Using Online Tools to Tell the Backstory
Last Wednesday I presented two workshops at the inaugural Nation Publications Tech Days on the topic “Using Tech to Tell Better Stories”. Using various online tools, we can tell better stories through better collaboration and result in telling stories with a whole lot of context.
The topic theme was chosen because of the times we live in where journalists, and citizens alike, are in a rush to disseminate news but often without context. As such only a fraction of the story is told. Yet the internet and social media platforms provide a multitude of tools to tell better stories. These tools can be used to tell the backstory and provide a whole lot of context.
NPL Mother’s Day SleepOver Challenge
An example was given of the NPL Mother’s Day SleepOver Challenge. The challenge generated a whole lot of content and positive word of mouth – social media posts, articles, pictures and video – that could be stitched together to provide an interesting and evergreen story timeline. If these stories are not stitched together, they live as independent pieces of a larger story scattered across various online platforms.
A few weeks earlier, I presented a digital marketing workshop at a Nation Publications Sales Conference in Salima. The workshop looked at the various digital marketing tools that the publication can use including the use of paywalls and other tools to generate income.
