Currently, a digital journalist do not have the same skills than traditional one did. The digital environment enables new forms of communication and information.

Newspapers and magazines are changing their strategies, and the digital media is in control. Therefore, traditional journalists have been forced to evolve, adapting themselves to new forms of communication.

Nowadays, websites and blogs provide tons of  job listings and opportunities for enterprising journalists, whether freelance or full-time. So, in an effort to ensure a well-reported future, we’ve culled a list of the most important skills every digital journalist should have.

Social Media and Digital Journalist

Whether you give them a personal or a professional use, social media can be a good source of information. Depending on the type of users we follow, we can find information, resources and news related to the topics that are more interesting for us. If we follow the right professionals, those who are specialized in a specific subject, social networks can become a source of information more, with a powerful current component.

Sometimes, even the news are known before in social networks than in other type of media and they spread like wildfire. This happens especially with topics related to new technologies, social demonstrations or when catastrophes take place, where the witnesses of the event explain through this platform what they see or experience.

A good digital journalist must be present in social networks, being an active part in the conversation and, even, become an influencer of the sector. If you are not considering this, your content will go unnoticed and you will not be an authentic digital journalist.

Key skills for digital journalists

Below, we analyze the profile of the current digital journalist and its  main skills:

1. To Inform and communicate: Obvious, right? The journalist continues to be a journalist, that is to say, even if we change the environment and tools, the objective is the same.

2. Innovation and differentiation. It is possible that the content you generate is also in other media; highlight and offer added value to users. To bring value to our story, to differentiate us from others using different multimedia formats.

3. SEO: As one of the most basic digital terms, SEO (search engine optimization) has been around since the advent of online research. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results – often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results. (source: Wikipedia). 

Due to strong competition, this concept is more important now than ever. Once we have chosen the keyword, we have to optimize the content of our article to position it as good as possible. What ,exactly,  is a keyword? Making a long story short, this is going to be the main topic on which our story is going to be developed

4. Engagement: But, wait! Because, even though you've generated hype around the new article, you're not done yet. It will be necessary to interact with all those who have commented or read your article, whenever it’s possible. 

For example, if you promote your story on Facebook or Twitter, you should be attentive to possible comments or reactions and participate in the conversation. With the ultimate goal of generating engagement, you can guide your article from the beginning to get conversations.

5. Content curator. It works with many sources and you should know how to find and choose the right one for each moment. They must have a complete and organized database.

6. Analytical. Today, there is too much information on the internet. Therefore, knowing how to interpret, manage and select the best data you receive is essential. The feeds’ tools of management and the monitoring of social networks acquire relevance. It is necessary to structure, filter and extract relevant information.

7. Early Adopter and multimedia. Digital journalists work daily with new technologies so, in addition to learning how to handle them, they need to be aware of any new tools that emerge. They are in constant evolution!

Do you share some of these features? Surely there are many others that make the digital journalist one of the profiles that most companies demand in the coming years.

If you share our passion, have an online newspaper, or you want to create one, please try our platform Opennemas and let us know what you think about it. We always appreciate feedback and we love helping our customers in the creation of the best version of what they want.

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