15 ways to dive headfirst into online journalism

28 Mar

3204080694_094aa12b23Have you been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for someone to grab your hand and pull you into the new digital world of journalism? Well, wait no more. Here are 15 ways you can jump in right now.

1. Read Chris Brogan’s blog.

2. Read this one post by Rob Curley.

3. Read Mashable. You don’t have to read every post, but skim the headlines and see if anything catches your eye.

4. Stop talking about why you’re not going to join Twitter. And join Twitter.

5. Go to WordPress or Blogger and start a blog. About anything – your family, your love of puppies, how much you hate blogs (just make sure you are passionate about the topic).

6. Start using an RSS reader. Here are feeds from Chris Brogan, Rob Curley and Mashable to get you started.

7. Start clicking around the SND toolkit page. Any of those seem useful?

8. Buy a URL (try GoDaddy or FatCow). Use the free sitebuilding tools to get your site up and running. Or better yet, use a program such as Dreamweaver or iWeb to create your site.

9. Start doing these tutorials.

10. Shoot a movie with your digital camera, edit it in whatever free movie editing program came with your computer (iMovie or Movie Maker, perhaps), and post to YouTube.

11. Go through this HTML tutorial.

12. Start following these new media blogs:

13. Set up a Google alert so that you are e-mailed anytime someone posts your name (or your companys name) online.

14. Create a Google map of everywhere you ever lived (click on “My Maps” and “Create new map.”)

15. Create a delicious account and start saving interesting stories you find online. Start following other feeds as well. (Here’s mine.)

Photo by the_tahoe_guy on Flickr.

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9 Responses to “15 ways to dive headfirst into online journalism”

  1. brad robertson March 28, 2009 at 8:06 am #

    Great starter list you have put together Chris.

    I am a huge fan of http://www.friendfeed.com which shows you the power of mixing a wide range of content and how brands, headline writing, conversations, speed and frequency influence traffic.

    I think signing up for facebook is a must do. Journalists must understand the power of niche social groups. How traffic can be increased when someone shares a link of content which they are personally endorsing to their trusted group.

    Another basic tool is netvibes. A simple dashboard for journalists to keep track of rss feeds and watch key words through search widgets of the web, blogs, twitter, etc.

  2. csnider March 28, 2009 at 9:13 am #

    Thanks Brad. Good point about Facebook. That definitely belongs on this list. It’s interesting to me to see how many journalists are joining Facebook and getting real value out of it (mostly for their personal life, but that’s a good thing, too).

  3. Brianne Sanchez March 31, 2009 at 8:58 am #

    Nice post, Chris. I think a great follow-up to this would be how not to get frustrated in the midst of all these steps. I think a lot of journalists sign up for these things and see no immediate benefit. I’m sure some people would create a Twitter account and then think: “OK, done! Why isn’t this as awesome as everyone says it is?”

    A huge element to online journalism, in my mind, is promoting your content. Being your own PR/marketing team is something I think is missing from a lot of these online-journo discussions. If you wrote a great story on a niche topic, like SPAM, maybe send your article to the person who runs a SPAM fan site or something so you’re delivering your content to a highly interested group and getting more eyes than you would in your general audience community.

    What are your thoughts on that?

  4. Daniel Honigman March 31, 2009 at 9:34 am #

    Thanks for suggesting us as a read, Chris. Hope that furlough isn’t too rough on you guys in Des Moines!

  5. Sophia Ahmad March 31, 2009 at 11:49 am #

    Thanks, Chris. This is really helpful.

  6. Chris Snider March 31, 2009 at 5:06 pm #

    @Brianne Sanchez – That’s a great point. I like the concept that all journalists are freelancers. It’s our own responsibility to sell ourselves and our content.

  7. Michael April 16, 2009 at 4:15 pm #

    Nice use of my photo. It would be great if you could give me credit for it.

  8. Flash June 8, 2010 at 11:16 am #

    But from time to time I arrange show up to feel that the whole world is an puzzle, a benign problem that is made hideous aside our own mad as a march hare attempt to simplify it as though it had an underlying truth.

  9. Jenna June 9, 2010 at 11:10 pm #

    I feel I allready have been told about this subject
    at work 2 days ago by a friend, but at that moment
    it didn’t caugh my attention.