This workshop was developed for Sheffield Live TV as part of the Digital Media Exchange project funded by the European Union.

The purpose of the workshop is to introduce new television producers to digital content and distribution channels in order to complement and enhance their programming offers.

Introductions, and getting to know each other.
Open discussion about everyone's familiarity with digital content platforms and creation tools.

Questions posed in the discussion:

- What phones do we have?
- Have we engaged with any online TV content?
- Do we follow shows on twitter or facebook?
- Does anyone do this in real-time? E.g. #bbcqtime
- Does anyone use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite or similar?
- Has anyone used a second screening app like Beamly?
- Did anyone follow "D-Day As It Happens" on twitter? Or see if they’d survive a plane crash? Or find out if they’re a psychopath?

This segment involves mapping our 'digital days' - everyone draws a time-line of an average weekday, and then places all the times they engage with media on the timeline. We then compare and discuss each others' days.

This segment is about understanding our audience and making them real so we can design against them.

The difference between designing *for* and designing *with*.

Hand out a persona template.
Show Channel 4's personas.


Create a persona and draw their digital day.

What is second screening?

Millward Brown’s recent AdReaction study found that more than 40% of 16-45 year old multiscreen consumers in the US use devices simultaneously.

Ofcom’s “Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report”: More than 50% of UK households now have tablet devices.

BBC Question Time
https://twitter.com/hashtag/bbcqt

Pineapple Lounge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6q3YMyP67Q

Beamly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXXzG26Vp2s

Horrible Histories: Gory Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfkCHCiE21g




Image by Wetten Das: https://flic.kr/p/dyvxmX

We'll look at the most common platforms:

Web. Facebook. Twitter.

What are the different affordances of these platforms?

Discussion about the different affordances of web, facebook and twitter.

“Neither software nor media is social, rather it’s human beings that are social. Facebook and Twitter aren’t social software systems, they are systems that afford certain social behavior. This is an important distinction to make when deciding which “social media” tools to use and how to use them. Instead of analyzing the features of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter we must analyze their social affordances – the types of social behavior they are designed to trigger and how that fits in with our business.”

Jamie Appleseed - Baymard Institute
http://baymard.com/blog/analyzing-social-affordances

Look at how broadcasters use the common platforms.

Each producer chooses a programme that is similar to their own and takes a look at how that programme uses web, facebook and twitter - if at all.

If the programme prominently uses another platform, then this should be noted as well.

10 minutes to take a look, and ten minutes to discuss in the group.

A look at some other platforms that are in common use.

- Instagram
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Soundcloud
- Tumblr
- Vine
- Flickr

All of these platforms have different affordances.

What is 'curation'?
What kinds of thing can you use it for?
What are some well known curation platforms?

- Storify
- Pinterest
- Twitter lists.

- Tagging & hashtags
You can get your audience to help curate content!

Slide image by Julien Mourlon https://flic.kr/p/4Cwd8Z

Microcontent is like the digital descendent of tea cards.

It is a catch-all term for small pieces of content, or even small parts of larger content such as headlines.

Digital platforms allow you to create lots of different forms of micro-content, which you can then publish via your main platforms - web, twitter, facebook, etc.

Kinds of microcontent:
- Memes.
- Infographics & Diagrams.
- Quizzes & Polls.
- Animations & Montage videos.


Show this slide deck by Danielle Oteri:
https://www.haikudeck.com/how-to-make-micro-content-art-and-design-presenta...


See handout: 8 things to think about when designing Microcontent


Slide image by Kevin Dooley: https://flic.kr/p/ngJHko

Design elements to pay attention to:

Headlines
Copywriting
Images
Video

See handout: Design Considerations

Some good free design tools:
https://www.canva.com/
http://quozio.com/
http://infogr.am/
http://memegenerator.net/
http://www.visme.co/
- there are lots and lots of these, especially on mobile.

Design infographics from Mediabistro:

Image Sizes
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-image-dimensions-2014_b5...

Social media posts:
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/ultimate-perfect-social-posts_b58003

What is a content strategy?

“Planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.”
Kristina Halvorson, founder of Brain Traffic, and author of Content Strategy for the Web.

A process of continual evaluation and improvement.

See handout: Elements of a Content Strategy.

You can track different metrics on different platforms.

Analytics only really becomes useful and important when you have a reasonable amount of traffic.

Analytics is about people and behaviours - not just numbers.

Make sure you check referrers to spot where new sources of traffic are coming from.

Mediabistro -How To Track Your Social Media Data And Measure ROI:
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-data-roi_b58103

Your turn to design some microcontent!