With 600+ million users -- and counting, counting very fast --  Facebook is an obvious target for journalists trying to figure out how to use social media to connect with readers and sources and, of course, distribute their work.

However, as Mathew Ingram points out in a recent post (excerpted below), Facebook started as a place to socialize, not to consume news, so it's not obvious how journalists should join the party. Recognizing this lack of clarity, Facebook is hiring journalists, such as Vadim Lavrusik, to help journalists figure it out.

There's no doubt that Facebook -- helped by its just-turned-one-year-old Like/Recommend button -- is driving more traffic to news media sites. But there are still few examples of successful engagement strategies. Facebook has been trotting out the same few success stories for months, focusing on standouts such as New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof, NPR's fan page and Vanity Fair turning its page over to "guest editor" Justin Bieber.

So the search continues. No doubt Mr. Lavrusik, who just started his Facebook job this week, will come up with many good ideas and share them on Facebook's journalist page.

The page already has some good, basic advice. Here are two bullet points that largely mirror the advice we have been giving reporters and editors for all social media:

• Interact with your readers: Ask questions, solicit feedback, and crowdsource content on your Page's wall.
• Be personal: People like your Page on Facebook to connect with you and your work. Whenever possible, share updates directly in first person voice. 

Below are several other recent takes on the issue. Have I missed any smart thinking? If so, please share.

Facebook: Hey, We’re a Great Tool for Journalists Too!

By Mathew Ingram

...the challenge for Facebook is that while Twitter seems perfectly designed to be a real-time news and information network, many users still likely think of Facebook as a place to socialize rather than be informed — a place to play games, or look at funny pictures and videos, but not necessarily a place where journalists are active. Those things may not be mutually exclusive, but it’s going to take some work to make them feel like they belong together.

Facebook’s Growing Role in Social Journalism

By Vadim Lavrusik

One of the key advantages of Facebook over other social platforms is the sheer number of potential sources it presents for journalists. At National Public Radio, its 1.5+ million-member Facebook community is invaluable for finding sources, said Eyder Peralta, an associate producer on NPR’s social media desk.

“There hasn’t been any query that we haven’t gotten good sources for,” Peralta said. From finding high school dropouts to people who have recently been laid off from their jobs, Peralta said the organization regularly posts inquiries for sources as status updates on its page and receives hundreds of valuable responses. “We’re using it as a megaphone, and people have always been extremely helpful.”

An advantage of Facebook is that users are able to privately message anyone on Facebook without having to be their “friend.” So after a reporter or producer sees a source they want to interview, they’ll contact that person through a private message from his personal Facebook profile. In some cases, users will even volunteer their phone numbers in the comments for a reporter to get in touch.

The case of high heels: How open-ended questions on Facebook can spark story leads

By Roy Peter Clark

The most powerful tool for getting reader feedback and generating civil conversation is the open-ended question. Ask readers, in print or online, what they think or how they feel, and you can inspire double or triple the number of usual responses.

Some (very rough) notes for a talk with a copy editing class at USC:

Changes in the media landscape. Rapid change in the business.

Print dominated How it used to be.

Here's all the important events that happened in your community, or depending on the ambition of the newspaper you were reading, world.

Once a day. Used to be enough to publish once, or a few times a day. Or even special extra editions. Descrete deadlines.  

Now 24 hour newsroom. 

Not enough to sit back, must distribute news in many channels. 

Not when they are spending more and more time on Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks. Nielsen reported last summer that 22% of all time spent online is on social networks.

Who saw the James Rainey piece about Neon Tommy? 

Our social history at the Times.

Can't sit back and assume people will continue to type latimes.com into their browsers or even from search engines.

Woof: New social networks created all the time. Never know what is going to resonate with masses next. W

We bet heavily on Twitter and Facebook. 

Trying other avenues as they arise. Tumblr for instance 

Bottom line: not really an different from what jounalists and other story tellers have been doing for centuries.

Study what does well on Social Networks. 

So what can an aspiring journalist do to break into the business? 

Proliferation of good information, never a better time to be studying journalism. Graduate level discussions happening everyday online.

Harvard's Neiman Lab and Poynter.org are a great places to start

Also use Twitter, follow people who are tweeting about topics that interest you.

Questions?

--Ultimate news tip service, California staff has gotten social media tips that have produced at least a dozen front page stories in the last year

--michelle obama  Someone tweeted after seeing her at Pink's. We called the hot dog stand -- and yes, she had been there. (eating a mild polish sausage w/ grilled onions and jalapenos). 

--From one of our columnists: I find Twitter more useful and informative than email. Email is jammed w spam and 98 percent I toss but Twitter following the right people I get lots of tips, info and impt links.

--From one of our business reporters: I'm followed by many industry sources and executives and my tweets and their tweets (geez, I hate that word), has led to stories and better relationships. Even just tweeting about sporting events I'm watching has brought me closer to some sources who have the same interests.find out more quickly when scooped

--personal engagement most effective. Just like in real life, building trusting relationships with sources. Mark Horvath example

--great success with our Festival of Books twitter account. Really became a phenom last year, started using the hashtag #LATfob and carried over.

We are also trying to improve reader engagement on our own site.

A couple quick examples:

--Neighborhood pages, give people in LA County the opportunity to explore our maps and share information about the places they live

--More live chats on our Readers Representative Journal blog.

Here's a more advanced use of Storify. D.C. online news site TBD used the tool to build a snow-storm-vs.-the-commute post. It's a great way to blend old-time reporting with crowd sourcing on a story that is experienced by a large cross-section of people.

Here' a screen grab (click through to see the original) of our blog post about celebrity reaction on Twitter to President Obama’s State of the Union address:

Below is a re-creation I did in Storify. It took me about 10 minutes, and I didn’t have to deal with messy formatting details or copy-pasting hyperlinks. Of course, being a family-newspaper-type website, we couldn’t have included Vinny’s tweet in the Storify portion, but that’s a small price to pay, in my opinion. Plus Storify builds in tools that make it easy to share your post (on Twitter) with the people you quoted (from Twitter). It’s feedback-loop building genius.

Tweeters' Digest: What TV celebs tweeted during the State of the Union speech

It takes a special kind of celebrity to let go of their daily self-promotional twitter rituals and involve themselves in the political news of the day. Here's what a handful of actors, commentators and reality stars tweeted last night:   

Creating an account with still-beta Storify is dead simple. Just sign onto your Twitter account, go to Storify, and hit the *Login* button. The tools are drag drop and very intuitive, but if you have specific questions feel free to ping me.

Some interesting takeaways from the Facebook/Online News Assn. event I attended at Facebook HQ last week:

• Facebook, motivated to improve its tools for helping journalists present stories, connect with readers and drive traffic to our websites, has embarked on a nationwide listening tour to gather feedback and give advice. They’ll be coming to the Times next month (mark Thursday, Feb. 17, on your calendars).
• In the meantime, check out Facebook’s media page for tips: http://www.facebook.com/media or sign up for a free webinar to be held Feb. 1 from  11 am to noon. Here’s the link: http://www.naa.org/Events.aspx (you’ll have to create an account with naa.org first).
• Basic advice for journalists: set up a fan page, engage your fans, rig your mobile device so you can publish to page from anywhere.
• Since Facebook upgraded its social plugins – ie the Like buttons on site, blog and article levels – news orgs using them have seen an 100% increase in referral traffic from Facebook. According to Facebook officials, referral traffic for the Independent (UK) has soared 680% and the Washington Post more than 200%.
• San Jose Mercury News has replaced its article comment system with Facebook’s plugin and believes the quality of conversation has improved. The Merc is working with Facebook to improve moderation options.
• National Public Radio strategist Andy Carvin says the conversation on the NPR fan page – which has 1.4 million fans  – is of higher quality than on NPR’s official site. NPR posts 8-10 times a day on its fan page and routinely get more than 500 comments on a post; referral traffic is up to 4.5 million a month (about half from the fan page and half from NPR.org site like/share tools). 
• NPR’s uses this threshold for whether to post a story on Facebook: Will our friends want to talk about this? NPR Facebook audience is 70% GenX and GenY. “We have almost no one older than 65, and almost no one under 18,” Carvin said. NPR uses the fan page as a sourcing tool 3 to 4 times a week and almost always receives useful tips that are used in stories. “We have gotten our Facebook fans used to the idea that they are part of our brainstorming team,” he said.
• Read more about Carvin’s presentation here: http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/01/nprs-facebook-page-a-multi-million-pageview-machine/. 

Here are some of the choice tweets and a YouTube video from the event: