Why journalists can’t turn their noses up at Facebook

You’re always a journalist, I believe. You can’t separate what you say from what you write.

For that reason, I’ve always been a fan of Facebook, but I’ve had trouble reconciling what it does (broadcasting an issue I’m having with a cheesecake recipe) and what I do (managing an online team and directing our social media and communities strategies). For that reason, I’ve been on Facebook, but I’ve always been very cautious about having friends, what I like, and what I share.

Not exactly the model of openness and sharing that Facebook was designed for.

Enter Vadim Lavrusik at this year’s Online News Association conference. Vadim works for Facebook now, as its Journalist Program Manager.  He made a presentation on Facebook for Journalists (surprise), and I realized we just can’t ignore Facebook. The stats are amazing:

• There are more than 800M monthly users, 350M of those are mobile users
• Average Facebook user has 130 friends, more than 50 per cent go daily
• The largest demographic? 35+
• 64 per cent of these folks use Facebook messaging rather than email for communication
• 31 per cent of Facebook users have more than 288 friends (feeling a little inadequate)
• People on Facebook click on 85 per cent of the links
• In Ottawa, where I live/work, 98 per cent of the folks who come to ottawacitizen.com report they also are on Facebook

Enter Subscribe for Journalists. Lavrusik describes it like this:  Subscribe is a simple way to broaden your conversation on Facebook with your community of readers and viewers, while reserving personal updates for people you know well.

• Best practices for engaging users on Facebook (cyberjournalist.net)
• Speakers from Facebook, Bloomberg and L2 Join the Mashable Media Summit (mashable.com)
• 20 TV journalists you can subscribe to right now (lostremote.com)