Leveling up your audience engagement skills at ONA17

Building community and trust in journalism are some of the biggest challenges our industry must overcome in today’s climate. At ONA17, you’ll hear about how you can improve the ways you engage with audiences as well as how you measure those interactions.

We highly recommend that you take a look at the full ONA17 schedule, where you’ll find plenty of sessions that overlap with your interests. From tips on how to run a Facebook Live broadcast, to building trust in online communities, you’ll see that making better connections with your audience and building trust are themes that are built into the programming throughout ONA17.

If you’ve got specific questions about building community or ideas that you’d like addressed at ONA17, you can give us feedback below.

The Audience Engagement and Analytics track:

  • Optimizing for Trust in News

    De Correspondent Publisher Ernst-Jan Pfauth and Hearken Founder and CEO Jennifer Brandel will discuss the different ways they’ve worked to build news organizations that restore trust in journalism — and how that trust can turn readers into paying members. Jay Rosen, Professor of Journalism at New York University, is moderating and sure to keep the conversation lively.

  • Make it and Take it Engagement Strategy Workshop

    Do you have an idea for an engagement project? In this workshop, engagement extraordinaires from Hearken, KPCC and BuzzFeed will help you build your plan through several exercises. You’ll leave knowing how to reach your goal, and with a peer partner to help you get there.

  • Hacking the Square: Fitting Big Journalism on Instagram

    Making Instagram work in a journalism context remains a bit of a mystery for some outlets. How can we use it to reach audiences, and what value is there anyway? The Globe and Mail Strategist Shannon Busta will answer these questions with examples of how she’s incorporated The Globe’s editorial schedule into their Instagram strategy to achieve meaningful engagement with new audiences.

  • Table Talks: Audience Engagement + Analytics

    Consistently considered one of our most popular events, our Table Talks are designed to get into the meat of a topic, so you can talk about the nitty-gritty of what you’ve been working on with top minds in the field. Join this two-hour intimate discussion to talk about audience engagement challenges you’ve faced and strategies you’ve employed to solve them. No preparation is necessary — this is an extremely interactive event and we encourage everyone interested to participate. Note: These are participatory conversations, so topics will be announced closer to the conference.

What questions about audience engagement do you have that you’d like addressed at ONA17?

You can ask speakers questions ahead of time to help shape the conversation. If you’re curious about an emerging trend, want to know more about a topic or are hoping that speakers will dig into something during their session, now’s your chance to post a question below. We’re thrilled to be using Hearken to make this happen!

Laura handles ONA's public communications. She is also a journalist, photographer and copyeditor and prides herself on her ability to perform nearly any task in a newsroom. She lives in Los Angeles.