One of the great things about my first full week on board as upstart editor has been the constant pings in the inbox from contributors sending in pieces off their own bat or pitching stories, rants and commentary.
If you haven’t seen them already, check out Mark Basile on breaking the Gen Y stereotype, Steve Goddard who witnessed the recent solar eclipse in China, Steinar Ellingen’s piece on 2DAYFM’s lie detector stunt and Gulsum Unal on the upside to reality television.
It’s been interesting to see how many hits we’re getting on upstart this week. As expected, the number of hits has risen dramatically with the commencement of semester two.
What has been more interesting to see however, is where people are clicking through from. We’re currently experimenting with some social media sites to see what drives people to click through to a publication like upstart. So far, updates from our Twitter page have been the biggest driver.
Curiously however, after speaking to La Trobe journalism and media studies students this week, I’ve come to realise that, while almost everyone has a Facebook page – only a handful are on Twitter.
On a personal level, I’ve been using Facebook for a few years but have only recently jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon.
I had initially scoffed at the idea of a social networking site which only allows 140 characters to ‘tweet’, but am now almost totally addicted – particularly after seeing its value in marketing an online publication
In the weeks ahead we’re planning to add an events calendar and we’ll also publish some new profiles in our Working Journalist section.
In the meantime, keep the pitches coming!
Erdem Koc
Do you have a story idea? Would you like to write for upstart?
Contact upstart editor Erdem Koc at ekoc@students.latrobe.edu.au.
