Each week for 10 weeks, members of the GWA Communications Committee are sharing creative presentations about some very useful GWA resources that you may not even be aware of. You’ll be able to see these presentations on GWA’s social media channels as well as every Tuesday here on the blog. Be sure to check back each week for a glimpse of a unique take on some of the wonderful resources available to all our members. The GWA Communications Committee wants to be sure you’ve been paying attention, so stay tuned for an opportunity to win prizes after completing a quiz.
By Maree Gaetani
Week #10 is about GWA NewsClippings and what you’re missing out on if you don’t open and engage with this GWA Member Resource.
I LOVE receiving the GWA Newsclippings for many reasons. One, I like to think that I’m inquisitive and curious, although my family says I’m ‘nosy’ and that I have ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out.) GWA Newsclippings is a garden communicator version of ‘The Week’ news journal but it helps me improve my outcomes and readership. I don’t have the time to look at Forbes, Poynter, MediaBistro or scan every marketing or journalism blog out there for advice. GWA Newsclippings is my shortcut!
My goal is for GWA members who don’t know all the information and advice to read the next Newsclippings. So here we go . . .
How To Think About Making Money From Your Audience
I keep referring to this article because it helps me understand the value of we’re offering to our readers, viewers, etc. There’s a downloadable report on how newsrooms have had to shift their thinking, much in the same way garden writers have, as gone are the days when your local newspaper, radio or TV stations were hiring garden writers regularly.
Traveling to Italy anytime soon?
Did you know that one of the first private botanical gardens in Europe has re-opened after 30 years? Sprawled out on the slopes of the Palatino, in Rome, Italy, the horti Farnesi were first commissioned in 1550 by Cardinal Farnese and have gone down in landscape history as one of the first private botanical gardens in Europe. In its heyday, the gardens flaunted frescoed aviaries, a nymphaeum, underground passageways, ancient sculptures, and fountains, while rare and exotic birds graced its grounds.
We all have to admit that no one reads everything we write, so how are people reading online these days? How do I write so more people understand what I’m trying to communicate? This new research resonates with me so I can better fit my audience – depending if it’s educators, parents or the community. According to an article from NiemanLab, ‘From skimming and scanning to (the ultimate) reading, a new paper by Nir Grinberg looks at the ways we read online and introduces a novel measure for predicting how long readers will stick with an article.
Grinberg, a research fellow at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science jointly with the Northeastern’s Lazer Lab, looked at Chartbeat data for seven different publishers’ sites — a dataset of more than 7.7 million pageviews, on both mobile and desktop, of 66,821 news articles from the sites.
“Instead of just how far down the page a person got, I’m looking at what percentage of the article they actually covered,” he said. “How far did they go down the page, relative to the length of the article? If someone spent a lot of time on an article and the article is short, that’s a good signal. If they spent the same amount of time on a long article, that’s less good.” Learn more
If you haven’t reviewed the NewsClippings recently and need to see immediately what you’ve been missing, please click the link above where you can search for past articles. So if you’re not already enjoying GWA NewsClippings, I hope you are now!
Meet the Author
Maree Gaetani is Director of Strategic Initiatives at KidsGardening, a national nonprofit that is dedicated to getting kids learning through the garden. She also serves on the National Pollinator Garden Network founder’s committee, University of Vermont’s Ag Extension Board, and Vermont’s Wild for Pollinator’s program. Prior to this position, she was director of good works and garden relations at Gardener’s Supply. She’s been actively involved promoting gardening as an agent for social, environmental and community change since 2001, the same year she joined GWA. Available at mareeg@kidsgardening.org
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