The proof is in the pudding, they say.

New media has been tested, and is proven to be revolutionizing the direction of publishing and editorial departments. The future is paved with further augmentation of organizations' multimedia web presence, targeted editorial offerings, and more investment and staffing of social media channels by which newspapers compete for what has become the public's very short attention span in an increasingly globalized, socially networked, paperless world.

This new direction is transforming the newsroom by affecting the ways in which information is gathered, reported, and disseminated to the public. Shifting away from phone calls for interviews and paper writing to print (literally ink on papyrus), even emails and content blasts are becoming slow and outmoded. The new thing is crossover digital partnerships, an element of which involves advancing use of social media.

According to USA TODAY's new Social Media Editor, Michelle Kessler, the wave of the future is having someone to manage the business side of new media, and to have another coordinating new media strategy within the newsroom "to help reporters and editors use social media to connect with readers and sources. That includes everything from training to maintaining feeds to helping sign partnerships," according to Social Media Today.

This is part of a growing emphasis of social media in the newsroom.

The technical detail everyone wants to understand is: How are reporters and editors using social media to connect with readers and sources? What is the benefit to them, and what is the measurement of success?

"USA TODAY has a large social media presence," states Kessler, "including multiple official Facebook pages and Twitter feeds ... In addition, many of our reporters and editors are extremely active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites. Social networking is just a new way of talking to people, which is what reporters have always done. It's often easier to ping someone on Facebook, or make a connection on LinkedIn, than it is to chase someone down over the phone. Twitter can be an extremely efficient way to share news or ask a question to a large audience."

She continues, "And these sites also make it easier for readers to talk to us. For example, we monitor every Twitter comment that mentions @usatoday, and respond when appropriate. [Recently] we asked for our readers' take on the State of the Union address, and ran a few of the most interesting comments...."

The challenge? "Social media is so broad, and changes so quickly, that it can be tough to figure out what to focus on. I'm still pretty new at this job, but we're quickly learning that we need to emphasize a few key social media initiatives, rather than trying to do everything."

To follow is a suggested guide for what to target when considering a social media strategy for both publishing and editorial, as elucidated by Blogger Woody Lewis on Mashable:

1. Twitter headline feeds: "...creating a Twitter handle as an extension of [the] brand," and going further by "establishing channels for Books, Arts and Entertainment, and other sections. These are sub-channels that support personalized interaction, a point of interest for advertisers."

2. Acquiring providers of social media services: Incorporate a "social networking platform that links marketers to end users." The example is cited in Gannett Co.'s acquiring of Ripple6, Inc. in 2008. "By investing in a company that has already helped Procter & Gamble with its social media initiatives, Gannett [is] better able to collaborate with its advertisers."

3. Creating more online events to attract readers: "By posting streaming video and a downloadable mp3" of the online event, "and then creating daily discussion forums around related topics, [a newspaper can generate] significant increase in traffic to its website...."

4. Promoting and monetizing user-generated content: The easiest way to understand this is through the example of the Cincinnati Enquirer. A few years ago it "created CaptureCincinnati.com, a photo-sharing site where over a thousand local photographers uploaded nearly 12,000 images. The best shots were featured in Capture Cincinnati, a coffee table photo book that included a DVD, selling at a retail price of $39.95."

5. Story-based communities: Implement a "live-blogging / discussion tool that provides interactive coverage of breaking news and live events such as conferences and hearings. Real-time comments, audio and video postings, and polls are among the types of content that can be recorded and then embedded in the story...."

6. Collaborative outsourced news services: Using an outsourced service is a way to remain in the newspaper business as resources dwindle. An intersection between established news sites and the public, users can "put a question to politicians and celebrities ... comment on the publicly viewable answers, and to submit their own ideas for interview features." The hope is "to collaborate with established news sites, including newspapers willing to outsource parts of their magazine sections."

7. Customized delivery: Using a service that "allow[s] subscribers to choose from different categories, including news from other parts of the country. Blending the offerings of regional newspapers into a separate platform may help more of them survive."

8. Branded communities: This includes "user-created groups, user-posted content, and special interest sections like" bridal, travel, cuisine, etc. "Excerpts from shared stories are printed each week in the legacy paper. This might seem old school, but it strengthens a traditional ... brand, and it promotes more interaction, which helps advertisers pinpoint their targets."

9. Publishing APIs for third-party developers: Publishing application programming interfaces, or APIs, for third-party software developers, encourages "the creation of a new class of social media applications. Developers have already produced mashups that combine [for example] Times content with other resources. Advertisers should see new opportunities to embed messages tailored to the end user, and the Times may partner with those developers it deems worthy, avoiding the incremental cost of creating new applications internally."

10. Burning the boat that brought you: "Unfortunately, this isn't the most agreeable method ... but social media applied to a smaller, virtual organization might be the way of the future." Moving newspapers purely online may be the "ultimate way to save a paper through social media: make the web its only channel of distribution, and leverage the history of the brand. Loyalty won't be hard to track, and the test of that loyalty will be the price point established by subscriptions, for individual sections or the entire publication."

All food for thought. Pudding anyone?

Sources: Social Media Today (1), Mashable (1)