Who’s the audience?Participatory Journalism class expands

the life cycle of a community’s story

Joy Mayer | @mayerjoy | mayerj@missouri.edu

⋙100th anniversary of a bizarre high school mascot

⋙Plenty of coverage planned. But who’s it for? And how do we make it social?

⋙Let the community know what you’re working on.

⋙Invite them to participate — and to invite others to participate

⋙Watch for what users say, and follow up leads.

⋙This one led to a story we weren’t planning to write.

⋙Run highlights from social comments in the “From Readers” section

⋙Roll these out early, and tag Facebook participants when their comments publish.

⋙Run highlights as print teases throughout the week leading up to the big package

⋙Who would most enjoy the content?

⋙Where do they already get and share information?

⋙How could we take our content to them in those places and on those platforms?

Talk concretely about the audience.

⋙Post in Facebook groups where alums spend time. Also with school-related Twitter accounts.

⋙Make a flier with coverage highlights. Take 500 copies to a home game.

⋙Include a url to track. How many people consume full content based on handout?

⋙Sell an ad on the back to the school’s booster club.

⋙Provide Snapchat coverage from the game. Reach the young audience where they are.

⋙Healthy web analytics across the package, with high percentage from Facebook.

⋙Participation and buy-in from community throughout the process.

⋙A truly social life cycle for this community story.

⋙The main crowdsourcing Facebook post reached 15,000 users.

⋙We made $150 selling an ad based on customized distribution.

⋙Track url from handout. More than half of recipients went to website.

Then ask: What “worked”?

If it works, repeat it. If not, don’t.But treat it all as an experiment.