With increasing use of social media, as well as improved technology for commenting on articles, the potential for a publication to cultivate an online community is growing. And "more than ever before, communities are helping to define the news outlets around which they grow," said Justin Peters, editor of the online version of the Columbia Journalism Review, speaking in a panel on engaging the community at the International Journalism Festival.

As Ed Walker, online communities manager and reporter for Media Wales said, there are two broad types of community: those defined by geographical area, and those defined by interest.

One community that is very much defined by interest is that of Vodafone Italia. Paola Bonomo, head of online services, told participants how Vodafone has not only gathered a collection of 724,000 Facebook fans, but also gives consumers a chance to interact directly on the company's site through Vodafone Lab.

Peter Gomez, editor of the website of Il Fatto Quotidiano, an Italian newspaper that was launched just a year and a half ago, highlighted his publication's also relatively vast number of Facebook fans: almost 450,000. He said that this was a result of the paper's offering of news that people can't find elsewhere, and stressed that in Italy, news is precious.

Comments, comments, comments

One of the most straightforward ways to allow your community to interact with your publication is through commenting on articles. Walker made the pertinent point that readers sometimes don't have the confidence to comment on long investigative pieces, but rather are more likely to 'recommend' them to friends. He stressed that giving an opportunity to 'like' or recommend an article is therefore essential, and that a couple of well-informed, developed comments are worth more than many just saying 'yes I agree'.

Some sites have used commenting via Facebook Connect to good effect, it was noted in the panel. But speakers agreed that it was maybe not wise to make that the only way to comment on your publication. Walker called for multiple ways to comment on articles: "It's important to give people a choice."

"You cede some authority and control over the conversation" by handing over your system to Facebook, said Bonomo. Josh Young, former social media editor at the Huffington Post stressed that he believes your community is an essential part of a publication, and you need to own it, rather than outsource to a third party.

Rewarding those who comment thoughtfully and usefully is also important, participants said. The Huffington Post awards 'badges' to top commenters, and Media Wales publishes the best comments in the paper.

Using Facebook as a source

Facebook can be a valuable tool for reporting, panellists said, particularly because, as Walker said, "we are living in a golden age of stupidity on social networks," referring to people's ignorance of privacy settings. He described how Media Wales uses a site called Openbook which gathers public status updates from Facebook to locate friends and relatives of the recently deceased, for example.

Gomez told participants how Il Fatto Quotidiano had managed to discredit a girl who had been interviewed by other media outlets on her conversion to Islam after listening to Libya's Ghaddafi speaking on a visit to Italy, by locating her on Facebook. His reporters found out in six hours what would usually have taken them months.

Crowdsourcing

The Huffington Post's Off the Bus initiative was one of the first examples of crowd-sourcing, during the 2008 US presidential election campaign, inviting readers to contribute reports of which candidates were canvassing where. "The point is not that every report was great," said Young, but "it really makes sense to call on your most passionate readers to contribute." Huff Post also sought pictures from its readers during the Gulf oil spill, and from NGOs and health organisations during the humanitarian crisis following the earthquake in Haiti last year.

Walker explained how Media Wales used its readers to report on transport disruptions when the entire transport network in South Wales was knocked out. Reporters were struggling to get around to find out exactly what was going on, but with the help of readers, "in the space of an hour we had a map on our website showing where people were stuck and where buses had been put on," Walker said, adding that this generated good traffic.

Il Fatto Quotidiano has also received some valuable information from its readers, Gomez said. Validation of news provided by readers is essential, he stressed, explaining that the publication manages to do in-depth validation on about one fifth of the sources and out of these, 70% turn out to be correct. He believes that this is due to his site's large but still limited group of users.