Social Media for the Catholic Press

Social media for the Catholic Press

Catholic Press Association Conference

May 29, 2009Anaheim, Calif.

“New ways to spread voices and images of hope”

A message from Pope Benedict XVI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd6BZwSXcNo&feature=channel_page

“Among the wonderful technological discoveries which men of talent, especially in the present era, have made with God's help, the Church welcomes and promotes with special interest those which have a most direct relation to men's minds and which have uncovered new avenues of communicating most readily news, views and teachings of every sort. The most important of these inventions are those media which, such as the press, movies, radio, television and the like, can, of their very nature, reach and influence, not only individuals, but the very masses and the whole of human society, and thus [Those media] can rightly be called

the media of social communication.”

DECREE ON THE MEDIA OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONSINTER MIRIFICA

SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY

HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VION DECEMBER 4, 1963

The Church’s support for the integration of communication and emerging technology began even before the Internet existed.

A few goals of Catholic journalists…

• Seek out stories of interest to Catholics

• Bring a Catholic perspective to stories in the secular media

• Show Catholic social teaching in action

Story mining

• Scoops• Sources• Leads• New perspectives, thoughts

Reaching your audience

• They’re using social media more and more

According to a Pew Internet study…

• The biggest increase in Internet use since 2005 can be seen in which age group:

A. 12-17

B. 40-44

C. 55-59

D. 70-75

ANSWER: D. 70-75

Adults using social media

The share of adult internet users

who have a profile on an online social network site

has more than quadrupled in the past four years

-- from 8% in 2005 to 35% at the end of 2008.

Listening tools for research

– Google search– Google Alerts – Twitter search: www. search.twitter.com– Trending topics– E-alerts and e-newsletters– RSS feeds, subscriptions

• Blogs• Social networks

• Facebook• MySpace• LinkedIn

• Messaging tools• Twitter

– (Tinyurl.com)

• Skype

• Link-saving tools / Bookmarking• Del.icio.us• Digg

Finding sources:

More online info-mining tools:

• Watch video– YouTube – Vimeo – http://www.catholic-tube.com/

• Look at photos– Flickr

• Listen to audio– iTunes podcasts– Utterli

There are also…

We’ll focus on three of the most popular and common social media tools:

•Blogs•Twitter•Facebook

Catholics who blog

• Catholic blog directory:http://catholicblogs.blogspot.com/

• Catholic answers forum: http://forums.catholic.com/

• Christian Foundation for Children and Aging: http://www.cfcausa.org

• My Catholic Voice: http://www.mycatholicvoice.com/

• Google search and blog-roll recommendations

Twittering 101

Twitter lexicon• Tweet (n.) – A Twitter message. (v.) The act of sending a

twitter message. Example: “I’ll tweet you later.”• Follow – What you do to other people who tweet. You

see all tweets they send (except DMs).• Followers – People who follow you. They see all tweets

you send (except DMs).• DM – “Direct Message” A tweet that is kept private

between two people tweeting.• 140 – Maximum number of characters (not words)

allowable in a tweet. • RT – “ReTweet” Used when repeating someone else’s

tweet in your tweet. Being retweeted is the highest form of social media

flattery.

Breaking news

Links, comm

ents and general chatter

And what’s for lunch

Catholics on Twitter

• A Twitter group for Catholics: http://twittgroups.com/group/catholic

• Another Twitter group for Catholics: http://

twibes.com/Catholic • “Cool Catholics on Twitter”:

http://fatherroderick.sqpn.com/2009/02/17/cool-catholics-on-twitter/

• A Catholic Twitter community: http://www.tweetcatholic.com/

Exercise: Twitter 101 in action

• The tweet (You can find some of our responses here:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hello+cfca

• Finding people on Twitter (by using the Twitter “Find People” search engine)

• Finding information using Twitter searchhttp://search.twitter.com/

Facebook 101

Facebook lexicon

• Friend: (n.) A person on your Facebook list. (v.) The act of being accepted on someone’s Facebook account. Example: “I totally friended you on Facebook!”

• Wall: (n.) A public place to write notes to your friend or comment on their status.

• Status updates: (n.) The line after someone’s name where they comment on their current state of being.

Posting videos, new

s from “friends”

Joining charities and other groups

Catholics on Facebook

• “Catholics”: http://tinyurl.com/qhd5b8

• Headline Bistro/Catholic news: http://tinyurl.com/pms2kf

• Headline Bistro is a service of the Knights of Columbus dedicated to bringing readers the top, daily headlines that Catholics need to know.

• Catholics (Global) - 43,777 members: http://tinyurl.com/okn85x

Side note… Tinyurl.com

Tinyurl.com turned this:http://www.facebook.com/s.php?

sid=f3ec73f73e95183646db82db550396ec&init=q&sf=r&k=400000000010&n=&q=Catholics#/group.pp?sid=f3ec73f73e95183646db82db550396ec&gid=2204660319

&ref=search (184 characters)

Into this:http://tinyurl.com/pms2kf (25 characters)

Let’s say that it’s Jan. 8, 2009

3:14 p.m.

You follow CFCA on Twitter and you subscribe to their blog, receiving updates as they’re posted.

At 3:14 p.m., you receive the following tweet in your twitter feed …

Tweet #1

…letting you know that a significant earthquake struck Costa Rica and where to go to find more information.

Within the hour, you receive an e-mail letting you know that there’s a new blog post.

Blog #1

The post relays the news of the quake with expanded information and a link to a fuller story on the main Web site.

Shortly after that, there’s an update, which is tweeted immediately …

Tweet #2

… linking to the Web story.

News story #1www.cfcausa.org

Tragically, a few days later, there was a death reported among the sponsored families that CFCA serves.

That news was reported on the blog…

Blog #2

… linking to the full Web story …

News story #2www.cfcausa.org

… and then tweeted to CFCA followers.

Tweet #3

Perhaps you were working on a story about how people in poverty were effected by the earthquake.

You conduct

Google searches,

Twitter searches.

Contact CFCA (www.cfcausa.org)

and other people

with on-the-ground insight

into the situation.

A few hours later, you’ve reached people with first-hand information and unique stories.

Your reporting is done or well on its way to telling the story of people whose story might not have been told otherwise.

Social media reveals stories that might never have been found otherwise.

A few words about nonprofits as sources for the Catholic Press

Nonprofits are everywhere.

Nonprofits love social media.

*Google search is your friend

Organization URL Blog Twitter FB E-news

United Way www.livedunited.org X X X X

Salvation Army www.salvationarmyusa.org X X X X

Am. Cancer Society www.cancer.org X X X X

Catholic Relief Svcs. http://crs.org X X X X

Catholic Charities www.catholiccharitiesusa.org X X X X

CFCA www.cfcausa.org X X X X

Am. National Red Cross www.redcross.org X X X X

On the ground when breaking news happens.

Giving voice to the voiceless.

Offering stories with hope.

Social Media

=

ListeningServingSharing

It’s working when…

• More blog comments

• Many tweets and retweets

• Blog hits rise

• Web traffic increase

Social media is the journalist’s virtual ear to the ground and a direct connection

to your audience.

Social Media = Worldwide 411Offering new ways to spread voices and images of hope

Workshop for the Catholic Press Assoc. conference, May 2009, Anaheim, Calif.

By: Loretta Kline and Judy-Anne Goldman

From: Christian Foundation for Children and Aging

Questions, comments regarding this presentation?

Please tweet us: www.twitter.com/lacajag

E-mail us: judy-anneg@cfcausa.org

Follow CFCA: www.twitter.com/cfca

We are thankful for these resources:

• Message from Pope Benedict: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

=Cd6BZwSXcNo&feature=channel_page

• Vatican archive, 1963 decree: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19631204_inter-mirifica_en.html

• Pew Internet Study: http://pewinternet.org/Media-Mentions/2009/Whos-

Online-and-What-Are-They-Doing-There.aspx

• Web 2.0 picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022

www.cfcausa.org