Join us at the next Social Media Breakfast

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Ashley White

On Thursday morning, our advertising director, Kevin Smith, and I will be speaking at the Willmar Lakes Area Social Media Breakfast. We’d love for you to join us and hear all about what we’re doing on social media at the Tribune!

The event is free (and we’re giving you guys free breakfast, too!), but you do need to register ahead of time. You can do that here.

These breakfasts started last September, and I’ve been to every one so far. I always learn something from the businesses that present, and I hope we can be helpful as well. At the Tribune, we’ve experimented with everything from Facebook to live tweeting and blogging. We also have plans to add a few more social media networks in the future, so stay tuned…

Here’s an overview of what we’ll be talking about Thursday. If you have any questions for us beforehand, leave a comment here or shoot me an email.

In today’s ever-changing digital landscape, it’s become more important than ever for media organizations to connect with news readers on many different platforms. The West Central Tribune has used social media to interact with its readers and involve them in the news process, making them a part of the news, rather than a passive consumer of news. The Tribune’s advertising director, Kevin Smith, and community content coordinator, Ashley White, will share how they are using social media to share content and engage with readers, as well as how they measure the ROI of social media. They will cover how the Tribune uses many different social networks, ranging from Facebook and Twitter to live blogs and Storify. They will also share case studies and best practices that have worked for their social media strategy.

Hope to see you on Thursday! If you can’t make it, you can always follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #SMBWillmarArea.

A recap of my first election night

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Ashley White

Well, Election Day has come and gone. And I survived.

As I wrote in my last post, this election was the first one I’ve worked in a newsroom. Throughout the night, I was in charge of monitoring and posting content to our live blog, tweeting from our Tribune account and posting updates on our Facebook page.

It was an exciting – albeit exhausting – night that went much smoother than I had expected. Most of the races had been called by the time we had to go to print, which was a nice surprise. (Also, in case you were wondering, most of us left the office about 2:30 a.m. Yeah, it was a loooong night.)

Here’s me on election night, working hard! In this picture I have TweetDeck up and my phone and coffee nearby, so this is pretty much what I looked like all night. Thanks to my editor Kelly Boldan for taking this picture.

Now that I’ve had a few days to reflect on our election coverage, I’d like to share some things that I think went really well and some things that could have gone a little better. I’m going to focus on my part in the process, since I can’t speak for anyone else.

First, let’s start with the positives:

Our live blog seemed to go over well with our online readers. We posted the blog on our website about 6:30 p.m., and throughout the night we kept gaining readers. By the end of the night, we had 1,048 clicks and 5,061 views on the blog. To feed the blog, I watched some of the key local and statewide races closely on the Secretary of State website and posted updates. We also established the hashtag #wct2012 on Twitter and added that to our blog so that anyone – our reporters or our readers – tweeting with that hashtag could contribute. Finally, we also used AP content to post updates on national results, including the presidential race. People reading our blog could interact with us by answering some of our poll questions and posting their own comments for us to publish.
As I mentioned, we established the hashtag #wct2012 on Twitter to tweet updates throughout the night. We encouraged our followers on Twitter to also use the hashtag when posting Election Day pictures and updates. We actually had some readers use the hashtag, which is a huge victory for us. Twitter is something that we’ve really been pushing at the Tribune, and it’s nice to see more and more people interact with us there all the time.
We also saw lots of interaction on our Facebook page. I posted fewer updates there (it’s better to use Facebook more sparingly so you don’t overwhelm your followers) and concentrated mostly on larger, closer races: the president, Senate District 17, Willmar City Council and the Willmar School Board. We saw an above-average number of likes and comments on all of our posts, especially when we posted that President Obama had won re-election. We now have 36 likes and 16 comments on that post.
On both our Twitter and Facebook accounts, we gained followers throughout the day. We gained 7 followers on Facebook from the start of Tuesday and close to 20 followers on Twitter. It’s exciting to see readers looking to the Tribune’s social media accounts for updates on major stories.

Now, for some things I learned on election night:

I should have put some more planning into our live blog. From the time we launched the blog to the time results started coming in for Minnesota at 8 p.m., we didn’t have as much content to post to the blog as I would have liked. We concentrated mainly on East Coast results for the presidential election, but it would have been nice to post more local coverage – for example, state and local races to watch, interesting tidbits about some of the candidates, etc.
I also wish I had organized my Twitter stream more effectively. There were so many people tweeting on election night that it was hard to separate national from state from local. Since I use Twitter heavily to stay on top of what’s happening, I should have made more Twitter lists to segment my feed. It would have made my job much easier and saved me some frustration.
Even though we had a good amount of reader interaction on our live blog and with our Twitter hashtag, I think if we had promoted those more heavily in the days leading up to the election, we could have seen even more interaction. Next time, we should start promoting our digital coverage and social media feeds earlier – in the paper, on our website and on our Facebook and Twitter pages. If more people had known about our live blog/social media presence in the days leading up to the election, they might have used those even more.

And some general observances from my first election night in a newsroom:

As I suspected, food plays a major part in keeping everyone happy throughout the night. At the Tribune, we had everything from pizza and chips to sushi and apples. Something for everyone, I guess. (On a side note, I did try sushi for the first time. Risky, I know. But it wasn’t nearly as disgusting as I expected raw fish to be.)
The Secretary of State’s website, on election night, is pretty much the worst thing ever. Probably 50 percent of my night consisted of refreshing web pages to try and get results (and even then to no avail. It was extremely frustrating.)
I feel so, so lucky to be working at a newspaper that tries new things and takes risks in our digital coverage. At smaller, more rural newspapers, it can be easy to focus entirely on the print product and let digital coverage slide, but at the Tribune, we’re all committed to our digital efforts as well. It’s a good feeling to know that we’re working with our future in mind and taking digital innovation seriously.

So that’s about it. What did you think of the election? Was there a particular race outcome that surprised you? What did you think about our election coverage?

My first election in the newsroom

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Ashley White

After weeks of debates, campaign mailers and new polls being released practically every day, Election Day is finally here. I’m incredibly excited, because it will be the first time I’ve worked in a newsroom for a general election.

And it’s going to be a big one. I don’t need to tell you that the presidential race appears to be in a dead heat, and either candidate could be declared the winner by the end of tonight (or tomorrow, or the next day…although hopefully not!). But in Minnesota, we also have two controversial amendments that could go either way (voter ID and gay marriage), and in the Willmar area, several key legislative races could also be close.

I’ll be following all of these races and more tonight as I run the social media accounts for the West Central Tribune. We had a staff meeting yesterday to go over last-minute details, and I’ll be in charge of updating our live blog (which we’ll be launching later this afternoon), tweeting from the Tribune account and posting updates and interacting with readers on Facebook. I’m also hoping to create a Storify about local people voting in the region. (Storify, by the way, is one of my new favorite social media tools. I’m hoping we can continue to use this more at the Tribune.)

Since the last presidential election in 2008, social media – particularly Twitter – has skyrocketed, not only in users but also in user interaction. It’s become a daily, integral part of many people’s lives. It’s an incredibly important tool that we’ll be using at the Tribune to keep our readers informed and as up-to-date throughout the night as possible.

Our social media effort is a team one: many of our reporters and editors will be tweeting from their own accounts throughout the night (you can find a list of everyone in the newsroom on Twitter here). In case you were wondering, the Tribune doesn’t have an official social media policy, but it’s our general policy not to show bias toward any specific candidate or issue on any level: local, state or national. We’re all careful to exercise that same neutrality on our own social media accounts.

It’s going to be a loooong night. I fully expect to be here well into the early hours of the morning. And even then, we ~~may not~~ will probably not have full results to print in the paper! But I’m also anticipating an adrenaline rush of energy – possibly fueled by obscene amounts of coffee and Red Bull – and an evening full of nail biters, intense deadlines and, of course, lots and lots of food. But then, that’s pretty much why any of us go into journalism in the first place.

PS – I know I also don’t need to tell you this, but please make sure you vote today. Many, many people before us fought incredibly hard to make sure we have this right. And if you are out voting today, make sure you tweet or Instagram a picture with the hashtag #wct2012.

I’ll be back in the next day or so with a full recap of our election coverage from behind the scenes. In the meantime, do you have any questions about the Tribune’s election coverage? Let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer!

–Ashley White, community content coordinator

Going viral like Marilyn Hagerty

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Ashley White

If you haven’t heard of Marilyn Hagerty, you must be living under a rock.

Marilyn Hagerty. Photo from gfherald.com

The 85-year-old columnist for the Grand Forks Herald (owned by Forum Communications Co., the same company that owns the West Central Tribune) has been making headlines this past week for her sincere, earnest review of the town’s new Olive Garden.

“At length, I asked my server what she would recommend. She suggested chicken Alfredo, and I went with that. Instead of the raspberry lemonade she suggested, I drank water,” she wrote in her review.

“All in all, [Olive Garden] is the largest and most beautiful restaurant now operating in Grand Forks. It attracts visitors from out of town as well as people who live here.”

After it was published in the GFH, several outlets picked it up, including Gawker. In a matter of hours, it went viral on the Internet, being shared on Facebook 21,000 times, tweeted 14,000 times and receiving, to date, nearly 700,000 views on gfherald.com.

Marilyn's in the Big Apple! Photo from marilynhagerty.areavoices.com

At first, people made fun of her, saying that the Olive Garden didn’t merit a review. Some didn’t even know if she was being serious. But now, a week later, she’s so famous that Jane Lynch interviewed her Monday night on “Piers Morgan Tonight,” she’s in NYC doing more restaurant reviews, and there are talks of her making an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Overnight, she became “America’s newest media darling.” Now, Marilyn Hagerty – who didn’t even know what it meant to “go viral” until her son explained it to her – has her own blog, an e-book and a T-shirt featuring her now-famous quote: “I’ve been a lot of other things, but never viral!”

In the West Central Tribune newsroom, we’ve all been keeping up with Marilyn’s latest adventure or interview. Personally, I’m rooting for her all the way (I happen to love Olive Garden and would be over-the-moon ecstatic to see one come to Willmar).

But Marilyn’s overnight celebrity status also serves a powerful lesson: In this day and age, journalists have the potential to be read by an audience well beyond their immediate area. At the West Central Tribune, what we write isn’t necessarily read only by people in this community (although I’m sure that’s the majority of our audience). Anyone, anywhere can go viral – even a “retired” journalist out in the Middle of Nowhere, North Dakota. Certainly it could happen in Willmar, Minn.

On Monday, an article of mine ran about a curling wedding that took place this weekend. While it didn’t come anywhere close to going viral, it did garner nearly 3,200 page views on wctrib.com. Around 30 people tweeted the article, several people linked to it on Facebook, and it was our most read story of the day. It was even picked up on the AP wire, meaning other papers that subscribe to the AP could use the story on their websites (and yes, I did a search, and a few actually did use it, which was pretty cool).

The curling wedding even made the USA Today!

UPDATE MARCH 14, 2:15 P.M.: I just learned that Willmar’s curling wedding made the USA Today! It was in the “Across the USA: News from every state” section on page 7A. I know it was more because of the originality of the wedding than my actual story, but still, that is pretty neat.

It is a great feeling to know that other people read what you work so hard to write. After all, journalists write to be read. But for me, it’s also a little scary to think about one of my articles having the potential to go viral like Marilyn Hagerty’s. She obviously has a thick enough skin to not let the critics get to her. I’m not sure that, if put in the same situation, I would have the same attitude.

As a young journalist, I also feel pressure trying to find my way in an industry that allows for your words to reach many people and have an immediate, recognizable impact on a community. I’m very cognizant of the fact that what I write goes online for anyone and everyone to read.

You have to be careful. A few weeks ago, a young editor for ESPN wrote a racist headline in reference to NBA player Jeremy Lin. The headline only stayed on ESPN’s website for about 30 minutes – from 2:30 to 3:05 a.m. – before it was taken down, but it was too late. The headline went viral, and the young editor, who said that he simply didn’t know it was a racial slur, was fired.

In writing about the ESPN incident, I think Alex Johnson, an experienced journalist with MSNBC, makes an excellent point about young journalists:

“The trope is that it’s the old-timers like me who are scared of today’s technology. But I have less to be scared of than do the far smarter young writers and editors I work with…I got to learn the craft of journalism during an age when a single mistake — even a bad one — wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of my career…all of today’s rising young journalists have every right to be petrified.”

Yeah, that’s pressure. And it makes me a little nervous to think about.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t lie in bed at night in a cold sweat, mentally going over everything I did that day to make sure I didn’t make a mistake. I know that mistakes happen. Journalists are human (although we try our absolute hardest to write mistake-free articles and have an editing process for this very reason). I just hope that A) I never make a mistake that would jeopardize my integrity as a journalist, and B) I never make a mistake that causes my name to go viral.

It is much better to go viral the Marilyn Hagerty way: For being a nice person who happens to be from a small town, where a new Olive Garden is big news.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go review the new Qdoba in Willmar. Instead of a soda, I will drink water. Marilyn taught me that.

Have you been following the Marilyn Mania? What do you think of going viral? Most importantly, what are your thoughts on Olive Garden? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

-Ashley White, community content coordinator

Nice to meet you

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Ashley White

I’m a little late in writing this (OK, so I’m actually a month late in writing this), but I’d like to formally “introduce” myself to all of you. I’m Ashley, and I’m the new community content coordinator for the West Central Tribune (if you want, you can read more about my background here).

In my new position, I’ll be doing a little bit of everything. My main focus, though, will be working with bloggers for Forum Communication Co.’s Areavoices platform. On Areavoices, anyone from the community can write a blog about any topic that interests them (read a few of my favorite Areavoices blogs here, here and here).

Now that I’ve had time to settle into my new position, I’m currently looking for more local people to start a blog that will be featured on wctrib.com. If you have a passion for something (whether it’s cooking, sports, tiddlywinks – whatever!), you can be a community blogger. Or if you’re a company or organization looking to spread your message, blogging can be a great tool in helping you do that. From time to time, we’ll even be running some blog posts in the print edition. If you’re interested in starting your own Areavoices blog (or if you already have a blog and would like to get more exposure), just send me an e-mail. We’ll make it happen!

Another one of my jobs as community content coordinator will be helping to think of ways the Tribune can become more digital-focused. In the last month, we’ve started expanding our presence on Twitter (follow us @wctrib), and we are planning some new ideas for our website and other digital content.

Lastly, one of my goals is to continue making this blog a place where you can see what’s going on inside the newsroom. A lot happens here every day that most people don’t realize (some good, some bad, some just crazy), and I look forward to working with the other reporters to show you the story behind the story.

What else would you like to see, digitally speaking, from the West Central Tribune? Feel free to shoot me an e-mail at awhite@wctrib.com, or you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter. You can also reach me at 320-214-4308. I’d love to hear from you!

-Ashley White, Community Content Coordinator