photo credit: philippe leroyer

In any given business, there’s nothing like an engaged customer. Because engagement spells loyalty, and that sure beats trying to recruit new customers 24/7. In the news industry, it’s what all the hype is about, as we refer to the past and on-going situations in Iran, London, Japan, Egypt and London again. But how about all the new customers we so desire, how can we get them to a level where they engaged even when there are no riots where the streets have names they are familiar with?

In the YouTube clip I referred to in yesterday’s blog on how we easily lose our focus on journalism, Paul Lewis of The Guardian describes the engagement in controversial cases like that of Ian Tomlinson’s death during the 2009 G20 summit protests in London.

“As long as your news is the right side of a paywall, i.e. it’s free – anybody can access it. And stories like these that question the official version of an event, allowed people to realize that we had questions ourselves. They were online magnets. Individuals with material that could help us were drawn towards us by some kind of a gravitational force.”

Lewis is one of few role models when it comes to really crowdsourcing the news, but he does also posses an unique capability in his job at one of Europe’s most prestigious newspapers in metropolitan London. To be perfectly honest, most journalists and media don’t see situations as the G20 summit or the current riots in London even once in our lifetime, but we still want and need to engage our potential and existing readers in the same way as Paul does so well with his sources.

Beyond the riots, there are numerous events that trigger you and me every day. The journalistic problem is that most of these reactions still take place offline, and for a very selected audience. Social media has helped us to be more in touch and listen to what engage our readers, but the world we so much like to describe as completely transparent with “everything out there” is still nothing but a vision and a future maybe. And the same goes for reactions on everyday news – people love to press the “like-button”, but it takes a lot more to get the juices flowing so much that they actually get personal in a comment. At least if you refer to late adopters, or in other words: 99% of the population to date.

Here are a few advice on how to engage the people who are already in your universe, that is actual news consumers and/or followers in social media:

Experiment
You need to find out what engages your readers. Politics, sports and crime almost always do – but there is no guarantee that the same goes for the people who read the news in the channel you’re trying to engage in. They might be younger, older, all male or female, party people or philosophers, and what not. You need to analyse and experiment to find the triggers, and build from there.

Get on the right channel
There are different social media that are better suited for dialogue than others, and where people habitually express their minds and are often well connected and active on several other social platforms. Twitter is one of those channels, and it’s a perfect place to begin if you want to build your reputation and have it spill over. While Facebook is good for getting likes, it’s a lot harder to get people to discuss and really engage with brands and unknown people there.

Educate
Have you engaged readers before? If not, you’ll have to communicate and help people to get used to the fact that you really want their comments. The newspaper I work for has a reputation to be anything but transparent, even though one of our core values nowadays is “open”. But people won’t just turn their backs to decades of tradition just because we suddenly say we have changed, you need to pave the way and you need to have the patience to let people discover that you’re to be trusted.

But it’s also the other way around, if your readers are not used to expressing their minds, they won’t just love it from the get-go. And some readers might be new, and thus won’t have the same level of engagement for your brand or the news you produce. Help them get over the initial hump, by publishing likable news, communicating how readers can send in news tips, giving them leads on what you’re working on and asking for help, and by actually doing something with the tips you get. Again, patience is a virtue.

Engage your own
People generally do not want to discuss with brands, they want to talk to people and in our case that’s the editors and reporters. Despite what any anti-traditional, digital blog and media nerd will say, journalists and newspapers still are looked up and listened to. They might not trust us, but they still respect us. And if you are to get people to discuss the news, it helps to have Maria, who wrote that interesting piece, available to discuss her thoughts and why she was so controversial in that editorial. Once you make sure that those reactions reach its origin and start building the personal relationship between journalist and reader, it sure will also be much easier to get tips and inside stories you always look for as a reporter. Win-win.

Listen, listen, listen
Finally, it’s about you listening and not only transmitting. What news do you readers share and discuss? What do people say about and sometimes even to you? What have other media in your area succeeded with? And so on. You need to listen in order to learn, and you need to always be aware of the fact that if your Twitter profile, Facebook wall or comments on your website shows you yabbering away, without actually listening and responding with humility and relevant information, people will not even try to talk to you. After all, would you ever talk to anyone who does not listen to you?