by on December 19, 2011 2 Comments

The Top 11 Journalistics Posts of 2011

best journalism posts 2011This is the third year I’ve written a “Top Journalistics Posts of the Year” post. The greatest hits meme is a little overdone, I know – but when you consider about half our readers are ‘new visitors’, a lot of these posts are new to them. I personally enjoy the exercise of reviewing our best posts from the year. Reflecting on my work from the past year gives me renewed focus for the coming year.

This couldn’t be more true this year. I took a look back at our Top 9 Posts of 2009 and Top 10 Posts of 2010 to see how the blog has changed over the past few years. The first thing that jumped out at me is how good the posts from 2009 were. Three or four of those first posts remain the most-viewed each year on the blog (I won’t reveal which ones they are, mainly because they’re great resources – but in desperate need of updating).

The popularity of these posts tells me two things:

1. Those posts were great – and well worth the effort that went into them (some of the more labor intensive posts to date)

2. If I was writing great content, posts from 2009 wouldn’t still be the most popular content in 2011

We have a lot of great content lined up for 2012. As always, we welcome your feedback. For now, without further adieu, here are the top posts of 2011: [Read more...]

Filed Under: facebook, journalistics, media relations, PR, tips and tricks, writing Tagged With: , ,
by on October 14, 2010 3 Comments

Facebook Media Page Just for Journalists

Journalists need social media, but probably not as much as social media needs journalists. Journalists — in any shape or fashion — have always been, and will continue to be, the disseminators of news. Journalists are the storytellers, the connectors between people to information. Social media has just become the best way to do that.

While everyone can have a blog, not everyone knows how to write. Even less people know how to report. And while everyone can have a Facebook or Twitter account, we also can’t expect everyone to be experts in social media, even if there are few steadfast rules to help people use Facebook and Twitter. [Read more...]

Filed Under: journalism, journalistics, online journalism, reporting, social media Tagged With: ,
by on August 28, 2009 1 Comment

ExpertTweet Helps You Find Experts on Twitter

The Journalistics team was sitting around a couple of months ago, talking about the various apps out there for Twitter, and applications of Twitter technologies for PR and marketing uses. As part of a larger project we’re working on behind the scenes, we started brainstorming about faster ways to find experts on Twitter, beyond searching keywords, scouring directories or scanning #followfriday shout-outs.

Of course, any Twitter user can tweet an expert request to their followers, but depending on how you use Twitter, the size of your following, or your expert need, your followers might not have a suggestion for you. Or your followers might miss your tweet all together, resulting in no responses. Even with 6,000 or so followers for @journalistics, we still only get a suggestion or two when we pose a question to our followers.

Is There a Faster, Easier Way to Find Experts on Twitter? [Read more...]

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by on June 11, 2009 5 Comments

The First Four Months of Journalistics

I can’t believe it’s only been four months since my first post. While I’ve helped a lot of people launch blogs in the past, this was my first serious attempt at blogging to date. I really wondered if anyone would care about the posts I was writing. In February, 156 of you did. Now that might not sound like much, but considering we did zero promotion of the blog to friends and family, I was pleased by the results. I kept plugging away, trying to determine the editorial focus for the blog (something I continue to do on a daily basis), while many of you early readers provided support and feedback, while suggesting the blog to others. Thanks to your generousity, we saw close to 800 visitiors in March.

For many reasons I won’t get into, things slowed down a bit in April, with only a little more than 500 visitors to the blog. This was a wake-up call for me. I realized I had to make a committment to the blog if it was going to be successful. We made some much needed aesthetic improvements to the blog (thanks for your feedback on the changes), and continue to look for new ways to improve the overall look and feel of Journalistics (like switching to the best WordPress Theme in the world, thank you very much). I kicked things up a notch in May, cranking out even more posts, and you rewarded me for it. More than 3,000 of you stopped by in May. [Read more...]

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by on May 20, 2009 31 Comments

Journalism 101: 16 Things You Learn In J-School

It’s been a couple of years since I sat in a journalism class, but I’m guessing (and hopeful) they still teach some of the same stuff they did when I went to school. While there are no shortage of blog posts discounting the value of a journalism education, I can’t help but think bloggers and journalists would serve their readers better by sticking to some of these tried and true principles of journalism. And for the PR pros that read this blog, you too can improve the value of your content by following these journalistic principles: [Read more...]

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by on May 10, 2009 10 Comments

What Press Release Distribution Service Should You Use?

twtpollThere are a lot of press release distribution services out there. When I ran my agency, I used several different services based on the varied preferences of our clients. Not to avoid picking a favorite, but I generally liked all of them. The services I used most for clients included PRNewswire (the most popular), PRWeb (favored by the SEO-minded crowd), BusinessWire (most often larger clients), and Marketwire.

Over the course of the past five years, I’ve used PRWeb (owned by Vocus) the most. PRWeb is one of the most cost-effective services out there for tech startups – and it was really the first press release distribution service to embrace SEO, without charging a ton for these extra features. I also like the analytics provided by PRWeb, which are on par with the stats packages offered by others. [Read more...]

Filed Under: blogging, journalistics, pr services, press releases Tagged With: ,
by on February 25, 2009 Leave a Comment

Why Journalistics is Using Skribit (And What Skribit Is)

If you’re on the Journalistics Blog right now, you’ll notice a nifty little widget over on the right column that says “Skribit Suggestions.” Skribit is an application (or widget) bloggers can install on their blog that enables their readers to suggest topics for them to write about. It’s a great tool for engaging your audience and learning more about your readers’ interests.

It’s also a great tool – as their tagline states – to help cure writer’s block. If you’ve ever struggled with trying to decide what you’ll blog about next, Skribit is for you. For example, Skribit suggests “Why are you using Skribit?” as the first suggestion by default when you signup for the service – which is what made me decide to write this post.

Where Did Skribit Come From?

In case you’re wondering, Skrbit launched in November 2007 at Atlanta Startup Weekend. The company’s founders – a bunch of smart Atlanta entrepreneurs – have recently started to dedicate a lot more time to building out the product, and you can expect to see even more features and functionality soon. If you blog on a regular basis, we’re sure you’ll love Skribit as much as we do.

Skribit is free and easy to install on most blogs (check out the Skribit FAQs to see if your blogging platform is supported – most of the major platforms like TypePad, WordPress and Blogger are). If you’re interested, visit the Skribit website today to learn more.

While you’re here, why not suggest a topic for us to blog about? Just type your suggestion in the Skrbit widget to the right and let others vote on your suggestion. Who knows, your suggestion just might be the topic of our next post.

Filed Under: blogging, journalistics Tagged With: , ,
by on February 2, 2009 1 Comment

Welcome to Journalistics

You’re probably wondering what Journalistics is all about. While we’re not ready to spill the beans on exactly what we’re up to, it’s only fair that we give you a general idea – since you took the time to visit our blog.

As the founder of Journalistics, I’ve spent the past couple of years observing industry trends and having hundreds of conversations with journalism and public relations professionals about the state of the industry. More specifically, about the state of affairs surrounding media relations. As a PR professional myself, I’ve spent the past 10 years pitching the media – I’ve developed and managed media relations campaigns for at least 100 clients at this point (mostly high-tech startups).

When I started out in PR – like many of you – I was handed a media list and a release and told to “smile and dial.” In the early days, results came easy. I got a rush out of placing stories and working a media list that way seemed to work fine. Over the course of the past couple of years, it’s seemed more difficult to get results for clients. Sure, a lot has changed in the worlds of journalism and media relations – but in a lot of ways, the approach and exchange are the same.

I think my close ratio really went down because I stopped trying to force feed pitches to journalists that just weren’t interested. It was a waste of my time to pitch stories that I knew journalists were never going to cover. Even when the story is a good fit for an outlet, there are probably dozens of reasons why it may not be a good fit for the format, timeframe, etc. The truth is, a lot of the stories that are pitched aren’t really that newsworthy – and ultimately, it’s up to the media to make this call. [Read more...]

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