SALT LAKE CITY — When Glenn “Big Baby” Davis hit the game-winning shot during the 2009 NBA Eastern Conference finals in Orlando, Sentinel reporters didn’t see the Boston Celtics forward careen into a young Magic fan during the celebration.
But when the bump showed up during the broadcast and was repeated on ESPN that night, website editors quickly realized the power of social media.
“Our reporters didn’t see the bump, they probably had their heads down rewriting the story for deadline,” Orlando managing editor of sports topics Tim Stephens said during the 2010 Associated Press Sports Editors convention Friday. “The next morning we tracked down the kid’s father on Facebook. He went on a rant and said Big Baby should be suspended. By that afternoon, it was such a hot topic it was debated on (national sports-talk show) PTI and was the No. 1 hit between everything on OrlandoSentinel.com. That’s when I really understood what could happen with a story that was entirely driven by social media.”
Stephens was joined by fellow panelist Rob King, vice president and editor-in-chief of ESPN digital, and moderator Tom Jolly, sports editor of the New York Times, for a seminar intended to give guidance about how to use Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other forms of social media in the sports department.
“At ESPN, we have a clear mission statement: Serve sports fans wherever, however, whenever we can,” King said. “This is about an audience of one, so focus on how you want to deliver what you do best to that individual.”
All three editors said they asked their beat writers and columnist to use Twitter, a system that allows messages of 140 characters or fewer, to immediately reach followers accessed using mobile phones. Restricting the use of Twitter to monitor news and reach out directly is considered the best practice.
“Writing in this space is tough and reporting in this space is dangerous,” King said. “Because of that, we now have clear guidelines that explain the proper way to do it. We are paying these people for their expertise and we ask them to direct that expertise to ESPN.com.”
Jolly said numbers showed that few readers made it to the website by following Twitter, though the numbers were better when the tweet included a link to a story. Having a presence on Facebook, on the other hand, provides exposure for readers to find content on the most popular social-media site on the Web.
“Facebook drives much more traffic to our site,” Jolly said. “But I don’t that should be the main purpose of having a presence on all these sites.”
All agreed that connecting with the readers and giving fans another way to learn about their teams overall goal.
“It’s more about building relationships with these people,” Stephens said.
Applying the standards of traditional journalism on these new platforms should remain paramount, the editors said.
“Following all this can be overwhelming and nobody signed up for this,” King said of monitoring tweets, reader comments and bloggers. “We are doing extra work so people can be a part of the landscape for ESPN media.”
Jolly reminded the audience that sportswriters have always been storytellers and the art of harnessing social media to tell stories was only slightly different from more traditional forms of media.
“They are the same issues,” he said. “The difference is the speed involved. I tell the writers to think before they hit send on a tweet. One bad tweet kills you for a long time. (Reporters) need to think of it in the same way as saying something biased in front of a camera or in front of a player. You would never do that.”
Editors new to social media were asked to be patient and not get discouraged if lack of immediate interest or pressures to divert resources elsewhere.
“Let’s remember how newspapers got in trouble in the first place, it was a question of relevance,” King said. “We needed to find a different place to connect.”
Jolly said editors and publishers shouldn’t over think the relevance of involvement in social media.
“It’s a way to reach readers, so why wouldn’t you do it?” he said.
Showing a commitment to these tools and creating online readership is the first step towards giving the advertising department a reason to sell ads on the site.
“Advertisers are very aware of what is going on in the social media space,” King said. “We allowed interactive comments for fans during games for two years before we branded it Section 140. As soon as we did, Microsoft came running. We showed our commitment and the advertiser responded.”
Newsrooms with smaller staffs can still stay involved. The panel suggested that editors focus on their biggest event for readers and engage through Twitter and Facebook. Jolly spoke about Foursquare, a newer site that will pick up content about local businesses while the user is in the area.
“Don’t forget to have fun with it,” Stephens said. “This is a way you can build an audience, discovery story ideas and really connect with people that care about your content. If you commit, you are really giving the reader a new experience. It’s worth the trouble.”
Workshop Materials:
- Using Social Media (.pptx) — Presented by Tim Stephens of the Orlando Sentinel
