The biggest upsets in last week’s Iowa Caucus may have been in the media rather than the field of Republican presidential candidates. Google outshone the Associated Press in its ability to report the election returns, surprising veterans in old media. But reading the social media landscape before the caucuses failed to predict the outcome, showing that new media still don’t have the full picture.

To help out as the New Hampshire primary rolls around, Storify has put together 10 lessons from the Iowa Caucus for using social media to report on elections. Storify is the front page of social media news, and its curation tools are employed by all kinds of major media companies. Storify’s list of election coverage strategies also includes some news. Storify has just released a search tool in beta, allowing users to search across previously “Storified” elements to embed them in your stories.

On the night of the Iowa Caucus, news organizations raced to keep up with the Web to report results, but social media are always hard to filter for quality information. Storify’s tools helped news organizations like the New York Times, PBS Newshour and the Des Moines Register tune in to the signal and filter out the noise. “It was deadline curation at a new level,” says Storify’s Jeff Elder.
Here are Storify’s 10 tips. Pay special attention to the golden rules at the end.