MEN Media plans site revamp with social media push

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MEN Media is to relaunch its flagship Manchester Evening News website as part of a new plans to increase social media use amongst its journalists.

The group plans to have all MEN Media reporters signed up to Twitter accounts for their work within the next few months, following the success of live reporting events for the website using the microblogging tool, head of online content Paul Gallagher told Journalism.co.uk.

The Manchester Evening News and its weekly sister titles currently have between 20-25 reporters using Twitter, he said.

"It means that when we have an event like the recent royal visit , being covered by six different journalists, we can easily pull it together in a live blog at short notice because they are all set up to tweet," said Gallagher, adding that a liveblog was used to coordinate coverage of eight different visits made by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.

"Some of our journalists have been wary about using it and don't really understand the point of it at first. But then you explain to them that all you've got to do is send a text and it's that easy."

The site revamp will largely be a facelift of the existing look, Gallagher said, but will include more features for live event coverage and will bring in Twitter feeds from accounts set up for specific blogs. The group recently expanded its use of liveblogging tools, including Twitter to cover full council meetings of all 10 local authorities in the Greater Manchester area and it is hoped the new-look site will encourage more use of such packages, in particular by bringing in a 'live' section directing readers to ongoing live event coverage.

Reporters using the CoveritLive software and Twitter have enjoyed the direct interaction with commenters and readers on events, said Gallagher, who hopes the system will develop further to alert reporters in the field to questions from readers coming in via the liveblog.

The site also uses Twitter on its sport pages - with tweets from dedicated accounts for Manchester's two Premiership football clubs; on its business page from @MENBusiness ; and has integrated both official accounts from local authorities and tweets from the public into a regular liveblog on traffic, travel and weather .

There are no plans for a breaking news ticker on the site and as such Twitter may increasingly be used by the news team to break stories with these updates fed back onto the website. Last week Guardian Media Group (GMG), which owns MEN Media, announced the sale of its regional division to Trinity Mirror . The sale is expected to complete on 28 March.