CBC Vancouver is holding is holding an all-day workshop on social media.  The aim is to “find out how some of us use it to make our jobs easier, and how others can learn to tap into its power”.

The CBC is tapping into the wealth of talent in Vancouver on social networking, with a wide range of speakers, including Kris Krug and Megan Cole. You can follow the day with live blog and Twitter coverage online.

The team at CBC Vancouver experimented with Twitter during this month’s municipal elections, following the reaction to the results on Twitter with mixed success.

I’ll be at the seminar, talking about best practices for journalists. Social media is an emerging area and there are no set practices for journalists.

But there are three principles that established media organisations can follow to be part of the social web:

1. Be human: Mass media was based on the notion of reaching millions of people with one message. As a result, that message often came across in an impersonal, corporate voice. Social media provides an opportunity to be more personal, informal and conversational.
2. Be honest: Be transparent and open about what you are doing. Social media is about genuine relationships and anyone trying to fake it is likely to be found out very quickly.
3. Be involved: Journalists should not approach social media by thinking, “how can I use this for a story”. Social media should be part of your job, not an add-on or something to be used for a story and then abandoned.

My advice to journalists is to be part of the social web, to live the social web.

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