I really enjoyed Andy Beal’s Competitive Intelligence presentation, which included a set of slides that are embedded below. The focus was on researching competition online and seizing opportunities for gaining an edge. Here are my notes from the presentation:

• Make sure you’re monitoring your competition in the news for new product releases, features, media spotlights, and opportunities for blog exposure. What new features can you implement that will beat your competition? Where are they getting quoted, and which bloggers are willing to praise their products or services? Try to take advantage of what they’re doing well, and do the same, or better.
• If you find your competitors’ customers ranting about them online, use it to your advantage. You can poach unhappy clients, promote better alternatives, or make improvements to your products or services that will serve this community better. And if they are satisfied, they might do positive word of mouth promoting for you, doubling the damage to your competitors.
• Follow what your competitors’ employees are saying online. One great tip is to create a private Twitter list for each of your competitors — this will ensure your competition won’t know you’re secretly spying on them. “Loose lips sink brands,” as Andy says. Keep an eye out for damaging evidence, or employees who brag unknowingly. You can also use it as a method for sniping your competition’s best and brightest!
• Is your competitor listing new jobs? If so, you can learn if they’re planning to relocate or expand, if they’re planning to launch new products, or if they have let any employees go. It also wouldn’t hurt to call in and inquire about the position for added specifics.
• So what tools and sites are recommended?
  • Google
    Sidewiki for finding information about individual web pages
    Google Alerts for being notified of competitors in the news
    Google Local Listings (for user reviews)
  • Twitter
    Profiling companies and employees
    Search.Twitter.com for locating rants and reviews
    Private Twitter Lists for following discreetly (you create)
  • Facebook
    Read competitor Fan pages for feedback and techniques
    Find out who their fans are and create relationships
    Search Posts by Everyone for rants and reviews

You’ll find additional tools recommended at the end of the slides, please make sure to check them out, and feel free to leave comments here or at Andy Beal’s blog for further information. Happy researching!

Panelists at last night’s SMCLA meeting defined their ideas of citizen journalism. And without quoting them (since I don’t have an audio transcript), a couple summed it up as “anybody journalism.” Anyone who has a means of press distribution can be considered a citizen journalist. In fact, it’s our right as a free society to a free press. That is, should one have the means of distribution.

While there is definite speculation as to whether or not the nomenclature is correct, that’s open for much further delving. I think a more accurate term is “democratized news,” a phrase that popped into my head after hearing their various definitions. David Sarno noted that journalism refers to reporting that has gone through fact-checking and source verification. I agree. Christina Gagnier used quotational gestures when saying the phrase out loud. There was obvious questionability to the term “citizen journalist” being valid.

But regardless of what you call it, Twitter is putting news reporting in the hands of regular people. In places like Iran where Western journalists are highly restricted, and individuals use whatever means they have to get the information out, they’re the best chance the world has to gain any insight on what’s happening on the inside. But whose voice do you trust?

That’s where traditional journalism breaks away from social media reporting. With thousands of people tweeting snippets of information, it can be hard to know who is reporting what’s really going on, and who’s spinning it the way they see it. The whole topic makes me wonder to what extent Twitter users are holding themselves to any journalistic rules or ethics. The panel addressed the question, “Should there be rules to citizen journalism?” That’s a whole other topic that I’ve tried tackling in the world of blogging – the existence of ethical standards. However, who would regulate these rules, and what would motivate someone who’s already voicing their opinion to start following them now?

What I want to know is, How can democratized news help the existing media outlets be accountable for what they’re reporting? Just because someone sits behind the desk on FOX news channel, doesn’t make them a journalist in my opinion – even if they went to school for it. Bias will seep out into the media regardless of whether or not someone has a degree saying they’re a journalist. And FOX isn’t the only severely biased news organization. In either case, many people on TV are out to get ratings, just like how many Twitter users are out to get followers. Bias can create a tight loyalty, a dangerous lure that journalists should proactively avoid.

I think democratized news is the cure for the disease known as sensationalist media. Not all network reporting is bad, but much of it is very biased and much of it that I’ve seen is little more than car chases and murders. Plus TV news is highly controlled by a small group of people.

And not all democratized news is journalism.

What democratized news can do is help keep other reporters honest, because everyone now has a voice, right or wrong. If you’re a journalist and you know someone else’s reporting is inaccurate or untruthful, then prove it. If you want to show the world that your degree means you have a “higher” ethical standard than someone who doesn’t, then prove it. If you want to show FOX news is full of crap, prove it. But make sure you’re right, and you’ve done your homework.

Ultimately, reporting should be factual, either way, so that the recipients of the information can digest it as-is and form their own perceptions of events as they happen. What’s great about this day and age is that any person can publish news from the palm of their hands.

So, can Twitter make you a journalist if you really really use it a lot? Not in my opinion. It’s just one element to the equation, and becoming an important media vehicle. But it can help you become one damn popular reporter, and help get your message out to the masses.

Resources:

• Social Media Club
• Clay Shirkey: How Social Media Can Make History (TED Talks)