BY LUCA SEMPRINI

Non-profit news sites with a limited marketing budget often turn to Public Relations to "push" content forward without spending money. This most often translates into networking with various media outlets to place content on their platforms in exchange of a link back to the organization's website.

But the Internet also offers a wide array of customizable tools to "pull" users to your website with a limited budget. Google AdWords is one of the most ubiquitous. In general, this service allows organizations to promote their products and services alongside Google's search results.

This is how it works. Each ad created within your account has text or an image (this is how the ad will look like online.

An example of Powering a Nation's ad.

It also has a list of keywords that trigger the ad to show up. When someone searches Google using one or more of your keywords, your ad will appear in the search results page. You can also choose to display your ads on sites belonging to the Google network.

So what about costs? AdWords is a bid system that allows advertisers to chose a maximum cost-per-click. The ad's ranking on the page depends on other advertisers' bids (Price Per Click) and the quality score of all ads shown for a given search. Quality scores are calculated by click-through rates, relevance of the ad copy and keywords.

This system requires users to think creatively and fine-tune their ads. When I started a campaign for Powering a Nation, I had no experience with this tool. It took quite a bit of research and fiddling with keywords to improve the click-through rate (the amount of times users actually click the ad compared to the amount of times it is displayed).

Since no one can click on an ad that does not appear, keyword selection is crucial. Unfortunately, there is no golden formula to make the most of this tool. You have to be specific (i.e. use keywords that strictly match your product) and make sure the keywords match the ad copy as much as possible. But the real key is just to go back to your account every day, check the results, and tweak your campaign until you obtain the desired results.

If you're searching for energy issues online, Powering a Nation's ad should pop up on your screen. Take a minute to browse the content and give us your feedback! 

By ELENA RUE

In the course of reporting on a story about energy and employment in Detroit, my colleague Mike and I talked with several people about the resurgence of the city. It's impossible to discuss the future of Detroit without acknowledging the current state of the shrinking city, but those who are committed to seeing Detroit regrow are not leaving its history behind. Rather, the people who live there are re-purposing historic buildings, planting urban gardens in vacant lots and retraining people left behind by the auto industry.

Having never visited Detroit, Mike and I were leery of falling into the same trap that many journalists do: focusing on the graffiti, wandering souls and dilapidated buildings scattered around the city. Detroit City Councilman Ken Cockrel touched upon this issue in an interview.

"Detroit often gets a very bad rap," Cockrel said. "And all too often what happens is that when we see journalists come to the city of Detroit, they tell the same old story. It's like, OK, show me some abandoned buildings, show me a crackhead, show me somebody with no teeth in their mouth, because that's easy. It's a lot harder to find some of these other stories in the city of Detroit. It's a lot harder to find some of these stories about the really cool bar and restaurant in a dilapidated town that is booming every single day of the week. You know, it's a lot harder to find a story about the school where all of the kids are doing really really well. That takes a little bit more work."

With the passion and enthusiasm that many Detroiters have, it is clear that leaders are trying to move the city toward a brighter future. But given the state of the economy and slow job growth, this recovery could take a long time. As journalism students from a different part of the country, we are largely unable to witness this change first hand. However, we were encouraged by one small change we were able to see during our two trips to the city. During our first trip we came across a very large building with boarded up windows. We took one photograph of the building and moved on.

The boarded up exterior of the former American Electrical Heater Company on Borroughs St. in Detroit. Photo by Elena Rue

One week later, we returned to the same spot and were delighted to see that each and every board had been beautifully painted. We later found out that the building, which used to be the American Electrical Heater Company, was now owned by TechTown, a non-profit that supports alternative energy and high technology industries. Eventually, TechTown is planning to remodel and reuse the building, but in the meantime they commissioned artists from the Detroit Mural Factory to depict Detroit's past, present and future on the building's exterior. The eight artists engaged youth ages 6 to 19 in the mural project and are encouraging others to do the same throughout the city.

The same view of the former American Electrical Heater Company after it was painted by local artists and youth. Photo by Elena Rue

By LUCA SEMPRINI

Online communications are rapidly evolving. New technologies often come with both opportunities and challenges for PR and marketing professionals. For example, while social media allow for unprecedented interactivity between an organization and its customers, these tools also decrease a company's control over public conversations.

A less reported issue is the proliferation of neologisms and portmanteau words that sometimes leaves professionals lost in the lingo. The following list outlines 10 of the most common (and useful) tools and concepts that communication professionals have to deal with.

1 – Web 2.0 broadly refers to the Web's second generation. Its most unique characteristic lies in the ability for average users to publish content on their own, with no need for specialized knowledge. For example, everyone can now create and upload content (audio, video, or graphic) and share it with a massive audience. Common examples of Web 2.0 technologies are blogs and online social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.).

Powering a Nation's Twitter feed

2 – A blog is, simply put, an online journal counterpart. Entries appear in reverse chronological order and should be posted on a regular basis. Compared with their print counterparts, these tools allow two-way communication by enabling readers to comment on the content.

3 – Social network sites are bounded online communities that allow members to create a profile, publicly list their social connections, communicate with other members and, in most cases, post content. Nowadays, Facebook is the most ubiquitous example, with more than 300 million registered users.

4 – Social media is an umbrella term for all online technologies that enable users to share content online. More specifically, social media rely on user-generated content (video, audio, text, visuals, etc.) and make it available to the online community. While social media are often associated with social network sites, the term also includes, for example, webcasting.

5 – Webcasting relies on the Internet to deliver live or delayed versions of broadcast content, with the advantage of user interactivity. For example, a podcast is a digital file (audio or video) that users can download and play on a personal computer or portable device at their convenience.

6 – Tags are keywords added to online content to help users find similar information and make the entry more prominent to search engines. For example, this post is categorized through the following tags: News21; newsroom; social media.

7 – Geotags add location-based metadata to media such as photos, videos or maps to help users find a wide variety of businesses and services based on location.

Fellow Jessey Dearing's field reporting illustrated through geotags

8 – A web feed is a way of providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors such as newspapers often syndicate Web feeds, enabling users to bring a site’s content updates directly to their platform instead of actively searching for the information. For example, by subscribing to a feed with an online service such as Google Reader, users can aggregate and browse content of their choice on a single page. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is the Web standard for the delivery of content.

9 – Social bookmarking sites allow Internet users to organize and share information remotely (i.e., without depending on particular hardware or software). For example, Delicious allows users to catalog online resources and share content.

10 – Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which developers try to make a website appear at the top of search engine rankings. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO is based on how search engines work and what people search for. For example, developers identify high-traffic keywords and place them in the site's HTML code.

I hope you enjoyed this brief rundown. If you have any questions, all you have to do is either post a comment or send me an email. After all, that's the joy of new media.

Post by ELENA RUE
Front page photo by MIKE EHRLICH

An out-of-work Detroit man (left) receives training on how to weatherize windows. Photo by Elena Rue

In the heart of Detroit's Mexicantown Monday, 12 out-of-work residents received weatherization training from Detroit GreenWorks Solutions, a program organized by the WARM Training Center. In 2010, unemployment in Michigan averaged 15% and 30% in the Metro Detroit area. WARM is one of many organizations offering retraining programs for Michigan's unemployed workers. But one question being raised is whether there are too many people being trained and not enough jobs to be filled.

Rick Lacourciere, who worked for General Motors for 33 years, attended an energy auditing training program run by the state of Michigan and has since started his own company. Lacourciere and his business partner Mike Dahl are still waiting for their business to pick up.

"Well, it's not as great as I would hope for," Lacourciere said. "I would hope for enough work for five days a week. I would hope for enough to make a decent income."

Although he has his doubts, Lacourciere believes the training is valuable and should be continued.

"There's so much talk about going green and these are good things. It just makes sense. The field should make sense, employment should make sense. It should be growing. I'm not sorry and I would probably encourage somebody else, but I would now, given what I know now is, throw a little bit of caution. Look into employment. Is there employment available?"

Detroit City Councilman Ken Cockrel, who founded the Green Task Force, is confident in green job training programs. But he, too, recognizes that more needs to be done.

"It's great to train folks, but we want to train them for job opportunities right here in Detroit and right here in Michigan," Cockrel said. "Otherwise they're just going to take that skill set that they've now acquired through that training, and they're going to go someplace else. So there does need to be a dual focus - job training but also job creation."

Video and article by JESSEY DEARING
Audio interview by LAUREN FROHNE

Some video clips and an example of how we plan to use video portraits and interviews in the final story.

Traditionally, visual storytelling consists of finding a character with an interesting story and reporting about a larger issue or problem through their story.

For our story exploring the supposed "nuclear renaissance" beginning in the U.S., we are trying a different approach.

Our challenge is to find creative ways to show a community and the its residents' perceptions of nuclear power. Instead of focusing on one person's life and story, we are trying to tell the community's story by collecting many voices, opinions and portraits. We are especially making use of video portraits, which are short audio interviews combined with video of a person in a location such as his or her home or business.

We are focusing on two communities: Waynesboro, Ga., which is expecting to have two additional nuclear reactors built, and Vernon, Vt., which may see the closing of its nuclear power plant. In addition to video portraits, we are also shooting video in a style that offers the viewer a glimpse of what each community looks like in order to show the similarities and differences, almost a tour of the towns.

In addition to the complicated story we are attempting to show visually, I won't be editing and producing my own content, which always poses a challenge for a photojournalist. I have to understand what the story producer is envisioning for the final piece, while still maintaining my own creativity.

Overall, I've enjoyed the more abstract and creative side of trying to show these two communities, but it has been challenging to change the way I think about the story. This approach involves a lot more pre-visualizing, unlike stories that you can follow as it unfolds fairly straightforward.