by Bobby Coles

Created on: May 09, 2009   Last Updated: May 09, 2012

Journalism is an ever-evolving field that requires its writers to adapt and overcome declining newspaper readership. The Internet now houses many readers that used to be loyal to the newspaper. Social media plays a significant role in audience building, and journalists should now incorporate this burgeoning entity into their repertoire.

Social media involves blogs, email, and other sharing sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Diggit, Reddit, and Linkedin to name a few of the more popular. A journalist well-versed in social media has the opportunity to build a vast and loyal fan base rapidly.

A savvy writer will be able to use these sites, and with the addition of links, can drive readership of his or her blogs, posts, articles, or whatever news item sky-high. Generating traffic to your writing enhances your overall appeal and the effectiveness of your journalism.

With the world being connected as it now is, social media is the way to go towards augmenting your fan base. The day of the printed word is slowly becoming archaic, going the way of the troglodytes carving in stone. Many readers prefer the shortened version of Internet reading. Pandering down to the short attention spans and boredom of readers, Internet writing is geared for people on the run, which many of today's people are at all times.

For a budding journalist, building an audience is crucial to their early success. Social media can play a vital role in establishing them as a respected journalist. The Internet has given a complete face-lift to writing, and albeit a change in writing styles, due to the nature of on-line writing, it nevertheless has widened the audience base of writers to span the globe.

In days yore, a writer had to work very hard to get his or her work out there, and even then it was limited to how out there it actually made it. With the expanding social media, a writer has almost instantaneous access to readers across the universe. A writer can reach millions of people in the click of a mouse, and with social media sites popping up all the time, the sky seems limitless.

Social media sites, such as Facebook, My Space, and You Tube can catapult a person to instant fame and fortune. The recent phenomenon named Susan Boyle gave a stellar performance on a British reality show, and by the next day she was a household name, and was a regular guest on the talk show circuit. Social media sites are far more than just a place for teenagers to go and complain or idly chit chat. They

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