5 Social media lessons we learned from Brian Stelter

By Bridgit Bowden

ONA Mizzou Exec Board with Brian Stelter.
Photo by Laura Davison

Last week, ONA Mizzou brought New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter to Mizzou to speak to students.

On Tuesday, Nov. 10, Stelter gave a lecture on digital identity and online entrepreneurship.  One of the topics he talked about most was how journalists should use social media.

We used the hashtag #StelterONA to keep up with the online discussion during his talk.  Here are 5 social media lessons we took away and tweets from people who got to hear his lecture.





1. Gaining an audience should be your first goal.

Stelter's blog, TVNewser, got him a job at the New York Times right out of college.  But that shouldn't be everyone's number one goal, he said.  Building an audience is much more important.

"The goal today isn't to make it to the New York Times but to gain an audience" #StelterONA
— Kari Paul (@kari_paul) November 6, 2013

2. Being first isn't as important as being right.

Verifying all of the facts before sending out a breaking news tweet is vital.

@brianstelter: In breaking news, "people won't remember if you're first, but they will remember if you're wrong" #StelterONA
— Garrett Bergquist (@garrettcfb) November 6, 2013

3. Wait until you have a link to tweet a story.

Unless it's absolutely vital to get the information out immediately, readers like to be able to read the whole story.  What you might lose in time, you'll make up for in content.

Stelter Tip: hold back on tweet until you get a story link so you can give people more than 140 characters #StelterONA
— Nichole Cartmell (@ncartmell3) November 6, 2013

4. Put your email and phone number and email address in your Twitter bio.

Stelter lists both in his Twitter bio, and he said he gets (mostly) good, useful phone calls because of it.

Kind of scary, but use Twitter as a business card with phone number, email. Shows you're listening and transparent #StelterONA
— Stephanie Ebbs (@stephebbs) November 6, 2013

5. We're still journalists first.

Social media is great, but journalists' first job is news gathering.

.@brianstelter we should all manage our own personal brands, but don't let it distract you from important work of gathering news @onamizzou
— Annie Hammock (@AnnieHammock) November 4, 2013

Stelter will be leaving the New York Times to join CNN as senior media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources."  You can read CNN's news release here.