Social Media Report In Public Radio

JD Lasica linked to this excellent report on social media in public radio, from the American University School of Communication's Center for Social Media called “Public Radio’s Social Media Experiments: Risk, Opportunity, Challenge”. Here's my synopsis of the report. If you read it I'd be interested in hearing what aspects of the report you found most interesting.

What is new about blogging and social media for traditional media are the "unfamiliar rules of engagement," traditional media is unused to how engagement works in the online world.

First it requires a change in understanding about who is creating content in the new world of consumer generated media. The public participates by contributing content. This means media companies have to develop new ways to allow the public's participation.

Issues of concern

- Managing a large volume of comments with few resources.
- Lack of understanding that managing social media takes time and resources on the part of management.
- Concerns about standards for engagement in the light of journalistic standards. What does the public's participation say about the media credibility?

The media's concerns about social media can be allayed slightly by setting goals for social media projects, metrics that measure the level of public participation.

- Downloading podcasts
- Unique visitors
- Comments
- Trackbacks

It is also important to set expectations with your audience so they can understand what content is consumer generated and what is journalist created.