Tech writer Alexandra Chang visits IC to talk about Social and Mobile media

Technology and freelance reporter, Alexandra Chang, guest lectured in my Social and Mobile Journalism class on Friday, February 7th.

As a former writer for Wired magazine, Chang was able to inform inspiring journalists about how important social media is to the future of the career. She gave us some great tips on what to do, what not to do, and what apps and websites are the most beneficial to use for our stories and branding ourselves.

Here are my top 10 most useful things I learned during her lecture;

1. Be careful of what you post on social media sites. They are important to have a presence on to get your name out there, but potential employers and others will be critiquing everything you say.

2. Tweeting to big names is shows you’re not afraid to put yourself out there, and there’s a possibility they might even write back! This shows possible employers you are willing to engage in conversation.

3. Having a professional Facebook is a good way to separate it from your personal account. It also is a great way to share stories.

4. Linked-In is a great place to find possible sources for your stories, just use the advanced search function.

5. Use third party apps to shoot video and pictures on your phone, just to make sure there aren’t any problems when it comes to editing.

6. Twiangulate.com is a great place to find useful people to follow related to your beat. You can put these people into lists on Twitter to organize them even more.

7. Wearables (like Google Glass) show a lot of promise for reporting the in future.

8. Reporting from your phone is a lot of the time easier, and writers today need to be aware of how to use their phones to make good stories.

9. You can follow companies on Linked-In that are related to your beat. This makes is very easy to find sources and find story ideas.

10. Don’t feel like you need to follow everyone who follows you back, it’s not personal, it’s just a way to keep your Twitter dash clean!

Overall, I learned a lot and hope to be able to put these practices to use!