How to curate social media with Storify

1. STORIFY:
How to curate
social media
GATEHOUSE NEWS & INTERACTIVE DIVISION

2. Agenda
• What is Storify?
• Why should we use it?
• When should you Storify?
• How do we use it?
• Bells & whistles
• Takeaways
• Questions? Comments?

3. What is Storify?
• Storify is a website that helps you tell stories in a
timeline format by sorting through and choosing
posts from social media such as Twitter, Facebook
and Flickr.
• You decide what in the flood of information
matters.
• Storify can be the story but more often we will use
it to enhance a story by embedding it within our
article on our website.

4. What is Storify?
http://storify.com/KO_Reporter/kayla-harrison-wins-judo-gold

5. What is Storify?
“We did not intend for people to just throw together
social media and create a scrap pile of tweets. The
name is ‘Storify’ because it’s about making stories.
It’s about changing how journalism works to
acknowledge the fact that everyone on the ground
is potentially your eyewitness, and it’s about
empowering journalists to draw from that source
material.”
-- Burt Herman, Storify CEO and co-founder

6. Why should we use Storify?
•Storify can add new angles to a story you may not
otherwise have; it can show emotion connected to an
issue.
•It’s an added dimension to our storytelling.
•In a sea of Tweets and Facebook posts, YouTube
videos and Instagram photos, you help the reader
sort through it all and highlight the information that
adds value to their experience.
•We can’t be everywhere all the time. Let the eyes
and ears of our readers help tell a story, especially
when we can’t, and in their own words.
•Because it’s cool!

7. When should you Storify?
We’ve been encouraging increased engagement in
social media:
Facebook

8. When should you Storify?
Top national stories
Pop culture
Weather
Big local issues,
but check
Twitter first. You http://storify.com/weatherchannel/
can’t Storify if
social media
isn’t talking
about it.

9. When should you Storify?
SAMPLE STORIFIES:
• Local judo Olympian wins gold
• Local gymnast Olympian takes fourth
• Local gymnast’s Olympian team takes gold
• Constant helicopter activity alarms residents
• Local boxer to fight at Gillette Stadium
• Bears in two areas of state
• People question candidate’s employment
• Python found in yard
• Flags banned at condo, people outraged
• Chick-fil-A controversy (with editorial)

10. How to use Storify.
1) Create an account.
Use a paperwide
username and
e-mail address.

11. How to use Storify.
2) You may want to poke around Twitter first to
see if there even IS a conversation going on
around a topic.
3) Log in to
Storify.
4) “Create
Story.”

12. How to use Storify.
The left side of the screen is your timeline. The right
side is where you find material.
headline
intro graph
5) On the left: write a headline
in the first box. Write an intro
in the second box. You could
include the URL to your site’s
story or the homepage at the
end of your intro. (for those
visiting from Storify)

13. How to use Storify.
6) On the right hand side, work your
way through the various social media
sites.
•Plug in a keyword. Hit return.
•Drag the posts you want to your
timeline.
•Save occasionally.

14. How to use Storify.
Twitter: This usually yields the most content.
There are sub-options such as “User,” which
is where you can find a Twitter account by
user name.
Facebook: You can intersperse the
Facebook posts with the Twitter posts or
drag them all at the end of the timeline
and rearrange the order later as you
decide how to present things.
YouTube: Take the time to watch the
video. You can drag it to the timeline,
watch it and delete it if you decide
it’s inappropriate.

15. How to use Storify.
Flickr: This is where you can find photos to
break up text if you didn’t already get some
out of Twitter and Facebook.
Instagram: There aren’t a ton of photos for the
sorts of things we’re looking for here, so it
tends to time out with no results.
Google: This searches Google for websites. You
may want to use whatever the official site is
for whatever your topic is.

16. How to use Storify.
Embed URLs: This is intended for when you
have an embed code (such as from polls or
maps). Play around with this and let me
know if you find good uses.
Think of all of those elements like you would
quotes in your notebook.
Now how should you string them together?

17. How to use Storify.
7) Organize the elements in a way that makes
sense to a reader from top to bottom.
Chronological?
By topic?
Weaving thoughts together?
As you’re gathering the posts, it will start to make
sense how you should present them.
Just click on a post in your timeline and drag it to
where you want it to be if you need to move it.

18. How to use Storify.
8) You should add text between posts or chunks of
posts to tie everything together. As is the case
with all social media, don’t be afraid to have a
lighter voice, if the topic calls for it.

19. How to use Storify.
To add text, simply
hover between
posts and a box
pops up asking
you to “Click to
add text.”
Note that when you
click, no cursor
comes up, but it’s
there. Just start
typing.

20. How to use Storify.
9) When the timeline looks the way you want it
to, click Save one last time. Click Publish.
The first time
you click this,
a box pops
up to “Share
& notify.”

21. How to use Storify.
You can post
this Storify
to your own
Twitter and
Facebook
accounts at
the top.
At the bottom, Storify automatically lists
the people you included in your timeline
and lets you notify them that they’ve been
“quoted.”

22. How to use Storify.
This is a good practice, especially for Twitter,
because they often re-tweet that notification,
which links your Storify and exposes people to
your site if you included posts in your timeline.
10) Tweak any
of the text in
these boxes as
needed, then
hit PUBLICIZE.

23. How to use Storify.
11) The next page is pretty useful. It’s
where you get the embed code, a
URL link and later where you get
stats.
You will find the URL at the top of the
page, in the browser window.
You can also click on Edit to make
changes.
Choose a section where Storify will
include your storify.

24. How to use Storify.
CHOOSE A CLICK TO GET
SECTION EMBED CODE
SHOWS
VIEWS BY
ALLOWS YOU TO
SITE
SHARE, e.g. BY
EMAIL, FACEBOOK,
ETC.
FYI-Stats listed in Storify are a bit off.
They usually don’t align with Google
Analytics. They’re fun to track anyway!

25. How to add to your article in Zope.
1) Copy the embed code from Storify.
2) Click on
Source in the
long body box
in Zope. Paste
the code at the
very end. Click
Source again
and publish
(You may not
see anything
in Zope but it
will appear on
your site.)

26. How to add to your article in Zope.
You can change or add to your Storify timeline
and when you hit Publish again, it will
update the one embedded in your article.
3) You should also copy the Storify URL and
“add relate” it as an external resource to
your article in Zope. This is especially good
for longer stories that continue to a second
page since the embedded Storify won’t be
visible unless they click on page 2 (or
whatever the last page is).

27. How to add to your article in Saxo.
1) Copy the embed code out of Storify.
2) In Lite Editor, click on the HTML button.
Paste the code at the end of the article text.
Click Update at the bottom left of the pop-
up box. Post story as usual.
3) In InCopy - TBA

28. Bells and whistles
Settings: Enhance your account here.
• Add profile.
• Choose an
avatar.
• “Subscribe” Click here
to other to reveal
Storifiers on Settings
social
media from
which to
learn.

29. Bells and whistles
Subscriptions: Plug keywords in to “Search stories”
and find accounts you’d like to follow (similar to
clicking “Like” on Facebook). Click Subscribe.
Click here
to plug in
keywords to
find other
Storifiers.
Subscribe here.

30. Bells and whistles
Add a Storify Bookmarklet to easily grab things
you see on the web.
• Drag the button to
your bookmark bar.
• Be logged in to
Storify.
• When surfing the web,
just click the “Storify
This” button in the bar
if you see something
you want. It will be
waiting for you to drag
onto your timeline in
Storify.

31. Takeaways
1) Check Twitter first! You can’t Storify without buzz.
2) Be proactive – ask your Twitter followers to comment
on a topic. Give them a #hashtag to use so you can
find their Tweets (by plugging into the Search
section). Tell them the best ones will be included in a
Storify.
3) Notify people that you “quoted” them. It’s gratifying
for those you had invited to know their post was
used, and it alerts others of your existence. Then
they re-tweet!
4) Don’t have a scrap pile of Tweets. Organize them like
you would a story, adding text among the posts to
move the narrative along. At the very least, consider
headers or section labels.
5) Try to build the Storify soon after the event – that’s
when you’ll easily find “original” posts and when the
conversation will be hot. But if you poke around and
don’t see a lot of buzz, check again later. Sometimes
it takes a bit for people to react.

32. Questions? Comments? Ideas?
Q&A
Have you tried Storify? Do you have best practices
to share?
CONTACT:
Nicole Simmons
Regional digital editor, GH-New England
nsimmons@wickedlocal.com
508-626-3923

33. STORIFY:
How to curate
social media
GATEHOUSE NEWS & INTERACTIVE DIVISION