Q&A With NBC News Director of Social Media Ryan Osborn

The intersection of news and social media has been fascinating. Social media has fundamentally changed not only how news is disseminated and ingested, but also how future journalists are taught. Daily.

In doing so, the news media not only had to learn how to participate, it had to take ownership and find a way to monetize. Rapidly. All while taking on a whole slew of new competitors/outlets, oh, and keeping journalistic integrity intact.

Phew.

To illustrate that change and understand exactly how it all works, we talked to Ryan Osborn (@rozzy), the director of social media at NBC News, a position that didn’t exist until, well, when he was named to the position in late May. Specifically, he manages NBC News’ usage of social media to increase awareness of show programming, interactivity with viewers, and outreach to target audience groups.

But his rise didn’t come overnight.

Ryan has worked at NBC News since 2002, when he joined as part of the Page Program (yes, that page program). He joined the Today show staff that year and worked his way up from the front desk to producer in five years. While producing for Today, Osborn was responsible for the post-production of interviews with President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Governor Sarah Palin. He has also contributed in the field on several breaking news events for Today, including Hurricane Katrina and the death of Michael Jackson. In recent years, Osborn has worked closely with online editors for TODAYshow.com to launch key cross media initiatives such as “Today in 2 Minutes,” and has been an integral part of the team that created a unique partnership with Foursquare to promote the “Toyota Concert Series on Today.”

In short, he paid his dues.

His complete, unedited responses to my questions are below.

You’ve been in the saddle for two months, how has your day to day changed in that time? Has the job changed at all?

In a lot of ways, I’m still making the transition. Every day is different with a unique set of opportunities and challenges. As a producer at TODAY there was a clear goal which was always to create the best spot possible. In my new role, the challenge is to take initiative and work within teams across the news division to meet different objectives. I also have to spend a lot of time listening.

Obviously, NBC News values social media, but as your defacto “client,” how do you manage expectations with your superiors at NBC News regarding new social media initiatives? What is the process to sell your ideas?

I think expectations within NBC News are realistic. We want to use social media to engage our audience and tell better stories. If an initiative helps achieve one of those goals, we try to make it happen.

Social media is great for news-gathering purposes and dissemination, but what metrics is NBC News using to determine if social media initiatives are a success? What types of software do you use to help manage that process?

We are focused on telling stories. A priority has been to educate our staff about the value behind these tools and how they can use them in a way that works for them as individuals. The software we use right now is called human beings. We are looking at some other tools but no matter what we do we won’t get away from people engaging other people.

I’m sure you do a lot of monitoring of what is going on from other news-gatherers, including “competitors.” What is the fact-finding process to vet a potential story you find via Twitter or even another news outlet’s social media?

We encourage all our reporters to confirm information with as many sources as possible and whenever possible offline.

During the miracle on the Hudson, you used @todayshow on Twitter to find the initial image of survivors (and MSNBC was the first network to use the TwitPic on the air). What types of legal hoops did you have to jump through to make that happen?

It actually was as simple as talking to Janis Krums, who took the photo, and getting his permission to use the photo. Based on some other details we confirmed the authenticity and then put the photo on air. He did a phone interview with NBC’s Peter Alexander on MSNBC that afternoon.

Back in May, NBC unveiled “Fan It, ” a social media rewards platform with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Foursquare integration for users who promote, interact and discuss NBC shows. Has this initiative had any effect on NBC News?

“Fan It” is a social media rewards platform that was created by NBC Entertainment. I’m excited by the idea but it hasn’t had any effect on NBC News.

You initiated the NBC/Foursquare partnership to promote the “Toyota Concert Series on Today,” but the latest social network to gain press for their TV partnerships is GetGlue for their HBO deal. Has NBC News (or NBC in general) identified any uses/partnerships with GetGlue or the other rising “TV checkin” social start-up, Hot Potato, at this time?

We partnered with Tunerfish and have allowed viewers to “checkin” to viewing Dateline NBC. People earn the “Dateline Detectives” badge. I am a big fan of the platform and look forward to other opporutunites.

Twitter is testing a service that will integrate images and photos directly into the stream (instead of using TwitPic and TwitVid). Do you think this is a good idea or is breaking the simple 140-character only aesthetic and essentially going to turn the service into Facebook?

Hard to answer without knowing more about the service. Whatever it is, it will be all about how users adopt it.

Is there anything you’ve picked up along the way (in other positions, at other companies, in college) that unexpectedly prepared you for this position?

I have been called Kenneth 2.0 but I honestly think the most valuable position I had to prepare me for this job was being an NBC Page. I still have relationships with people from across the company.

If you could give NBC News a grade for social media pre-@rozzy regime and now, what would they be?

Don’t ask me, ask the people who are reading this interview. I think our organization is doing a lot of great work and I’m proud to be a part of the team.

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Flickr photo courtesy of @mjb