6 Tips for Engaging Your Audience

The Internet, the web and social media have forever changed the way we receive news and information. News is a conversation and if you aren't part of it, you're missing out. This is why I advise media organizations, independent journalists and bloggers to take a more audience-centric approach to story planning and telling.

An important part of the reporting process today should include researching what is already being said about a topic. There are a plethora of tools available for searching the web (yes, Google is one of them), but reporters should also search Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. You may have experimented with Storify, as a tool to publish "stories" that include Tweets, Facebook statuses and YouTube videos. But have you ever used Storify as a research tool to collect conversations about a specific topic?

Of course, this is not something you have to do for every story, but for more in-depth projects, where you are investing more time and resources, the return on your investment will be greater if you spend a little time thinking about your audience first.

Here are six tips for successfully engaging with your community both online and offline:

1. Determine your target audience. As content producers we hope that everyone will want to read our story, but it helps to target a specific audience when you're thinking about community engagement. Think about who will really want to read your story (or who really should) and why. Be as specific as possible when you define your target audience, think in terms of demographic data like gender, age, race, etc.

2. Find out where your target audience is gathering and conversing online (and offline). We know some general things about social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. For example, Twitter use is highest among African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Apply this knowledge when deciding which networks to utilize in order to reach your target audience.

3. Listen to the conversations that are happening around your topic. Use Storify to search on keywords and use the Storify tools to build a conversation document that outlines the general conversation around your topic. What are people saying? You can also ask your target audience for their input via survey or poll. For example, for her Reporting on Health project, fellow Brandy Tuzon Boyd polled her community via Facebook to ask them how their children get to school. As part of the final story package, Brandy included the results of the poll.

4. Begin engaging with your target audience way in advance of publishing your story. Talk with them, don't talk at them. Be a persistent but polite guest, don't expect to be immediately accepted into the community. Interact with community members in a way that allows you to get to know them.

5. After you publish your story, promote it via social media channels. Invite people to comment, or answer questions related to the story. Ask them for solutions if the topic warrants it. Leverage a tool like Crowdbooster to know the best time of day to promote your content and track the mentions, replies and comments your stories receive on Twitter and Facebook. (See tip number six.)

6. Follow up on comments. It doesn't matter where the comments are posted, your website, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc., know when someone responds to your content and thank them for adding to the conversation.

Social media should not be used as tools simply for promoting your work, instead, social media should be seen as tools to be leveraged during every step in the reporting process.