How to create engaging online content
What’s it about?
The key to expanding your audience on social media is content, content, content. This one-day workshop will help you develop simple but powerful techniques for developing stories in a variety of forms that are designed to attract readers and encourage sharing on social media. The lessons apply across online news, union campaigns, charity newsletters and corporate communications and do not require previous journalism experience.
You’ll learn to develop story ideas for any topic then create engaging stories in text and image-based forms. You’ll also learn to source and edit images and other multimedia content, including charts, ready to share online and on social media. The online tools you will use to create stories are free and easy to use, and participants will leave the day with a PDF toolkit for future reference.
Note: This workshop does not cover video shooting and editing, or audio/podcasting, which are covered in separate NUJ Training Wales courses.
Who’s it for?
Journalists, PR, marketing, and corporate communications professionals, or anyone responsible for maintaining a company or organisation website, blog or social media account. Participants will be able to use and upload content to social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) to at least a basic level. No previous journalism experience is required.
What will I learn?
This hands-on workshop will teach you how to:
• Generate fresh ideas for content with a target audience in mind
• Write compelling headlines that encourage sharing on social media
• Create, upload and share a variety of text-based stories, using interviews or online research
• Create visual stories, including adding text to images to create social media Stories.
• Create ‘curated’ stories, with social media posts embedded within text
• Create simple charts for inclusion within stories or as standalone graphics.
• Source and edit images using a powerful online editor
What equipment will I need?
A laptop or desktop computer with the Chrome browser installed (and without corporate firewall restrictions preventing website access and registration). It is not possible to complete this workshop using a smartphone or tablet.
A free account at medium.com (writing and blogging platform). You will need to register with other online tools on the day, so easy access to your email will be necessary to confirm registration.
About the trainer
Dan Mason is a multimedia trainer specialising in online and mobile. He also leads the popular NUJ Training Wales workshop, Shoot and Edit on an iPhone/iPad.
A journalist for over 30 years, Dan was an award-winning editor before establishing his training and media consultancy in 2010. Since then he has worked in over 30 countries throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia. He is based in Baku, Azerbaijan, where he leads a journalism Master’s programme. In the UK, Dan trains extensively with organisations including the National Union of Journalists, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Equity (actors’ union) and Musicians’ Union, as well as the CIPR (Chartered Institute for Public Relations) and government, corporate and PR clients.