In a recent post we discussed about SEO techniques to improve content search results. In today's blog we want to focus on what it really means being a journalist today and draft seven tips to became a better digital journalist in 2018. Because the future of journalism is digital (100%).

1. Photos in your articles are really important, take time for some photo editing training: Using images has become a big part of web journalism and as we said in previous articles photos is a crucial element for SEO, so no more excuses about how complicate photoshop can be and etc.. You have tons of resources online to make things easier for you and create infographics, editing photos or collages.

Here we will name a few: Photoscape, Ribbet and Befunky

2. Spot fake news and don't contribute to spread them: We’re all fact-checkers now. 2016 brought us not only politicians’ lies and exaggerations, but actual fake news. Teach yourself how to fact-check by learning from the best, like FactCheck.org or in Spain, Miniver

3. Record with your phone and dedicate yourself on video edition. If your goal is to create better content, you should introduce video content in your articles and as well in your social media. Also real virtuality will be slowly taking more power in the media sector, so better to learn fast the video basic stuff.

4. Dedicate time in the day for your own social media: Believe it or not, still some journalist are not present in the social media pages. You like it or not social media actions is now part of your job as a digital journalist and it is for the good! Share your content regularly and use the power of SM to promote your work and your stories. 

5. Get organiced saving your articles. Save My News lets journalists (about 300 of them so far) save their links to Internet Archive and WebCite. You can download all of the clips and archive links as an Excel spreadsheet. You also can use as well Emailthis to keep your articles in your email.

6. Learn the basics of coding: Programming is an increasingly useful skill for journalists hoping to stand out in the industry. Many journalism universities around the world are increasingly teaching their students the basics of computer languages and digital communications.  For some specialist,  the debate is still in the table and we often see in twitter and other social media channels different opinions about the importance of coding.

You like it or not, for the many in the business coding is the new grammar, so better to start learning ASAP.

7. Recharge your enthusiasm. There is nothing better than starting the new year full of enthusiasm. Being a journalist can be sometimes overwhelming, specially since the profession been going through so many changes and predictions in the last few years. 

The truth is that recharging your enthusiasm is crucial if you want to start te new year with full battery. As a possible option, we would recommend some good reading for that, inspiring yourself with the best in the profession:

1. Los cínicos no sirve para este oficio

2. We the media

3. Las grades entrevistas de la historia

4. El nuevo periodismo

And now that you know a few key points to be e better digital journalist in 2018, it is time to share with you as well the predictions for 2018, from NiemanLAB so you have the full picture of what is going to happen in the next year. We hope you enjoy the reading, and we wish you a successful 2018!

So, now that you know a few ways to start the new year as a better (digital) journalist, what are you waiting for? Follow our advices and see results! And, remember, If you like to report in your blog, or you simply have a site with information and you have something to say, with Opennemas you can create your own digital site completely free of charge thanks to everything that our content management system offers you. Do you want to know how? Click here, and we'll tell you how.

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