For journalists, transparency can be hard. Social media makes it easy, technically, but opening the door to listen to your audience can be uncomfortable or downright terrifying.
Enter New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who posted this to his 211,000 fans on his Facebook page today. Of course, you could argue this is a safe question to ask — every single comment supported his decision to not show an unverified photo of Osama bin Laden’s corpse. And Kristof is an op-ed columnist, which offers him more flexibility on what he can write. But Kristof’s honesty, openness and willingness to listen is a great lesson.
Facebook loves what Kristof is doing, highlighting his social media efforts as a best practice for journalists. In fact, Facebook’s Vadim Lavrusik posted on his Facebook wall today that he met with Kristof, and the NYT journalist shared the following four tips:
1. Focus on storytelling. A good story is a good story on Facebook.
2. Use the wisdom of the crowd in your reporting. It works.
3. Ask questions and invite people to join the conversation.
4. Share the behind-the-scenes process of your reporting (judiciously).
CNN host Fareed Zakaria is another great example of how to ask Facebook fans questions. He frequently uses Facebook’s new Questions tool (above), which allows you to set up a multiple choice question — and even allow users to add their own choices to the mix. Facebook Questions can generate lots of comments and sharing (“ask friends”) as well. Here are some more examples.
Of course, Facebook (like any social platform) requires work. Or as James Spann said earlier this week, “Work hard. I mean really hard. With the Internet, there are no more ‘shifts.’ You are always on.”