Egypt, which is an ongoing problem there.  Similarly at the height of Ann Widdecombe’s success on Strictly Come Dancing I used her media profile to discuss her role in the anti-abortion lobby in the UK.  These posts were quite popular I think because they offered something slightly different to most of the media coverage on the issue.

I think the  key area in which I would have done more is connecting with and commenting on blogs related to my niche.  Though I did occasionally, and this increase the number of people looking at my blog, I failed to make strong links.   The key to successful blogging is embracing the community of people blogging on similar issues as you.  I think if I had managed to do this more I would have had more people commenting on my posts which would have given me more feedback on what I was doing.  Though some of my posts were featured on blogs I had singled out in my strategy [such as feministcardiff.wordpress.com and radicalwales.org] I don’t feel I did as well I could have done in this area.

I think to improve on this I need to really take on board some of the ideas discussed by Joanna Geary in her online lecture last term: http://ramconner.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/92/

I think one of the best posts I did that really embraced multi-media journalism was Cardiff woman gives life to African mothers, which was used for the Guardian Cardiff.

The post which best demonstrates my use of SEO was vajacials, vajazzles and vatooes – where does it stop?

Paid Content UK and the Economics of Content

The economics of content on the web is something nearly every media outlet has failed to properly get to grips with.

There is so much competition it is almost impossible not to lose some of your audience, and this means companies are unwilling to pay as much for advertising, the traditional way in which newspapers have survived.

There are so many media outlets, and endless amounts of space, meaning the premium to be gained from advertising is significantly limited.

Here are a few numbers:

• Over the last seven years The Guardian has been investing £20,000,000 more on the web than they have received in income.

• In 2009, between five of the leading regional publishers, £509.7 billion was lost, as well as one fifth of staff

In the words of Jeffrey Zucker newspapers are

“Trading analogue dollars for digital pennies”

It’s not really clear how to solve this problem.  In a survey by Paid Content UK 74% of interviewees said they would stop using their favourite news websites if they started charging, while the majority said if they had to pay they would not spend more than £10 for a year’s subscription.

Strangely enough though, where people will not pay on the internet, they are perfectly happy to pay on their phones.

Perhaps then, the moneymaking  future is not on the web at all, but in small, beautifully packaged smart phone apps.



Can geolocation tools be used for journalism?

The world of journalism is full of new tools.

We can break news on Twitter, discuss it on Facebook and turn it into pretty pictures with Wordle

Supposedly they enhance content, but sometimes it just seems like they are a distraction.

So how can geolocation tools add anything to the way we do journalism.

Tools such as foursquare allow us to track people.  Whenever they choose to check into a place, we know where they are.  Handy if you want to stalk someone.

But if that’s not your cup of tea it’s harder to see a real purpose.

Tell me what you think:

 

And if you do have some ideas, why not share them below?

Data Journalism

So it turns out data journalism is nothing new, in fact Florence Nightingale was doing it over a century ago.

But while it may not be new, it’s still pretty scary.  For a lot of journalists there are just way too many numbers involved.

Thankfully there are a few handy tools to try and sort through the data, some easier than others. Here are just a few:-

• Excel
• Access
• Many Eyes
• Google fusion tables
• Yahoo Pipes
• Scraperwiki

Some of these tools are a bit daunting, and it’s pretty easy to be put of.  But the important thing to remember is the stories behind the numbers.

A data sheet might not look very interesting, but who knows how many stories it might be hiding.

If you’re struggling to get past the numbers, remember some of the best stories of the past few years have come about because journalists were analysing data.  The MPs expenses scandal and wikileak stories could not have happened if it wasn’t for data journalism.

And if you’re finding it hard to get stuck in, have a look at wordle, a very simple data sorter.  Have a look at the pretty picture I made of the key words used in this post.

Journalism and the Community

“Newspapers whose employees look down on their readers can have no hope of ever succeeding as a business.”

So spoke Rupert Murdoch in a speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 2005.

In a report produced in the same year by the Carnegie Corporation, it was revealed that only 9% questioned described newspapers as being trustworthy, 8% found them useful, and only 4% of respondents thought they were entertaining.

This begs the question, if people find papers untrustworthy, useless and unentertaining, why does anyone buy them at all?

The problem for many papers is that fewer and fewer people are choosing to pay for their news, and perhaps this is why.

In her lecture last week, Joanna Geary, Community and Web Developer Editor of The Times, emphasised the need for journalists to listen to their audiences.  Instead of finding the stories they want to write, they need to write the stories people want to read.

After all, at the end of the day its the readers who pay the journalists wage.

As a journalist the tendency is to want to go for the biggest, brightest, juiciest stories.  But sometime the reality is that people are more interested in talking about the potholes that ruin their local roads.

If newspapers want people to continue buying them, maybe they need to make sure they’re writing the right stories.

If this is to happen, relationships with the community is key.

The Times online works hard to do this; it has about 159 Twitter feeds, a 24 hour  Q&A page on their website, and regular events for subscribers.  In short, they are trying to find out what readers like, what they don’t and what they want to see more of.

Readers who subscribe to Times Online are dedicated fans of The Times.  It is therefore essential that journalists at the Times make sure their readers are getting what they want.

But it would be a mistake to assume that this does not apply to every other paper that is not behind a paywall.

Journalists need to stop assuming they know what the best stories are, and go out and ask people what they want.

Blog Comments: Valuable or not?

The most read story on the BBC website is ‘man marries goat,’ while the biggest subject of comments on the editor’s blog is 9/11 conspiracy theories.

And so it  begs the question, should we really seeking a greater relationship with our audiences?

There is a great utopian vision of the internet where publishers and audience unite to enhance content, spark debate and improve journalistic quality.

But what we often get is the veritable lion’s den that is ‘comment is free’ and internet trolls like the man gaoled for posting obscene comments about Jade Goody.

Its not really hard to understand why Nick Robinson doesn’t read the comments on his blog any more.

But Rory Cellan-Jones talked in his lecture last week about the passion with which some of his audience commented.  As technology correspondent for the BBC his blog is pretty niche, and the people who read it know their stuff.

A lot of people might not care about Microsoft’s Kinect technology, but 86 people took the effort to make [generally] thoughtful replies.  For people who are interested in specialised subjects, blog comments is a fantastic way to communicate with other people interested in the same things.

So we shouldn’t lose hope.  There are plenty of people who use blogs as a forum for anonymous ranting, but there are plenty more who really are interesting in discussing content and sharing considered opinions.

And blogging really can involve all these qualities!

 

 

So are there any comments?

Mapping Llandaff

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Journalism in the 21st Century

Journalism in the twenty-first century must be new, exciting and different?  Right?

Well yes, but not completely.

Adam Tinworth spoke enthusiastically last week about the future of journalism.  In a time when many are gloomy about circulation figures and the difficulties of making money in the age of the internet it is easy to lose sight of how many new opportunities we have to find new ways of sharing news and interacting with our audiences.

And it is simply not true that internet journalism cannot make money

When everyone can publish so easily, it is inevitable that the characteristics of publishing will change and  blogging is all about the conversation it can provoke – It is not just another broadcast tool.

The internet is often perceived as a threat to quality journalism.  But this does not have to be the case.   New tools can enhance content and make it available to new audiences in new ways…this has to be exciting!

But blogging is not all about the new…

In some ways internet blogging is much more like the traditional beat journalism of the 1950s.  With such a vast amount of space on the internet, bloggers are having to find ever smaller niche areas in which to focus.

Increasingly journalists are defined by their output; whether they broadcast, or write in newspapers or magazines.  But on the internet they are defined by what they are writing about – their ‘niche’, or to use the traditional language, their ‘beat’.

Once again the key point emerging is the importance of basic journalistic tradecraft.  Perhaps the internet makes these fundamental skills even more important, because when you make a mistake on the internet your audience is just a click away from pointing it out to the world!

Abolition of the Women’s National Commission: Triumph or Travesty?

As part of George Osborne’s comprehensive spending review last week 192 quangos were abolished.  One of these was the Women’s National Commission [WNC] – an independent advisory body on women’s issues in government.

I had never heard of it.

But does its lack of profile indicate a lack of worthwhile contribution to politics?

Quangos such as this one are easy targets in a spending review of this sort.  They have vague names that don’t really tell you very much about what they do.  They sound expendable, and when most people haven’t heard of them nobody is going to fight very hard to retain them.

So is the WNC worthwhile?

Chair of the WNC, Baroness Joyce Gould said:

“The decision to dismantle an independent and cost effective mechanism to give women a direct voice in government is yet another blow for women across the UK at a time when the comprehensive spending review is likely to hit women and families disproportionately.”

It is certainly a worry that by culling this quango, there is a message that money spent on this issue is a waste, that women’s issues are not serious enough to merit specialised attention.  And yet progress in this arena seems to be grinding to a halt; after decades of hope and expectation a substantial pay gap still exists, glass ceilings are as present as ever and there are shameful levels of domestic violence  endured on a daily basis.

If the government does not hail progress as a priority then who will?

The work of the commission is to be taken over by the Government Equalities Office, a body responisible for equality legislation and policy in the UK.  It clearly has a wider mandate than the WNC but does this mean that it will fail to take adequate account of women’s needs?  Head of Policy and Campaigns at the Fawcett Society, Anna Bird seems to think so.  She said:

“The abolition of the WNC will make it that much harder for government to devise informed policy that reflects the unique position of women in the UK. This decision also gives a clear indicator of the priority the new coalition attaches to furthering equality in the UK.

“When times are tight it becomes more, not less important to ensure the vulnerable in our society are supported.”

There are of course advantages for women in having a women-orientated body that has the opportunity to influence the political agenda.

Perhaps however the move can be seen as an opportunity to move away from the current discourse we have in this country about equality.  There are definite limitations to sticking to the ‘women need equality’ mantra.

An equality commission rather than a women’s commission will be able to address a wider range of gender issues.  In this broader context of equality, it may become less about the rights of women but the rights of everyone to equal treatment.

By acknowledging that in some areas it is men that face inequality, we can perhaps more easily address the culturally embedded ideas of gender roles that are still limiting women today.

Tools for Writing Online

Writing for the internet can initially seem very different to writing in print.  Normally we don’t have to think about search engine optimisation or creating links.

But these tools are exactly that, they are just tools to make your work more accessible.

What really counts is having quality content that is easy to read.  The basics are exactly the same – it’s all about accuracy, using short, sharp text and being clear and concise.

George Orwell’s tips on effective writing are just as relevant to writing on the internet as to writing in print.

Quite simply, if the content isn’t very good and easy to read, it probably doesn’t matter how many links you put in.

At the same time, making the most of being on the internet can vastly improve your content.  Video, audio and visual effects can all be used online in ways that is simply not possible in print.

And if we forget the tricks of the internet, forget to tag our posts or use searchable words it is probably likely to be the case that our posts languish at the bottom of page 30 of Google searches, virtually unfindable.

In short, it is key that we do what Glyn Mottershead says:

“Plan for the machine, write for the human.”