Social Media in Six Steps

Monique BeechDigital Content Director, Sun Media

@moniquebeech

Social Media in Six Steps

#1 Make social media part of your daily story planning.

* Treat your A1 story as your A1 social media priority. Ensure your top story is played up on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Take time to post a question on Facebook; add a photo to your tweet; be conversational - don’t just copy and paste your headline.

* Use a common hashtag or start your own to generate conversation.

* Target any influencers on Twitter. @mentions are a great tool to increase your reach

* Tweet your top story more than once. Twitter moves fast. Chances are the same person won’t see the same tweet twice.

Social Media in Six Steps

#2 Create a social media checklist for your newsroomQuestions for you to keep in mind

1. Am I posting interesting content? Types of content that does well on social media: Breaking news, community landmarks, polls, strong images, humour

2. Am I posting often enough? Give yourself a daily target.

3. Am I engaging people? Ask a question. Use a conversational, fun tone if the story is fun. Post more opinion columns.

4. Am I incorporating content from my readers? Consider adding reader-submitted pics, etc., on Facebook

5. Am I using photos/video well? Big pictures, standalones, videos help posts stand out on Twitter, Facebook feeds, particularly for the mobile audience.

Social Media in Six Steps

#3 Reporters need to work at Twitter if they want results

* Be linky. Share what you’re reading, watching, etc. Show you’re human

* Use @mentions to drive conversation, increase chances of retweets

* Tweet in bursts. Live tweet your beat. Yes, you might annoy some followers but you’ll like gain more than you annoy

* Use hashtags where they make sense. Use pics

More info here: https://blog.twitter.com/2012/best-practices-journalists

BONUS: Advanced twitter search is your best friend:

https://support.twitter.com/articles/71577-using-advanced-search#

https://twitter.com/search-advanced

Get to know Twitter lists: https://twitter.com/moniquebeech/lists http://mashable.com/2013/05/31/new-twitter-lists/

Social Media in Six Steps

#4 Get to know a social media dashboardWhat they are: One-stop shop for social media to help you monitor and post

social content

* Get to know one of these: Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Bufferapp - all of these dashboards will help you manage social content more effectively https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/

Pro tip: Facebook also allows you to schedule content ahead of time.

Social Media in Six Steps

#5 Explore Facebook insights for your fan pageRich set of data to show you who your Facebook fans are (i.e. gender, where

they live, languages spoken), what posts they’re clicking on, sharing, liking; Your likes/unlikes over time; How many people you reached through your posts;

Social Media in Six Steps

#6 Bring social media onto your website* Nearly all social media content has an embed code which can be added to

your website.

RECAP: Social Media in Six Steps

1. Make social media/online part of your daily story planning.

2. Create a social media checklist for your newsroom.

3. Reporters need to work at Twitter if they want results.

4. Get to know a social media dashboard.

5. Explore Facebook insights for your fan page.

6. Bring social media onto your website.

To contact me: @moniquebeech || More tips: http://blogs.canoe.ca/moniquesmorningminute/