by David Hattery
In January, Robert Niles of the Online Journalism Review published an article entitled “Doing journalism in 2010 is an act of community organizing.” His point was simple—gone are the days when a journalist’s article was read just because it was in the newspaper. Today’s media consumer has too many choices and too much media noise to sift through to read something just because it is there. The new generation of journalists understands this and understands that, in addition to great reporting, they have to build their own readership as well. As Niles puts it, “whatever audience you will have there, you must build yourself.”
This presents a great opportunity for firms to become valuable partners with the journalism community. A strong social media foundation will allow your firm to not only to expand its own community, but to open that community to journalists by posting stories that they write in main stream publications on your Facebook, Twitter and other pages. When you do this successfully, you will bring additional value to the journalist which will increase your overall media coverage both online and in print.
