How to: Incorporating interactive media into digital journalism

Andrew Beelitz February 24, 2017

With media steadily moving out of print and on to the web, consumer choices are steadily increasing as publications multiply. Distinguishing your work is key to attracting and keeping readership, and interactive media is a great way to engage your audience. Keep viewers on your content and reading longer with images, video and 360° material that combines multimedia options. While plain text gets the information across, interactive media is a useful and effective supplement that makes it more interesting and visual.

In this blog post, discover how different publications are using ThingLink in 4 different areas to make their work stand out.

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Meter Magazine: Sports Photojournalism

In this example, Meter Magazine combines beautiful photography with interactive tags to create 200 Miles is a Long Drive, a spread of images and audio that tell the story of the grueling Hood to Coast race.

via Meter Magazine

How to: Add audio like Meter Magazine did here using a third party platform or by uploading straight to ThingLink. Audio hosted on SoundCloud or AudioBoom can be played straight from the tag just by using the link. Or, click the Upload Audio button in the ThingLink editor and add it directly from the audio file.

Further use cases of ThingLink Interactive Media in Journalism:

Award-winning Multimedia journalism with ThingLink and L’Echo

Interactive ThingLink map of dialects goes viral

BBC: International Coverage

Below, BBC covers the emerging trend of digital nomads, professionals who work far from where their company is based, traveling the globe while keeping up their day jobs with just a wifi connection. Viewers can easily visualize life in different places with the interactive 360° globe. Jump between countries on an intuitive map, then click through when you’re ready to learn more.

via BBC

How to: Instead of embedding your photography directly into your article, start with a 360° image of the globe on ThingLink. Then link your individual images where they belong on the map, and add captions and links right onto the image. Readers will easily be able to connect the images with the written content.

Toronto Life: Lifestyle

Here Toronto Life already has mouthwatering photography to complement their piece about where to get Texas barbecue in Toronto. They use interactivity to make their images even more compelling, using tags to breakdown all the bites we see in the photos. Easily distinguish beef ribs, from spareribs, from baby back with tags that not only I.D. the items but tell the viewer more. Instead of a long list beneath the image numbering the elements, the information is readily available and easy to read.

via Toronto Life