The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
—Linus Pauling
An embarrassing error by several major news organizations is a good reason to go back and read last week’s post about Poynter.org’s reading list for verifying social media. And then go read Poynter’s list.
The Huffington Post, CNN and Mediaite, at least, mistook a Twitter parody account for North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue’s real feed, and reported that Perdue had apologized to the governor of Mississippi for a remark that North Carolina’s recent gay-marriage ban made her state “look like Mississippi.”
The phony tweet read, “Called the Mississippi governor today and apologized for my remarks. Offered to send him some Bojangles Bo-Berry biscuits to make amends.”
As Poynter’s Craig Silverman points out, following some simple best practices would have prevented the news organizations from mistaking that tweet for a real statement by Perdue. Looking at the other tweets in the timeline would have provided a clue, for example. Silverman highlights some tweets, including “OH LAWD, WE’RE SCREWED Y’ALL,” that were pretty unlikely to have come from a governor without becoming major news stories themselves.
Mediaite “updated” its story to reflect that it had been had, and after apologizing, tried to blame Twitter’s verification system, the notice on the feeds of public figures that tells readers the company has checked and the feed really belongs to that public figure:
We would have preferred to rely on Twitter’s verification system, but even that has become a less-than-reputable measure of an individual’s existance [sic], given that Twitter has been verifying fake accounts (like Dallas’ J.R. Ewing) and Gov. Perdue’s real account remains unverified.
Well, it would be foolish to rely solely on something like Twitter’s verification system when other methods are available—such as knowing that fake Twitter accounts exist and tweets like “what a night y’all. my floor is covered in leftover bo-berry biscuits, spilled red wine, and apparently I drunk dialed [Lt. Gov.] Walter Dalton” are a pretty good indicator you’re reading one.
Just down the timeline from the offending tweet is one that the fake account retweeted, recommending that people follow @GovBevPerdue: “Yes, it’s a fake account. And yes, you should follow.” This was not some great mystery. It just would have taken a few seconds of due diligence to figure out that @GovBevPerdue is a parody.
Mediaite updated its update to reword the apology. It still blames Twitter, but writer Noah Rothman prefaces that by saying he wishes he could blame Twitter:
I wish we could have blamed the error on Twitter’s verification system, given that has become a less-than-reputable measure of an individual’s existance [sic], since Twitter has been verifying fictional accounts (like Dallas’ J.R. Ewing) and Gov. Perdue’s real account remains unverified.
Don’t get caught having to make these awkward apologies. Take those few seconds and verify as best you can that what you’re seeing on social media is the real deal.
That reading list again.
And some further reading from this blog:
Spreading rumors on Twitter: It’s not the same as office gossip
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
The Bleacher Report Internship is the best thing that’s ever happened to me professionally. There’s no question I wouldn’t be where I am in life today without the B/R Internship.
I started writing for Bleacher Report in December 2010, just six months after graduating college. I was then offered a position with the B/R Internship and began in January 2011. When I joined, I knew nothing about search engine optimization and didn’t have any idea of how to write a strong headline.
Not only was I able to learn how to properly craft my headlines, but I also improved my writing style drastically while I was a member of the internship. I improved my grammar and figured out the best way to form paragraphs for the online reader.
After graduating from the B/R Internship, I quit my day job and accepted a position working under Nathaniel Uy with Bleacher Report’s Event Team. I wrote about Tier 2 and 3 sports, covering everything from the FINA Aquatics World Championships to Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
I continued to write with B/R on a full-time basis until November, when I was offered a position with Bleacher Report’s video team. I served as B/R’s Audience Development Coordinator for five months, helping to promote our YouTube channel and all of our spotlight videos. Since then, I have joined B/R’s Analytics team and serve as a Content Analyst, helping to prepare content plans for the entire company.
The internship gives you the chance to be noticed by people in high places within the Bleacher Report community, and you’ll have the opportunity to have your work featured on the B/R homepage and on affiliate sites, and you may even get the opportunity to find a full-time job with the company. If you’re given the chance to participate in the internship, don’t pass it up. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity!
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Follow Matt on Twitter @mattfaulconer10 and check out his B/R Profile.
Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.
—Stephen King
Actually, I can think of one exception to this rule. I generally don’t pluck words I don’t know out of a thesaurus unless I’m trying to be funny, but if a word is on the tip of my tongue and I can’t for the life of me think what it is, the thesaurus is a good way to find it.
“Writer’s block” can be beaten, but there are a lot of methods to experiment with.
Staring at a blank screen is one of the most terrifying and frustrating experiences for a writer. Especially when it’s happening on a frequent basis.
Yet, the imagination is boundless.
You’re not out of ideas. You just need to access them from a different angle every now and then.
There are endless options out there, so find what works for you. Chances are, as one method wears off after a while, you’ll have to vary your approach anyway.
Have a great addition to the list? Please share in the Comments section below!
In no particular order:
1. Talk to your favorite fellow sports junkie.
Give ‘em a call, text them at work or randomly show up on their doorstep at 4 in the morning. Talk about sports and (especially) the topic you’re hung up on. A good conversation will get your mind rolling again.
2. Change your tune.
To rock or not to rock while writing is a divisive topic: just as many swear by music’s presence as they do its absence. Whatever auditory strategy you normally use, try reversing it. Or just listen to something else for a change.
3. Walk away.
If not three minutes away from hitting that deadline, it’s good to flee your computer for a little bit. Take a jog, go to work, eat some cereal or just start writing about something else. Come back in half an hour or a day, and see where your new mindset takes you.
4. Role play.
Pretend you vehemently disagree with your original premise, that you’re watching this sport for the first time or that you’re writing about the topic 100 years later. Change your eyes to experience a different mindset. Costumes optional.
5. Start reading.
Get away from your beaten path (and websites) and start reading some new writers, websites and comment boards. You’ll find some you like, some that are garbage and a whole lot of new things to agree/disagree with.
6. Watch the game.
Sometimes it’s surprising how little we watch before we write. Give yourself enough time to scout your subject on tonight’s game, via YouTube or elsewhere. (NOTE: This is an absolute must when writing historical articles.)
7. Go to the sports bar.
It’s about finding as many outside opinions as you can. Go out and strike up conversations about the team or player you’re stuck with, gauging some real-world perceptions. (This time, ask for his/her number AFTER you’re done talking about sports.)
8. Ask your editor.
It’s not a sign of weakness to go back to your editor and admit you’re stuck. See what they were envisioning from the headline/angle they gave. Advice is part of their jobs; just give them enough time to do it. Don’t have an editor? Talk to mom. (She’s always good for advice.) Or just email me at jcordes@bleacherreport.com.
9. Imagine you’re fighting Skip Bayless.
That article you’re about to write will be featured on national TV, and your premise is about to be attacked by Skip for no other reason than that it exists. Will you defeat him once and for all? The fate of humanity rests on your keyboard.
10. Write about having writer’s block.
OK, you caught me. But I actually followed my own advice and am happy where this ended up. Now, what strategies can you share with me?
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Joel C. Cordes is Bleacher Report’s Sports Writing Internship Program Feedback Editor. Along with fellow editor Greg Pearl, he develops B/R interns by providing feedback and mentoring, the highlights of which are shared with the B/R Blog.
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.
—Truman Capote
If you want your tweet to be seen by the most people, you probably want to tweet between 1 and 3 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Thursday.
That’s what the URL shortener Bitly says it’s learned from studying how content moves through social networks. The service says in a blog post:
For Twitter, posting in the afternoon earlier in the week is your best chance at achieving a high click count (1-3pm Monday through Thursday). Posting after 8pm should be avoided. Specifically, don’t bother posting after 3pm on a Friday since, as far as being a gateway to drive traffic to your content, it appears that Twitter doesn’t work on weekends.
Bitly didn’t just study Twitter. The optimal time for Facebook is almost the same, 1 to 4 p.m., with 3 p.m. Wednesday—Eastern time, remember—being the peak moment, and weekends again being a dead zone.
Tumblr, though, is a whole different animal:
Tumblr likes to party! This network shows a drastically different pattern of usage from Facebook and Twitter. One should wait until at least 4pm to post. Also postings after 7pm on average receive more clicks over 24 hours than content posted mid-day during the week. Friday evening, a no-man’s land on other platforms, is an optimal time to post on Tumblr.
It’s important to note that what Bitly studied is click-throughs in the 24 hours after the post, so the best time to post something isn’t necessarily when traffic is peaking. For example, with Twitter:
The peak traffic times for Twitter are 9am through 3pm, Monday through Thursday. Posting on Twitter when there are many people clicking does help raise the average number of clicks, but it in no way guarantees an optimal amount of attention, since there is more competition for any individual’s attention. An optimal strategy must weigh the number of people paying attention against the number of other posts vying for that attention.
Another variable to think about is that Bitly is looking at national trends here. You have to understand your own social network, which might behave differently from the nation as a whole.
For example, I run two Twitter feeds, @BR_WriterHQ for the Bleacher Report Writer HQ and this blog and @king_kaufman, my personal feed. According to the SocialBro app, my followers for those two feeds are online at almost exactly opposite times.
For @king_kaufman, my followers start coming online around 6 a.m. ET, are online in big numbers from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., then begin checking out, with a big drop at 5 p.m. and another at 8 p.m. In other words, people on both coasts, and presumably in between, are online at work. My peak time for followers being online is Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET. All of this lines up pretty well with Bitly’s findings.
But @BR_WriterHQ is almost a mirror image. That feed’s followers start coming online around noon Easter time, and start showing up in big numbers around 6 p.m. They’re online a lot from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., when they go offline en masse. My peak traffic periods are Wednesday at 10 p.m. and Friday at 7 p.m. ET, times Bitly says I shouldn’t be tweeting.
By 9 a.m., when @king_kaufman’s followers are coming online in droves, @BR_WriterHQ has virtually no followers online. My guess is that a lot of people who follow @BR_WriterHQ are students who can’t be online while they’re in class.
Given Bitly’s caveat that peak traffic periods are not necessarily the best times to post, I don’t know what the best time is for me to post on my two feeds. But I’m fairly certain it’s not the same time for both. Have you figured out the best times to post on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr or any other social networks?
For further reading and insight, here’s Mashable and Poynter on the Bitly study, and, via Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman, a hugely informative post from last year by Dave Larson of Tweetsmarter called “The most complete guide to finding the best time to Tweet.” It’s been updated to reflect Bitly’s new research.
No one is asking, let alone demanding, that you write. The world is not waiting with bated breath for your article or book. Whether or not you get a single word on paper, the sun will rise, the earth will spin, the universe will expand. Writing is forever and always a choice — your choice.
—Beth Mende Conny
For some people, sports are an escape from real life. But for a certain breed of fan—you know who you are—sports fandom and “real life” are too entwined to be separated.
That’s how it is for Bleacher Report writer Alex Ferguson, who is a big fan of Queens Park Rangers in the English Premier League. His beloved QPR have been having their troubles this year, but with his wife battling cancer, those troubles are nothing compared to what’s going on at home.
Or are they? In a wonderful piece today, Ferguson—no relation to the Manchester United manager—writes about these two battles, one on the playing fields of the EPL and one in his wife’s body.
The former is trivial in comparison to the latter, of course. But Ferguson shows the power seemingly trivial things can have.
We at Bleacher Report wish Suzy the best in her fight.