Social media: Contextual help on US newspaper websites

Over the last couple of days I've been looking at how 24 hour news television stations and British newspapers provide contextual help to social media users online. Today I wanted to turn my attention to the US newspaper market, to see how this segment of the online industry helps users to discover social bookmarking.

As I've been surveying sites for their social media usage, I've been basing my studies of US newspapers on the list in 24/7 Wall Street's excellent blog post "Rating The Top 25 Newspaper Websites". Of the 25 newspapers listed, I found that very few actually provided any contextual help around social bookmarking functionality.

USA Today

The USA Today site was the clear leader in this area, with by far the most comprehensive set of social bookmarking help. USA Today offers a prominent link to the Mixx service, and then lists 'other ways to share'.

At the foot of the collection of buttons is a text link: "What's this". This opens up a pop-up with graphical instructions on how to use the buttons, and a big plug for Mixx.

"Mixx it up!
USATODAY.com partner Mixx.com is your link to the best content on the web. Use these buttons to cast your vote for great USATODAY.com content. Then go to Mixx and find the best stories, photos and videos from around the web.
No registration required to submit an article to Mixx! "

There is then some instruction reminiscent of the BBC's old Radio Times tagline - "Other listings magazines are available"

"Other ways to share:
Everyone's different. That's why we've given you a variety of ways to share, save or tag that really great article you've just read. Take a look - hopefully you'll find something that works for you!"

Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Free Press, or freep.com as it is branded online, has one of the smallest implementations of a contextual help link that I've ever seen online.

The question mark link opens up a minuscule pop-up window, with the minimum of information.

ShareThis widgets

Newspapers which feature a social bookmarking widget supplied by ShareThis automatically include some help information. When the ShareThis icon is clicked, a panel appears which includes the text link "What's this". This takes the user through to a page on the ShareThis site with information about social bookmarking for both users and publishers.

In my survey of 25 US online newspapers, the San Diego Union-Tribune's site, Sign On San Diego (pictured below), and the Boston Globe used the ShareThis widget.

AddThis widgets

The Chicago Sun-Times site provided social bookmarking links with the inclusion of a widget from AddThis.com. These widgets do not themselves include any contextual help, but they do link back to the AddThis.com homepage. This provides some explanation of social bookmarking for users.

Sponsored social bookmarking

Some newspapers have seen the provision of social bookmarking links as an area of the page which can be monetized. The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Sign On San Diego all have social bookmarking links that carry the name and logo of a sponsor.

Next...

Next month I'll have some more articles about how the US newspaper industry is embracing social bookmarking, and the level of success they are enjoying.

This article is based on how newspaper sites appeared on September 9th, 2008.