For beauty I did a maternity photo shoot

My dear husband asked me a few months ago if I would take pregnant belly photos for us to keep. I immediately thought of the artistic and nude pregnancy photos I’ve seen. While I really think those are beautiful shots, and generally the private areas aren’t shown, I wasn’t sure I could pose like that.

Over the next weeks I kept looking at various galleries from various artists. I admired the women, in different states of dress, who embraced their bodies and pregnancy. Truly beautiful.

I thought of the women I’ve known who truly hated what pregnancy did to their bodies. I thought of those that loved it. I thought of how I’ve been handling the changes to my body. Every pregnancy is different and while I’ve had rough spots, overall I have enjoyed being pregnant.

I surprised myself when I realized I actually liked my body. Like most women I’ve dealt with my own image and self esteem issues throughout my life. The thoughts that I had as a young girl didn’t vary much into my teen years or into my 20’s and now 30’s. What I did do as I became an adult was rationalize my thoughts and put my feelings into perspective. I accepted long ago that only I could make any changes necessary in my life to make me feel better about me. Accepting and asking for help through any of this was also something I accepted, but overall I knew, and know, starts with my own desires and determination.

As I continued to ponder taking maternity shots I came to one sudden overwhelming truth. While I’ve always been taught about pregnancy and what it would to my body, I was never told it was beautiful. Of course I was told about the glow and radiance of it, but never heard the word beautiful. My husband has always said he thinks pregnant women are absolutely beautiful, but I admit I never really listened to him. I figured it’s his job as my husband to say such a thing. I thought this because truly no woman in my life has associated beauty to pregnancy.

This is when I knew I would pose for the pictures. First and foremost, if our Baby is a girl, I want to show her how beautiful she made me during pregnancy and teach her from the beginning how beautiful pregnancy is, or can be. Second, for boy or girl, I want to show our child how much love we already had for him or her before birth. Third, so I could share these pictures and my thoughts of beauty with other pregnant women, or those who want to become pregnant.

Every woman deals with her self image and self esteem in her own way. While I’ve been able to embrace pregnancy, I know many women who don’t. This is completely okay. By no means do I think those women are wrong. Pregnancy is truly miserable for some. It’s completely okay to admit this and shout out that you really dislike, even hate, being pregnant. I do hope my sharing my experience that pregnancy, stretch marks and all, is beautiful will help someone who is struggling.

At Week 38 I and my husband did a maternity shoot with James Long, a friend of my husband. I had decided I would pose in any state of dress as long as the shots were tasteful, not vulgar. I was surprised when my husband told me he didn’t want any nude pictures, not even the ones where the pose itself covered the breasts and pubic area. He told me all picture decisions were mine, but by the end of the shoot I chose not to do any nude shots. The shots we had done captured the beauty I wanted for myself, for our child, and to share with other women.

For beauty I did a maternity photo shoot

We have invited law enforcement officers and community members to come to the station to watch our story on Distracted Drivers BEFORE it airs tonight. After they watch the story the panel will review and discuss the story amongst themselves and on their personal social networks. The discussion will be broadcast live on Ustream allowing more participation from those who watch.

This is one of the news collaboration projects of which I’ve been writing. Those on the panel will become supplemental resources to the story, from the personal stories that are shared to those that know the law. They have each agreed to turn to their social networks to discuss the story. They will be resources to all of their followers. I will refer viewers to them.

No, we will not show the story during the Ustream broadcast. We do share our promo videos of the story so those who are joining the conversation outside of the panelists will have an understanding of the story. The conversation that will happen becomes the word of mouth advertising we hope will influence someone to turn on the news to watch the story that created all the chatter.

The conversation has already started as several of the participants have started talking about it on a blog, Twitter and facebook. Even if we don’t get any viewers out of this, our brand is reaching people that we may not ever turn to us, or have turned away from us. Consistent collaborative efforts like this will connect our brand in the long-term.

Such a panel and live broadcast make sense as Distracted Driving is state and national issue. Even Oprah has taken the issue to task. Families in Colorado have been tragically affected by accidents caused by distracted drivers. The issue lends itself to conversation.

The way the story is done and the resources we used are not things we need to keep hidden from the competition. The promotion for the story started to run yesterday. We know other stations have already produced stories along the same lines because it is such a big issue. We do want to make ourselves stand out from the competition though, and this live panel discussion is one way we can do this.

Other stories don't lend themselves to such extensive efforts. I've discussed Dr. Robert Forto's collaboration with us on a story last week. A large panel discussion on canine dementia, or overall pet health concerns, wouldn't have worked. We didn't rely just on Robert's efforts though. During the afternoon newscasts we hosted an Interactive HelpCenter with two veterinarians who discussed pet concerns on the air with Reporter Suzanne McCarroll, as well as answered questions from viewers live or through our web chat, facebook and Twitter.

There are many ways news collaborations can take shape. One model is not the answer. Flexibility is the answer. You should think of what the story incorporates and which of your audience members will relate to it the most. Then decide what methods are best to reach that audience. Don't be surprised if the answer has nothing to do with social media. Sometimes traditional promotional efforts are the best.

We have two more collaborations for stories next week. Each is different. One involves pure review and reaction of an investigative story where the two people we've asked to join us will take their opinions to their social networks, including a Ustream show. The other incorporates a panel and Interactive HelpCenter rolled into one to provide tips and resources on the most complained about industry in the state.

When I say news collaboration out loud in the newsroom I get looks of confusion, uncertainty, and doubt as the response. When I say news collaboration through social media the looks tell me I’m crazy. Recently I’ve been trying a new tactic.

I’ve found it easier to explain why I chose to work with social media as a journalist by discussing it in marketing terms. I’m not sure why this is. I’ve said it before; rarely do we in the newsroom get in on the marketing plans for the station. We don’t get involved in ad campaigns. Beyond understanding budgets have changed over the years we don’t talk money.

We do know our station identity and the goals we want to achieve with our stories. We know how we’ll try to tell our story differently than the competition. Promotion producers work with news producers to come up with the tease writing for the ads you see throughout the day promoting upcoming stories.

We know we need to reach viewers and find new viewers to turn on our newscasts. This is the business model. When we think of this it often comes down to our individual talents and efforts as a journalist to make those connections. We think end product and leave the rest up to the other departments.

Somehow though, when I talk about connecting our brand to potential viewers by using social media, the looks become more understanding. There’s still doubt of course, but not as much. The doubt that is there is the questioning of whether or not social media users turn on the TV at all for local news.

I don’t have that answer. Through my personal experience of sharing breaking news via Twitter I know some of those following me or the station have turned to CBS4 News instead of other networks. These people have told me so and others have emailed the station claiming the same.

According to Nielsen, 57% of Internet consumers use TV and Internet simultaneously at home. Is this during the news? Maybe not, but Time reports that social media is helping old media.

“Social media have turned the world into one big living room. The future belongs to those who pull up a chair.”

The question becomes how do we use social media to help the news like it helps some Primetime shows?

My current answer is news collaboration. This is why I’ve been doing a series of posts about collaborating with those using social media to review our stories, talk about us, and to be the supplemental resources that we in the newsroom can’t be. The key to this though is to collaborate BEFORE the story is on the air.

It’s at this point in the conversation that I lose some people. Others click with me immediately seeing how social media can be used as a form of advertising. It is word of mouth advertising.

If you’re only willing to talk about a story after it airs, you’ve lost any potential viewers who may have watched if they had found out about it earlier. They didn’t know so they didn’t watch. (When I say talk I mean actual discussion and participation. Posting a headline and link only isn’t talking. Asking a question about a story and letting comments generate but not participating in the conversation, isn’t talking.)

The fear is that if we let people watch our stories first and talk about them that we’re losing editorial control. True. Not only are people able to judge our stories before they air, they can discuss them in any way they’d like. We can’t control the message like we can in a radio or television ad.

The fear is that if we start the conversation early and the competition figures out what we’ve done and will try to get a similar story on the air to compete. Yes, this could happen. But, it already does happen. We see it quite often that a story we’ve been working for days, or even weeks, all of a sudden shows up on a competing newscast. It’s obvious the story hasn’t had nearly as much production as ours. Traditional advertisement, or a tip from someone, has alerted the competition. I admit we’ve done the same. We’ve jumped on a story because we see the competition is going to do it.

Absolutely there are some stories and sources we need to protect before it airs. To this I say Be Smart. If social media involvement early doesn’t work for a story don’t use it. If you force it or try to control it to protect the story, it will become a disaster.

When it’s right though, you can gain so much: brand connection, viewers, sources, resources, and loyalty.

Friday Dr. Robert Forto posted a blog that shared his thoughts, insight and personal story in reaction to watching a story that aired tonight. We invited him to come to the station the day before the story was on the news. We asked him take the story to his social networks, website, and/or blog in any way he felt appropriate. We did not ask for any editorial control in any way he chose to share his reaction and opinion on the story.

Robert's blog: Forget Me (Not) Canine Dementia and CBS4 Denver

Suzanne McCarroll's story: Pet Dementia Becoming More Common Among Dogs

Robert watched the story with the photojournalist that shot and edited it. We encouraged him to ask the photojournalist any question about the story he'd like. If he rather talk to Suzanne, she was on standby to take a phone call from him. (In a perfect world she would have been here at the time, but was unexpectedly doing her job of covering a news story!) He met Kristine Strain, Assistant News Director, who offered to answer any questions he had about the story or why we'd asked him to collaborate with us.

Our goal was that whatever he did would help generate conversation about the upcoming story. Our immediate hope was for this conversation lead to some people turning on the news to watch the story. Will we know if this was the result? No. There are no metrics to measure that. Our long-term hope is this collaboration would be the first of many collaborations that would connect us and our brand to new audiences.

Beyond the numbers, I feel strongly that we in the newsroom cannot, and should not, be the main resource for some of the stories we report. This story lends itself to outside experts. Robert is a resource to whom I can refer viewer questions.

I think it's safe to say that Robert was as excited about this collaboration as we were. He was eager to be another resource for this story and, as it turns out, has his own personal story with his beloved Ineka to add it. He had only one question after the story, "why did we do the story." Kristine answered that because the story was her idea as she thought of her own experience with an aging pet.

He told us up front what his plan was. He was going to write a blog that explained his collaboration with us, shared his story, provided extra information pet owners can use, and encouraged people to watch the story during the news. I kept saying that we didn't need to know this as we didn't want to have any editorial control in his process. His response was simple. He said this was a collaboration and a true collaboration would work this way.

In fact he decided to also share his blog with us before it was posted. Again, I told him this wasn't necessary. Kristine explained that beyond fact checking we wouldn't give the same courtesy to someone involved in a story we're doing.

Within hours of his visit to the station I received a copy of his blog post. He asked for my opinion. Knowing that he was going to share his blog, I had already decided that I would only request a change if there was a factual error. There was not. I did read it with excitement as I thought about how the collaboration would work out for us and him.

This was my response to him:
"Robert - I cannot thank you enough for collaborating with us. I think you're post is the supplement to the segment that the public can relate to and truly use. I love that you're going to follow through with this on your radio show and are asking people to share their own stories on your site. This is exactly what I imagined happening in this project. I also appreciate that you're willing to share Ineka's story."

Robert saw a great deal more traffic than normal for his post, up over 1,300 more hits in one day than normal. He's planning a Canine Dementia on his radio show May 22. He is the expert, the extra resource, to the story that we at the station just can't be. This is exactly what I envisioned.

News collaboration is a business model

CBS4 News is not new to using social media. The station has been at it for well over a year. (Hey it’s longer than some, shorter than others, but more aggressive than other local media outlets.) I think though that I’m the only one who uses the actual term “news collaboration.”

Collaboration is exactly what we've been doing. From the surgery shared live through Twitter to the Join the Conversation campaign to the Interactive HelpCenter we’re collaborating with the public in our news coverage. However, all this has been done live at the moments news is happening, or reactionary after it’s begun.

Yesterday this changed. We invited Dr. Robert Forto to watch a story the day before it airs. We asked him to take the story to his social networks, website, and/or blog in any way he felt appropriate. We did not ask for any editorial control in any way he chose to handle this.

I specifically asked Robert to do this because of his expertise and background with dogs as the story deals with the increasing health issue of dementia in pets, specifically dogs. I believed that by responding to the story he would become a supplemental resource to it. I was thrilled when he accepted the invitation.

I admit fully television news is not the “be all, end all” of news. We cover what we can. We tell stories we believe are important to the community and share information the viewer can use in his or her daily life. We can’t, however, provide all resources for the stories and often they die within days of airing and being published on the website.

We can only generate so much conversation, even when we utilize social media. We can reach only so many people. We can achieve this though through collaboration with others that can reach a specific target audience, or wider general audience through social media.

We can accept that we don't have the resources on our own to do this. We can be willing to share stories ahead of time and take the chance the competition may find out about it and try to also do the story. We can let go of complete control.
When we do this I believe we will achieve short term and long term goals.

Short Term Goals:

Provide more. We can provide the extra resources and other experts who can actually help those who want it. Often I take calls from viewers who want more information or know what to do next. My answers are limited to what the story has included, which most of the time is sound from people who don't want to be contacted by the public. Website links are usually the only resources I can offer.

Offer differing editorial voices. Yes, I would hope every person we ask to collaborate with us would think our stories as good, but that's not always going to happen. Whether it's an outright opposite and negative opinion, or one that varies slightly, we're providing a different editorial voice and admitting that voice exists.

Gather conversation and momentum. Instead of waiting until after the story airs to ask for opinions and responses, we can start the conversation early. This should lead to interest in the actual story, regardless if people agree with it or not. Perhaps enough chatter and momentum about the story will actually lead someone or many to watch the news to see it. Turning on the TV news is still the ultimate goal as it is still the business model. You watching the news pays my salary. I appreciate that, and so does my family. Thank you.

Reach larger audience. As I said we can reach a target audience, or a wider general audience we wouldn't normally reach because some, or many, never turn on news, or at least the local news. Beyond people preferring other information sources, people are just busy. They never see a TV news promotion to see what great story will be in an upcoming newscast. However, many people are always connected through their mobile devices. We can get their attention and let them know what we're doing through their checking in on their networks through their cell phones.

Long Term Goals:

Connect our brand, ourselves, with many. Through continual efforts, interactions and collaborations we can connect with an audience that never knew us. We can reconnect with those who turned away from TV news in general or from us specifically.

Create trust. Through consistency and transparency in our efforts we can create trust with those that are disenfranchised with media, with us.

Make money. In the end news is a business. I think many journalists forget this. We're here to report the news. We rarely ever do anything with the sales or marketing department, or if we do it's so sneakily disguised we don't realize the money behind it. The money is left up to management, right? I for one thought this way until I dove into social media and started learning about marketing and business strategies. Using social media for news collaboration is a business plan. We want people to turn to our products, right now that's first the newscast and second the website. When we can connect with and create trust with people they will choose to turn to us first instead of the competition. They might not turn to us right now, but eventually they will.

Just like any developing relationship, time, work and effort is needed to cultivate the relationship. I believe news collaborations are part of this cultivation.

News collaboration could cause giant shift in news time continuum

As you probably know I believe in collaborative news projects. News is not dying. People are information hounds who will search out the information they want. The traditional news model is changing because of this. We must find a way to be relevant.

A coworker said today that the one benefit television news still has is the immediacy of live video along with the human contact. Notice she tagged on human contact. Twitter, facebook, YouTube, etc. may beat news crews to the scene and start sharing pictures, video and chatter before any live element hits the airwaves, but still news broadcasts, television or web, combine all those elements and show the human side through the eye witness and even the reporter or anchor. Frankly it all works hand in hand to show a complete story as it unfolds.

A newsroom that knows this and is willing to participate beyond the television broadcast will stay relevant. Will this relevancy ever reach the relevancy of years past? Probably not.

No, I have no supporting documents. This is just my belief – a belief that propels me to continue to step outside of all comfort zone to make it all work together. Often I have the song, “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold,” running through my head non-stop as I work in this way!

When this same coworker asked me two weeks ago to come up with ways to incorporate the social media realm with certain ratings-period stories BEFORE the stories air, I forced to maintain all appropriate business behavior instead of giving into the urge of doing a jig of excitement. Hey, I had to maintain my credibility. This is what I’ve been asking to do and have often seen fear of the unknown, or doubt, or you’re crazy reflections in the eyes of those around me.

I already had several ideas in my head, but the largest aspect of the social media community is being social and not afraid to ask questions. One of the major wrong turns traditional media took was to shout the news and determine how it would all work without thinking to ask the viewers their opinions. I turned to Twitter and facebook to ask people what social media news collaborations they’d like to see. I received good ideas and good caution warnings.

What surprised me though is no one discussed collaborating on a story before the story is on the news. I even said this over and over and still no one chimed in with an idea. Eventually I shared my ideas on this and received support and encouragement. I wondered if traditional media has programmed the whole to not have the ability to even consider such an idea. If done would there be some sort of giant shift in the news time continuum where all we know would change forever?

I don’t know. But, I’m going to try it and let happen what may.

Image source.

Hand in hand with my previous blog goes this post. Just as you need to be aware of what’s being said about you/your name/brand/company, you should know what’s being said about your competition and what your competition is saying. At the very least you should know how your competition is using the same social networks as you are so you can improve your own use, or expand to another network.

I’m a journalist so my competition is other journalists, traditional and citizen, and media outlets. Just like monitoring my name on the Web, I run searches and lists to keep tabs on the competition. Any journalist or media outlet using the same networks as me, especially Twitter, should be monitoring what I do. I’m aware of this and behave appropriately, i.e. not give away exclusivity on stories.

I use my Local Media Twitter list to follow all I can in the state. I run live searches using Seesmic on individual journalists and media outlets that are the most active and not just an RSS feed of a Web site. This live search is essential while I’m On the News Desk as I want to know what the competition is doing at all times.

By searching a journalist’s or media outlet’s Twitter ID without the “@” I follow not only their tweets but also replies to them. I can see entire conversations this way. You may think this is stalking, but I view it as prudent, smart work to stay on top of the competition. Again I fully expect the same to be done with my own account.

I check out my Twitter lists occasionally to catch up on what I’m not live searching. Hootsuite syncs with your Twitter lists which makes it a great tool to get a good glimpse of many lists at once. Hootsuite also updates the lists automatically so my lists become my active searches.

There have been a couple of journalists with public accounts that have blocked my Twitter account, and have blocked @CBS4Denver. You see these are not the only two Twitter accounts of which I have access. I simply followed these journalists on these other accounts I have. Several Twitter applications allow you to access all accounts in one spot, so even though one account may be blocked another isn’t so I’m still able to run live searches that include these journalists that have blocked me.

No, I’m not cheating. I’m just better at the game! Okay, that isn’t it either. I know how tasking it is to read every profile and to decide if you’re going to follow or block someone. I’m just betting on this fact to be able to follow these journalists. In the end, if all my accounts are blocked, I can still check on these journalists because their accounts are public by going directly to their account twitter.com/name to see what they’ve been posting.

Facebook is different. Most journalists in the Denver area don’t have a separate professional page like I do. I haven’t even bothered trying to friend these journalists because I’m not their friend in real life. Now, I am actually friends or acquaintances of journalists at other outlets (GASP!) so we are Facebook friends and I get the joy of learning about their life and work. I don’t let just anyone friend my personal account, but if another journalist requested to be my friend with my professional account, I would accept. This is just me living my philosophy of being open and transparent on social networks. Others disagree with me on this.

I do fan and friend all local media Facebook pages I can find. I want to know how these pages are being used. I also want to know the kind of responses these pages get. I’m very interested to know which pages get the most responses and which are the most interactive with their pages. I want to know so I can make what I and the station do better.

Many journalists have blogs that run on their outlet’s Web sites or have blogs elsewhere like through WordPress or Blogger. I follow those that are the most active and consistent writers. I follow those who I feel are in direct competition with the station. The blogs I’m not following I check out once a week or every other week.

I find the blog lists on media Web sites so helpful to easily pop in on a blog. I want to see what these journalists are writing. I want to read the comments and see if the journalist is responding to the comments. Then there are a few journalists who have blogs, not on their media outlet Web site, that actually don’t allow comments! To those journalists I just shake my head in sorrow and disgust.

I also check on media Web sites often to see headlines, read their version of the stories, and to review the comments that are being posted. I run Google Alert searches on some of these media outlets to know what is being said about them. I haven’t gone totally stalker (yet) as I have no Google Alerts running on individual journalists accept on my husband. He asked me to run the alert! Ask him if you don’t believe me!

First and foremost I do all of this to makes sure I’m not missing something when I’m working. Second I do this to know, to compare, and to learn. I want to stay on top of how I’m using social networks. I want to be better than others in my field using social networks. I want to compete with those in my field that are using social networks successfully.

You can do the same for your field of work.

Be proactive to know what's being said about you

Whether you’re using social networks for personal or for professional reasons you need to be monitoring what’s being said about you on the Internet. I can understand why someone who is only chatting with friends and who doesn’t talk about business wouldn’t think it’s necessary to do so. If that person is you, I ask, “don’t you want to know if you’re name is out there?” A comment you leave on any public forum, or even a forum you think is completely protected, can and will be seen by someone you don’t know.

If you’re at all using social networks for professional reasons, or even to build up a following to a personal blog, you need to be doing all you can to know what’s being said about you. You can use any positive posts to pump yourself, your product or company. You can do damage control to protect your name, your brand.

For Twitter specifically I use Twitter lists and searches to help monitor conversations where my name or the station could be mentioned. For example, I use Seesmic at the station and have several live searches running at all times. All the searches I run are done without the hashtag or the “@”, i.e. search for “cbs4denver”. Sometimes people forget the “@” or when stating criticism purposely leave it off. (Personally, I think that’s the coward’s way of handling it. If you’re going to criticize direct it at me or at the station so there is the chance to respond.)

Some of my searches are KCNC, channel 4, CBS4 and CBS Denver, because many people call the station by many different names. I admit these searches show multiple Tweets that have nothing to do with the station. Did you know KCNC is a company that manufactures bikes or bike parts? I didn’t until I ran the search and found many Tweets about bikes! I take the time each day to peruse through the searches to see if anything is about the station. The searches pay off as I do find Tweets and then am either able to respond appropriately, or just be aware of how the station is being spoken about and who is talking about the station.

I’m not the only person at the station keeping a watchful eye out for what’s being said. A while ago someone posted two Tweets, one was a criticism, one was a question/statement, but neither included @cbs4denver. One said “KCNC” (the station call letters) and the other said “channel 4.” Someone else at the station noticed the Tweets before I did and responded to each Tweet in a Direct Message to this person. (I would have responded openly to show we at the station are open to conversations and questions.)

Seesmic isn’t the only Twitter application that runs live searches; others include Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. If you’re not using an application that does live searches, I encourage you to do find one you like and use it. If you’d like to stick to the Web, then use Twitter’s Web search, but you’ll have to run and refresh the searches often.

Outside of Twitter I use Google Alerts to run general searches on the Web for my name and for the station, again using several searches running variations of names. I’ve found that I’m sometimes used as an example of a journalist using social media in articles and blogs. Not everything has been praise, but nothing has been horrible. I’m happy I know this.

Being aware like this is being smart. It’s time for you to be smart too.