You don’t have to look hard to see how social media is changing the world of print. Newspapers and magazines that used to just come to your mailbox now deliver snippets of news to your inbox. In a few clicks, you can find your favorite publication on the networking site of your choice, and read stories, enter contests, and submit photos and feedback. But social media has transformed more than just the printed product; it’s also revolutionizing the way we editors and writers do our jobs.

At Hammock, we don’t quote or view Wikipedia as the definitive authority on a topic. However, it can often be a great gateway to a wide array of resources that can help a researcher find experts on a topic who may help readers understand topics from various points of view. Rather than making an endless string of calls to locate the right source, we can send a shout-out to our virtual network to find more than enough leads to follow. We can even use social media to connect with far-flung readers and freelance writers and photographers.

“The connections we’re making through social media and social networks are important to our work in many different ways,” says NFIB.com editor Summer Huggins.

Reaching out
In some ways, our editorial team has always used social media to develop stories. Since 2007, we’ve been sending out monthly e-mail surveys to the reader panel of MyBusiness, the magazine we publish for members of the National Federation of Independent Business. We use these surveys to find members for upcoming articles as well as to gather demographic data. Sometimes, we even ask the panel to choose the cover of the next issue.

Because the magazines we publish tell stories about people from across the country, we have long used the Internet to dig up sources and information. But the growth in social media has made that process much easier and more efficient.

One of our favorite sites for finding sources lately is Help a Reporter Out. Run by marketing guru Peter Shankman, the site connects journalists with potential sources through a list that boasts thousands of contacts. It’s sort of like a matchmaking site: You submit a query about your story and the type of person you want to interview, and set criteria like region, category and deadline. Then Shankman shoots it out to his list of sources, who are encouraged to contact you if they see a fit.

“It’s incredibly simple to use, and I always get a handful of possible sources to choose from, so I get the freedom of being picky about who I follow up with,” Summer says.

Making connections
MyBusiness editor Lena Anthony uses LinkedIn to track down small business owners to interview. “Maybe I read about someone online, but I need to make sure I’m contacting the right person, so I’ll search for them on LinkedIn to connect the dots,” Lena says.

For stories with looming deadlines and quick turnarounds, Twitter is especially helpful, Summer says. If she’s in a rush to find a source, she’ll just send out a “tweet,” and “in a matter of seconds, my quest to find someone to talk to is seen by my followers (about 500 people),” she says. “If I’m lucky, they then ‘re-tweet’ my request and someone somewhere along the way is a perfect fit.”

Thanks to Twitter, Summer has also added new writers to her NFIB.com freelance list.

One of our frequent freelancers Nancy Mann Jackson has also found Twitter to be fertile ground for cultivating sources. “I follow lots of other writers and professionals in the areas I write about, and people interested in the subjects I post about often follow me,” Nancy says. “So when I need sources, I tweet, people re-tweet to their networks and interested parties get back to me.”

Finding sources through sites like Facebook and MySpace can be a little trickier because profiles are often private and contact lists are usually full of more friends than colleagues. But publishers and writers with pages that people can “fan” create a pool of willing sources eager to share stories and ideas.

While working on a magazine project for a military client, we created a Facebook group for teens interested in magazines, so we could gather quotes and insight from students across the country. We also built a network of teen contributors by sending out calls for writers to our Facebook and MySpace contacts.

Brainstorming and collaborating
Editor Bill Hudgins has also used Facebook to find leads for freelance writers for Semper Fi, the magazine we publish for the Marine Core League. While developing an idea for a profile on golf pro and Marine veteran Lee Trevino, he put out the word for a journalist who would have easy access to Trevino, and found the perfect fit — a writer who had done public relations work for the sport.

Social media also gives journalists a new way to brainstorm and collaborate. Nancy often gets story ideas from reading links posted by others.

“Last week, I was researching a story about 401(k)’s for small businesses, and I posted a tweet about the topic,” she says. “Within minutes, someone at the Pension Rights Center responded with a helpful link. [The organization] isn’t on my list of followers, so someone must have seen my request when it was re-tweeted for me.”

NFIB.com writer Megan Morris often turns to Twitter when she wants to throw out a quick question or run ideas by colleagues. This week, she’s browsed Twitter’s “Trending Topics” area to brainstorm for the 2010 MyBusiness editorial calendar.

“I’ve been searching words like ‘small business’ and ‘how to,’ seeing what profiles come up and scanning them to see if anything jumps out,” she says. “I’ve found some interesting possibilities!”

Entrepreneurs seem to be getting younger and younger these days, at least that’s the sense you’ll get when reading the August/September 2009 issue of MyBusiness, the magazine we publish for the National Federation of Independent Business. We profiled several young entrepreneurs in their early 20s who started their businesses in high school—and it’s amazing to see where they are now.

Quiet on the Set! Cameras rolling. Scene 1, Take 1. Action!

If you’re an avid movie fan like me, you might harbor a secret desire to utter those lines on an actual film set. I got to be just that lucky recently as part of a team competing in the 48 Hour Film Project, a nationwide contest challenging amateur filmmakers across the country to write, film, edit and complete a short (five- to seven-minute) movie. All of it–from concept to execution–has to take place within 48 hours. Each team is randomly assigned a genre, ranging from buddy pic to horror flick, and all teams have certain elements (a character, line of dialogue and prop) that are required in the final film.

Friends in the illustrious (and award-winning) team Fighting With Forks invited me to be a part of the Nashville competition July 17-19. I didn’t even ask what they wanted me to do, that’s how fast I said yes.

The 48 hours we spent getting to know each other and working hard to tell a compelling story were intense but great fun. Our two days together roughly went like this: Around 6 p.m. on Friday, the entire team gathered to hear our chosen genre (fantasy) and the required elements chosen randomly for our city’s competition (an actor named Charles or Charlene Little, a still camera as a prop and the line of dialogue, “I’m trying to decide.”) We spend a few hours brainstorming possible storylines, ranging from the ridiculous (foreshadowing!!) to the sublime.

Around 10 p.m., the four writers got down to business, magically churning out a script by the wee hours of the morning (around 3:30–ouch). Here’s the story they concocted: “A man has an epiphany where he thinks that he’s Death. He goes to a therapist to hash out his recent revelation, telling stories from his youth and recent events. He lives with his goth girlfriend, Charlene Little, who is an actress/photographer also obsessed with death. In the end, after sharing several fantastical stories about people and animals dying in his presence, he realizes that his therapist, too, has keeled over.”

The director of photography and his production assistant took the script and drew storyboards until the sun came up to prepare for the next day’s filming. The entire team was due on set at 7 a.m., and everyone (director, DOP, actors, lighting director, cameraman, audio guy, boom mic operator, et. al) spent the entire day–until 11 p.m.–filming. We ate lunch and dinner standing up, with one hand on a slice of pizza while the other hand jotted down notes, set up the next scene or put on makeup. While we filmed, three prodigiously talented musicians wrote original music to go with the script, ending up with an entire album’s worth of songs.

Next, our editor took the miles of raw materials and, along with the director, DOP and a writer, spent hours upon hours shaping the film. (Sleep is for sissies had to be their motto.) The film’s title–“Now You’re Being Ridiculous”–didn’t come until sometime mid-afternoon. By 6 p.m. (an hour early!), the finished product was dropped off.

Satisfied with the ridiculous story told, all the players slept happily ever after.

Postscript: We won best overall film! Watch it here.

Now that we’re about to enter that time of year when our gardens are at their best–and most plentiful, recipes are in high demand. That’s why I was so excited to come across Mark Bittman’s brilliant article “101 Simple Salads for the Season” this week. Whether you are a vegan or a carnivore, Bittman provides innovative ideas for how to inject interesting flavors and combinations into your kitchen. I already made recipe #2 in the vegan section–the salad of tomatoes and peaches. It took less than 5 minutes to make and was divine. Now my only fear is that I won’t have a chance to experiment with more of the recipes before the fruits, veggies and herbs go out of season. Take my lead–print Bittman’s article today and keep it in your kitchen so that it’s handy the next time you are staring at your pint of tomatoes, wondering what to do with them.

We old print journalists often grumble under our green eyeshades about the differences between writing for print and for the Web. That’s especially true when it comes to headlines. As previously noted here, I love writing headlines for our print media, compressing a story into a few words, often with a wry twist that may elicit groans that we editor types tend to hear as amazed appreciation.

Space is a premium in most magazines, but filling up all available nooks and crannies on a page is rarely the best design solution. To give your design a little room to breathe and to keep a reader focused on what’s most important about a layout, the most effective choice is often wide-open white space.

At Hammock, our slogan is “Your story starts here,” and it’s a phrase that we live out every day. Whether we’re catching up before a Monday morning staff meeting, checking in with a client or writing a feature for one of our publications, we love to tell (and hear) a good story.
One of our favorite forms of storytelling — at least in writing — is the narrative, a chronological story that shows cause and affect, and develops through actions and characters. Like any story, all narratives have a beginning, middle and end. Though their structure may seem complex, they aren’t that different from any riveting tale you might hear at the office or around town.
Here are a few storytelling secrets to help you master the art of narrative writing:

If you enjoy celebrating local food — certainly my favorite local food, by the way — then mark your calendar for Saturday, Aug. 8 for the East Nashville Tomato Art Fest. (July 31 is the deadline to submit your tomato haikus — see below for details.)

So what exactly does one do at a tomato festival? Well, first off, don’t expect it to be like La Tomatina, that gigantic tomato food fight that takes place in Spain every year. We have too much love and respect for the tomato to use them as projectiles.

The East Nashville Tomato Art Fest has plenty of fun-for-the-whole-family activities with live music (hey, it’s Nashville) and art and fun competitions all related to the tomato theme.

No doubt, members of Team Hammock will report back on the fun. See you there!

*East Nashville Tomato Art Fest official website
*Map

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Written and Doodled by Rex

Earlier this summer, at the annual conference of our client, Association Media & Publishing, I enjoyed a presentation on “visual thinking” by Dan Roam, author of the best-selling book, Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. As you can see in the photo on the right, I got into the spirit of the presentation and took notes about his presentation on the back of a napkin — more on that in a minute.

At Hammock, we’re constantly challenging ourselves — and the photographers, illustrators and videographers with whom we work — to tell stories visually, not just to think of their work as something to support the words in our stories. It’s true what they say about pictures and a thousand words — but for some reason, people don’t feel comfortable with trying to solve problems and develop strategies with pictures.

We are a team full of great business thinkers, creative designers and witty wordsmiths. But there are times when the words just won’t come.