User-Generated Content: Tis the season for reader photo callouts

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Rick Rogers

May is here, and that means one thing.

No, it’s not time to head to the pool and soak in some rays just yet. It’s time to publish a handful of reader-photo callouts in your newspaper and on your website. Here are some quick ideas for reader-callouts this May.

Promote these callouts on your websites, social media pages and also in print.

Mother’s Day: Ask your readers to submit a photo of mom and your children and publish a spread in the newspaper, and a gallery online. Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 13, so you need to start promoting this callout now. Run the photos in your Sunday or weekend edition, or if you are a weekly, run the photos the week before or after the holiday. Make sure and ask those who submit photos to include first and last names of all parties pictured.

National Nurses Week: This one is also a tight deadline, as National Nurses Week is May 6-13, but it’s not too late to get your readers involved in your coverage. Use your social media pages to ask readers to give a “message of appreciation” to a local nurse who has helped them when they were ill, or when a loved one was in the hospital. Maybe they don’t remember the name, but that’s OK. Any nurse would appreciate reading these messages in print and online. Publish the messages in print, and maybe event use the special page provided by ACM Newsroom the weekend of May 12. Download the page here: http://acmnewsroom.com/2012/04/17/content-to-use-national-nurses-week-special-page/

Graduation: I know many of our publications have special sections planned for the Class of 2012, but when it comes to coverage of those graduation ceremonies and events, don’t be afraid to get readers involved. Ask readers to submit their own photos from graduation, senior parties, etc., and run them in print or online.

Spring flowers: Many gardens are now in bloom, and those readers with a green thumb love to show off their hardwork. Ask readers to submit photos of their own gardens and flowers, and run a special spread in print and online. You might wait to do this callout later in the month, especially at our northern newspapers.

Give one or all of these a try this month, and improve your engagement with readers through user-generated content.

ACM newspapers publish Easter reader-submitted photo pages

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Rick Rogers

Several ACM newspapers asked readers to submit photos of their littles ones dressed in their Easter best for a photo spread in print and a gallery online.

Attached with this post are three pages produced by the Brownwood Bulletin, Stephenville Empire-Tribune and Grove Sun.

Remember, a reader-callout is a great way to get good, local content with not much effort.

Spring is here, so a photo callout idea might be asking readers to send in their favorite image of spring 2012.

: This Easter reader-callout photo page was produced by the Brownwood Bulletin.

: The Grove Sun printed these Easter photos after conducting a reader-callout.

: While not Easter-themed, this photo page came from a reader-callout for Bluebonnet photos by the Stephenville Empire-Tribune.

Don’t forget to ask readers to submit their Easter photos

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Rick Rogers

Now is the time to start running those house ads and news bulletins both in print, online and in social media asking readers and community members to submit photos from their Easter celebration, or of their young ones dressed in their Easter best.

Use those submitted photos for special pages in your print edition, and with a gallery online.

Don’t wait until it is too late.

Reader callout: Ask readers, community to submit Christmas light display photos for gallery online, in print

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Rick Rogers

The special reader callout and photo gallery for Christmas light display photos submitted by readers at www.cecilwhig.com.

The Cecil Whig in Elkton, Md., is on a roll this week. After showcasing their efforts with the debut of their Take 5 video segment, we now want to share a reader callout the staff is conducting on their website for readers and the community to submit photos of Christmas light displays.

The photos that are submitted are running in a special gallery on the homepage at www.cecilwhig.com.

This is a great idea, and something each market could do with ease. For more information, contact Doug Rainey, web director for the Cecil Whig, at drainey@chespub.com, for details.

UGC Idea Center: Need a fun Christmas reader callout? Ask for readers’ favorite Christmas cookie recipes

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Rick Rogers

In many families and workplaces, one Christmas tradition is doing a “Christmas cookie share,” where aunts and uncles, or co-workers bake their favorite batches of these sugary biscuits to share with loved ones or peers.

So, if you are looking for a fun and unique reader-callout for the Christmas season, ask your readers to share their favorite Christmas cookie recipe. Run some of the best recipes in the print edition, on your weekly Food page if you have one, or in your fun weekend edition. Also, run them in a story on your website. You could even profile one of the bakers for a fun feature story as a centerpiece to the page, and run the rest of the submitted recipes around it. The ideas are endless.

Remember, use your website, Facebook and Twitter pages, and the print product to seek submissions. This is something that nearly every ACM newspaper could do with great success.

Let the baking begin!

Tired of providing the same Halloween coverage? Here are a few new story angles to consider

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Rick Rogers

Let’s be honest, Halloween stories can put fear into a reporter when it seems like they are covering the same ghouls and goblins year after year.

Maybe it’s time to think outside the box, er, coffin.

Here are four unique spooky story angles to consider for your newspaper’s Halloween coverage:

1) Halloween on a budget: We all know by now that money is tight in American households, and parents are doing what they can to save a few bucks here and there, even during Halloween. So, one way parents may be saving money is by making their own Halloween costumes. Do a reader callout on your newspaper’s Facebook page and Twitter account, asking if anyone is making their child’s Halloween costume this year, and if so, would they be up for a feature story. I don’t know about you, but the costumes my parents made me where some of the best. This story needs in advance of Halloween at least 7 days.

2) Reader photo callout: Try this unique reader photo callout by asking them to submit Halloween photos from years past. You never know, you might get a bunch of interesting photos taken from decades gone by. These photos would make a fun photo page in print, and gallery online the day or week of Halloween. I know there is a photo out there of me dressed as Michael Jackson, complete with Thriller jacket and white glove, floating out there somewhere. Don’t think about finding it.

3) Which houses are the best for trick-or-treating? Again, use Facebook or Twitter to crowdsource which houses in your city are the best to visit for trick-or-treating. I know in my neighborhood growing up, there were always a handful of “can’t miss” houses on each block. My favorite was a lady who dressed like a witch each year, and passed out red Kool-Aid that bubbled with dry ice. Her husband popped out of a coffin to hand out candy. I bet, if you ask, there are some houses that go “the extra mile” to offer a scare or two every Halloween, and would make great feature stories. If you have done this story in the past, it may be time for an update. For a graphic element, put together a map of where these homes are located.

4) Have a reporter “embed” themselves as an actor at a local haunted house: OK, I know what you are thinking, “are you crazy, Rick.” Maybe a little, but I do know that many of our newspapers publish annual stories on local haunted houses. Instead of doing the normal feature about where the haunted houses are, or on the organizations that are sponsoring them, don’t be afraid to have a little fun with the story. Have a reporter spend a night as one of the goblins in the haunted house, and write a first-person account of the mayhem. It would be a fun read, and a fun experience for the reporter. And, yes, it’s OK to have fun in this business from time to time.

Hope these ideas help!
Rick

User-Generated Content: Ask citizens, readers how Steve Jobs’ accomplishments and creations impacted their lives

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Rick Rogers

This artwork was done by a teen-ager in Hong Kong.

I am a Mac & Apple nut.

Every computer device I use and own is an Apple of Mac product. I can’t function without my iPhone4 by my side, or without my iPad within reach.

Having worked in the publishing industry my entire career, and even dating back to high school, I have always used Mac computers in my professional life.

I remember when we received our Mac Classic computers, and how revolutionary they were at the time, and how they changed our workflow.

Now, I write this website update using a MacBook Pro laptop that has more power in the Q key than that Classic in the entire computer did some 20-plus years ago.

This morning I had someone compare the death of Steve Jobs, co-found of Apple, to the death of John Lennon, Thomas Edison or, even, Albert Einstein.

There is no question the world lost a visionary man today, someone who affected millions of lives without ever shaking their hand.

So, it might be good to ask your readers what they think Steve Jobs’ legacy will be 5, 10 or even 20 years from now. Will he be considered the Thomas Edison of our generation. Or, is he already there?

Ask for reader reaction on your Facebook page after posting a link to coverage on your website, whether it is a local or national story, and post the comments in your next print product. Put up a poll question on whether or not Steve Jobs had a major impact on the lives of people in this generation.

Or, go multimedia, and do a video report with reader reaction in a man-on-the-street format.

And put together your content with a Mac computer — as a salute to Steve Jobs.

UGC Idea Center: Test your readers knowledge of the U.S. Constitution

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Rick Rogers

This week is Constitution Week in the U.S., and it might be fun to test your readers knowledge of our nation’s grandest document.

Send a reporter out on the street to ask readers 5 simple questions about the U.S. Constitution and see how many people can answer them correctly. You can do this for a fun, front page alternative-story piece, or run the answers with a short story to spruce up an interior page or your editorial page.

Or, if you really want to go all out, have the reporter take a video camera and run a collection of answers in a video report as well.

Here is some basic information about Constitution Week:
Constitution Week is an American observance to commemorate the adoption of the United States Constitution. The observance runs annually from September 17 to September 23. It was officially enacted on August 2, 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower from a congressional resolution petitioned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The purpose of the observance week is to promote study and education about the constitution which was originally adopted by the American Congress of the Confederation on September 17, 1787. But it was George W Bush who officially declared the inception of Constitution Week in September of 2002.

See document below for example questions to use in your report:

Answers to questions

User-Generated Content: Have readers submit homecoming photos for print, digital publication

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Rick Rogers

Homecoming is a great theme for our newspapers to use to generate some reader content from both print and online.

Looking for an idea to spark some user-generated content? I know in many of our markets, homecoming season is right around the corner. Of course, our staffs will be busy covering the parade, crowning ceremony and the big football game, but it’s also a great idea to ask readers to submit their homecoming-themed photos for possible publication in print and in an online photo gallery.

Whether it is a proud parent who submits a photo of their son or daughter dressed up for the big dance, or a reader who snaps a print-worthy photo from the parade that your photographer may have missed, homecoming is a great theme for UGC.

Don’t forget to promote your reader photo callout at least 10 days in advance with house ads in print, an ad or story on your online edition, and with several posts on your newspaper’s social media pages.

It would be our recommendation to run a photo page in print with the best reader-submitted photos.

Are you crowdsourcing Obama’s speech?

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Rick Rogers

Hey newsrooms, are you using your website and social media pages to crowdsource and get reaction from your readers on President Obama’s jobs speech. If not, it’s not too late. Ask your readers what they thought of the speech, Obama’s jobs plan and what they think Washington should be focusing on to get Americans back to work and the nation’s economy back on track. You can run the responses in a breakout box with the news coverage or as a Feedback section on your Opinion page. This is a great opportunity to get local feedback on a major national story.

ACM Newsroom

Category Archives: User-Generated Content idea center