Los Angeles — Striving to promote the use of social media network in the newsroom, Facebook has unleashed a new media Page called, Journalists on Facebook, which is intended to be a resource page to help journalists adopt the social media network as a reporting tool and better connect with their audience into their networking and storytelling.
The “Journalists on Facebook” page is proposed as “an ongoing resource for the growing number of reporters using social media network Facebook to find sources, interact with readers, and advance stories,” Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s director of media partnerships, said in a blog post.
“As newsrooms become more social, the Page will furnish journalists with best practices for integrating the latest Facebook products with their work and connecting with the Facebook audience of more than 500 million people,” Osofsky wrote in a blog post.
However, at press time, the page was not live, besides, Facebook also said that it would organize a series of meetings with the media to “engage in an open dialogue with the reporting community,” which will likely involve questions of privacy. Of course, the media’s traditional role has been to bring corruption, hypocrisy, negligence and outright crimes — which are usually concealed — into the harsh light of public scrutiny.
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Lately, Facebook has intensified its effort to improve its relationship with media organizations and has been working with journalists since early 2010 to help make their content more social and Osofsky said the average media organization has seen referral traffic from Facebook soar over 300 percent since then.
Last July, the company announced its efforts to help media organizations make better use of their products to increase engagement, traffic and more. Meanwhile, with the unveiling of Journalist page, Facebook also announced that it was introducing a “Facebook Journalism Meetup” program with workshops on how to use Facebook as a reporting tool.
Furthermore, Osofsky has been actively promoting Facebook as a most beneficial reporting tool, citing NPR’s use of the site to source stories and New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof’s use of Facebook to report on events in Cairo while he was on the ground. The social media network also touted its ability to increase referral traffic for news websites.
“Thanks again for the helpful feedback you have already provided, and please continue to let us know how Facebook can best serve the journalism community,” Osofsky concluded.
Facebook follows the trail blazed by LinkedIn, the social networking site for business. LinkedIn periodically hosts seminars for journalists interested in using the site’s collection of employment data for their own use; the site also exposes that information to its users. Last month, for example, LinkedIn launched dedicated “skills” and “maps” pages to allow users to better track their connections and the skills their contacts have in common.
The company said the first one will be held on April 27 at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
Since July, the average media organization has seen more than a 100% increase in referral traffic from Facebook. And surprisingly enough, within hours of going up, the Journalists on Facebook page had received nearly 2,300 “likes.”
As far as the Journalists friending the Facebook Page were CBS television news anchor Katie Couric, ABC’s evening news anchor Diane Sawyer and ABC Sunday talk show host Christiane Amanpour, formerly of CNN, Piers Morgan, and Arianna Huffington are among those who “liked” it so far.