Instagram-Journalism is a German book by Selina Bettendorf that was published in May 2019 by the Springer Verlag. Currently it only exists in German, but a translation to English is possible. Among others, it is available on Amazon:
When Selina Bettendorf set out to write this book, her aim was to assist fellow journalists to have better understanding of the role that Instagram plays in promoting their stories.
Her book focuses on all things Instagram, from the scarce research available on Instagram’s effectiveness, to good and bad examples of Instagram stories, to the users’ expectations when it comes to their newspapers and how they use Instagram, to offering tips for journalists to use in their daily work concerning Instagram.
Selina is a journalist at Berlin’s Tagesspiegel, a newspaper with which I am currently working, so I had a chance to catch up with her and ask some questions that offer highlights of her thinking and the tips she offers journalists.
What do we need to know about Instagram?
I asked Selina these six questions about what her research revealed concerning the role that Instagram plays for journalists:
1. Who is buying this book in Germany? What has been the feedback you get?
It’s too early to say, since my book was published only about two weeks ago. The publisher tells me that they will know around December. I do know that just on the website of the Springer Verlag about 1.910 people downloaded different chapters of the e-book. Every chapter has at least been clicked on by more than 300 people. Also the publisher will find out if the Springer Verlag is interested in translating the book into English.
2. When you say that Instagram will play an important role in the future of journalism, especially in integrating a new, young group of readers that are under 35 years old, can YOU develop this thought further. How will Instagram help journalism?
Reuters Digital News Report just published recently that for young people Instagram is more important than Facebook and Twitter when it comes to reading the news. Instagram is the social media platform that is growing the most and might outnumber facebook users soon. In the group of people under 30 years old Instagram is the most popular platform in Germany.
And it is more than that. On Instagram you cannot only publish articles from newspaper websites, like you can do on facebook already, you can also make a complete new type of journalism.
Instagram-Stories give you the opportunity of storytelling in a new way. There are different options of doing so. From teasing on articles to live-stories to interactive quizzes with the users to creating a journalistic reportage in slides.
There are so many options for a journalistic instagram-account. In the end, a good account with good teasing will make the young follower visit the newspaper website and later on become a paying reader of the newspaper. Whether it is the e-book or the website with a paywall.
3. Can you send me two examples of Instagram stories that you think use Instagram successfully?
There are many examples of really good stories. The one that stuck in my head since I saw it was one from the German tv Tagesschau. They sent a young Turkish speaking journalist to an event in Germany where the Turkish President Erdogan and some German-Turkish Erdogan-Fans were present. He published a live-story and interviewed Turkish-speaking Erdogan-Fans. He published the Turkish answers in the Instagram-Story and he subtitled the videos in German.
In this story the journalist created something very unique. This perspective was different than what the Tagesschau showed later in the news that day. It was live, very close to followers and the event at the same time and it was perfect for Instagram.
A second story I enjoyed was one from the German newspaper Die Zeit. They published an informative Instagram-story the day that Ramadan began. The timing was perfect and in the story they explained with different slides and texts what Ramadan is and how it works. They also set links to articles with more information on their website.
4. If you have to pick one type of story that leads users to visit newspaper website coming from Instagram, what would that be?
I don’t think there is the one perfect story for doing so. Followers have different preferences. But I believe an Instagram-Story with slides that tease a really interesting article, but don’t tell everything about it, will make users click on the set link to read the full article.
5. What do users want to see on journalistic Instagram accounts?
They want to see the news! It is really that simple. I am warning of posting too many beautiful pictures from a journalistic account. If followers want to see pretty pictures, they follow other accounts. If they follow a newspaper account, they want to read the news. They want to read the news in feed-quotecards and they want to see the news in the stories.
Extremely negative news are better to be put in the story than to be put in the instagram-feed. It is also very important to constantly try new things on the account and to constantly stay in contact with the followers and ask them what they would like to see more.
6. What is the biggest challenge a journalist faces when using Instagram–or other social media?
The biggest challenge is time/ resources. A really good newspaper Instagram-account would need one journalist that only makes Instagram every day. It takes time to create quote cards and stories, to talk to the followers and to scroll through the comments.
Mario’s speaking engagements
Here are places where I will be taking the message of mobile storytelling in the weeks ahead:
July 11, Florida Media Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, Keynote for editors: The mobile first newspaper strategy.
Mario’s weekend rituals…..
Monocle interviews me about what I do on a typical weekend (is there such a thing? Not for someone like me who is seldom in the same location twice. But I gave it my best shot, for what may come as a normal weekend, when I am home in New York! Enjoy.
https://monocle.com/minute/2019/04/27/
Pre-order The Story
The newspaper remains the most powerful source of storytelling on the planet. But technology threatens its very existence. To survive, the Editor must transform, adapt, and manage the newsroom in a new way. Find out how, pre-orderThe Story by Mario Garcia, chief strategist for the redesign of over 700 newspapers around the world.
Order here:
https://thaneandprose.com/shop-the-bookstore?olsPage=products%2Fthe-story
An interview of interest
http://www.itertranslations.com/blog/2019/3/11/fd60ybflpvlqrgrpdp5ida5rq0c3sp
TheMarioBlog post #3076