Chinese blogs and social networks have a significant nationalist bent to many of the posts, says Thomas Crampton, a consultant on social media with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.
Those blog posters have become “best friends” with conservative blogs and websites in the United States, Cranston said, because they use anti-Chinese sentiments they find on U.S. websites to reinforce their own views of China. And that, in turn, may have an influence on Chinese government foreign policy.
That’s the an example of the potential power of social networks, said Crampton, a former New York Times and International Herald Tribune foreign correspondent.
Blogs and social media have changed the dynamics of traditional news because they enable anyone to be a reporter and publisher.
Journalists, he said, need to take control of their own identities online. Register your name, or an online identity as close as you can to your name, as an internet domain, he suggested. That way you, not someone else, will own your Internet identity. Blog and post comments about your stories on your website and promote your stories and website through Twitter and Facebook.
People will start to follow you and interact with you, he said, and that’s how you can establish your journalistic brand, and not be left behind.
– Conference participant Craig Gima, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
