Analyzing Community Engagement Through Social Media

By Victor Luckerson

Editor-in-Chief, The Crimson White

University of Alabama

Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Vic.luckerson@gmail.com

Abstract: Two members of The Crimson White Community Engagement Team and

four active users of CW social media were interviewed to determine the most

effective methods of sparking conversations in social media, how to effectively drive

traffic to a news organization’s website and how a social media presence affects a

news organization’s overall brand. Web analytics were also analyzed to measure

the influence of social media on overall readership.

This year The Crimson White (CW) launched a new initiative to better

connect with its audience and deliver content in an efficient manner. A community

engagement team was formed, comprised of a community manager, an assistant

community manager, a paid staffer and two interns. The team was given some broad

goals of increasing the CW’s following on social media, fostering more conversations

about campus issues and engaging students at in-person events as well. In practice,

the team operated fairly independently, almost as a third arm of The Crimson White

in addition to the editorial and advertising staff. This paper aims to gauge the

effectiveness of the Community Engagement Team, both in terms of brand

strengthening and driving traffic to the CW website.

Literature Review

Most texts concerning social media emphasize the point that social media use

is completely pervasive among young people today. In the article “Social Media and

Young Latinos: A Cross-Cultural Examination,” the article first references some

earlier studies which show that almost all young people today use social media.

People typically use social media sites for “reading and responding to notes and

messages, reading comments and posts written on their profile page and wall, and

browsing friends’ profiles and walls,” according to one 2008 study. The study also

found that TV suffers the most from Latinos’ use of social media; many respondents

said they use TV less because of the time they spend on social media sites. According

to the study, MySpace offers a strong feeling of social acceptance, while Twitter is

used to access news and information.i Understanding the nuances of the different

social media sites will be key going forward.

The article “What Some Young Adults Dislike About Print Newspapers and

Their Ideas for Change” was a very interesting look at what elements of newspapers

may no longer be viable in the future. In general, from the young people surveyed

for this study, newspapers today are too unwieldy and too slow to release new

information compared to the Internet. Many survey respondents said the print

newspaper limited their ability to multi-task and just the act of getting the paper

required more effort than going online. They also said it could be hard to find stories

relevant to them in a newspaper, since much of the information is redundant with

what other forms of media are covering.ii Social media addresses many of these

issues by playing into users’ desire to multitask (they can catch up on headlines

while scouring Facebook or Twitter) and providing for multiple avenues to access

content.

The article “Harnessing Social Media” from the American Journalism Review

talks about professional newspapers that have added the “social media editor”

position to their staff, such as the Associated Press, the Austin American-Statesman

and the Baltimore Sun. The article discusses the dual purpose of social media editors

in promoting a news organization’s content and engaging in conversation with the

audience to gather story ideas and hear audience concerns.

One interesting idea brought up in the article is topic-specific Twitter

accounts. The Austin American-Statesman created a brand new Twitter account just

for Hurricane Ike coverage, @trackingike, and was able to generate 300,000 hits to

their website through the account. This concept cleverly gets around the complaints

users sometimes have of news organizations clogging up their Twitter feeds—if you

want in-depth coverage of a certain topic, you choose to follow that account in

addition to a general news account. Such an approach has huge potential for big

breaking news events and for high-profile calendar events (sports, elections, etc.).iii

The fact that professional organizations are coming around to social media

shows its importance and that it is definitely here to stay. The Baltimore Sun social

media editor said that such avenues allow news organizations access to people who

otherwise probably wouldn’t read their content. One editor notes that people today

are less likely to seek out a news website—they’d rather have the information sent

to them through social media.

The article “Celebrating Innovation” outlined several award-winning online

journalism concepts that wouldn’t have been possible in the print age. The most

fascinating concept was the “Obameter,” in which the St. Petersburg Times evaluates

whether Obama has kept more than 500 promises he made on the 2008 campaign

trail. Such a concept has fantastic possibilities that can be applied at the state, local

and campus level. iv

All of the innovations highlighted make use of the Internet’s ability to present

vast amounts of information in an easily digestible way and gather information from

many different sources at once. The innovations show a promise for the

development of journalism in the future into an even more powerful tool in our

society.

Methodology

In order to ascertain which elements of the Community Engagement Team’s

activities have been most effective, the community manager and assistant

community manager were interviewed and asked to discuss what they thought had

worked the best, what the biggest challenges were and how they thought their work

had affected The Crimson White brand. They were also asked to identify several

social media users who engage heavily with The Crimson White. Four of these users

were interviewed (two in person, two by e-mail) to try understand what they get

out of CW social media. Users were asked how much of their interaction with The

CW came through social media, whether the CW's social media presence had gotten

them to read more stories than in past years, what types of stories encouraged them

to comment on CW stories through social media, whether they preferred interacting

with The CW through Twitter or Facebook, how they viewed the CW's tone in social

media and how they thought The CW could make them engage more through social

media.

A variety of analytics tools were also used to gauge the impact social media

has had on Web traffic. Google Analytics tracks the overall traffic to a website as

well as all of the sources that direct traffic to a site. Bit.ly is a Twitter link shortening

site that The Crimson White uses for all its tweets--through this site one can track

the number of users that click any bit.ly link. Twittercounter.com was used to

measure the growth of the CW's Twitter followers over the last several months.

Facebook Insights provides demographic data and growth-over-time information

for a Facebook company page.

Results

Research Question 1: What has been the growth in the number of social media

users since the launch of the community engagement team?

I first wanted to establish what growth The Crimson White has found on

Facebook and Twitter since the establishment of the community engagement team.

The Crimson White first established Facebook and Twitter accounts in mid-2009;

however, growth increased sharply following the takeover of new editorial

leadership in April 2010.

Facebook grew from 944 fans on April 1 to 3,672 fans on December 1. A

significant portion of this growth occrred between April 21 and May 5, when the

number of Facebook fans grew by almost 1700. This rapid growth can be attributed

to an active effort by the CW staff to acquire more fans; all CW staffers were asked to

invite all of their Facebook friends to become fans of The Crimson White. Because

the fan count before was so much lower than the CW’s readership, there was

massive potential for new fans, leading to a very rapid initial wave of growth.

Since that time, Facebook growh has been very sporadic, ranging anywhere

from 20 to more than 100 new fans per week. In the two weeks between August 18

and September 1, The Crimson White gained 200 Facebook fans. This was likely at

least in part because of a week-long contest held on The CW’s Facebook page giving

away tickets to the Greekfest concert on the University of Alabama campus. Users

had to answer trivia questions by writing on the CW’s Facebook page to be entered

for a chance to win tickets. The contest was also advertised in the print edition of

the paper. This contest seemed to be effective in increasing the fanbase by a

significant amount. A similar contest was held between September 29 and October

6, and Facebook fans grew by 71 that week.

Twitter growth has been much more consistent increasing by about 15-20

followers per week throughout the summer and 45-55 per week during the school

year. Typically contest giveaways have been handled exclusively through Facebook

instead of Twitter.

CW readers said the increased social media presence has made them more

interested in The Crimson White as a whole. “It seems like something that is

interested in my views,” junior Chris Izor said. “Not only because every day when I

get on Facebook, there’s something from The CW that says, ‘What are your

thoughts?’ but also the improved website helps.”

“I feel like it’s more in-tune with students,” junior Walker Donaldson said.

“[The CW] is always very good about printing student opinions and multiple sides of

an argument, but this year because social media is so prevalent on campus, [The

CW] is becoming more [a part of] the student population. Last year and freshman

year, it was like, ‘Well, I’ll pick up a CW, read it, and throw it away before I leave

campus. I don’t feel like I’m getting any immediate feedback.’ With social media, you

post an article on Facebook, people are going to comment on Facebook to you right

there. People who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in writing a 250-500 word

letter to the editor to the CW and submitting it are going to give you a response right

there.” In general the students interviewed said The CW’s social media made the

paper feel more connected to campus.

The Community Engagement Team shared a similar perspective. “I think it

helped to put the brand back into students’ hands,” community manager Marion

Steinberg said. “I think people have a much more personal relationship with the

paper now. I have never in my history of being at this university heard anyone say

they loved the paper, that they couldn’t wait to read it. On social media, they will be

like, ‘I love The CW. I loved picking up The CW today.’ People see themselves in the

paper, they get excited. People see us talking to them, they get excited.”

Research Question 2: Does increased social media presence correlate to

increased web traffic?

From the first day through the last day of publication in the fall 2010

semester, The Crimson White received 548,642 pageviews on its website,

cw.ua.edu. During the fall 2009 semester, the website received 423,145 pageviews.

That’s a 30% increase year over year. How much of that increase can be attributed

to increased social media efforts?

In fall 2009, Facebook accounted for 10,253 visits to the CW website, and

5.04% of the CW’s overall web traffic. Twitter accounted for 991 visits and 0.49% of

the CW’s overall web traffic.

In fall 2010, Facebook accounted for 31,639 visits to the CW website, a

209% increase. Visitors from Facebook made up 12% of the CW’s oveall web traffic.

Twitter accounted for 5,446 visits, a 450% increase compared to 2009. Visitors from

Twitter made up 2.12% of the CW’s overall web traffic. In total the CW’s traffic from

social media increased from about 5.5% of overall traffic to 12.5% of overall traffic.

Given available tools, there is no way to determine how much of this increase

is because of people clicking on links provided by The Crimson White and how much

is because of students choosing to retweet CW stories or post them on their

Facebook walls. The CW website has easy-to-use Twitter and Facebook “Share”

buttons that were not on the website last year. However, the numbers do show that

in general The CW is much more present in users’ news feeds, whether it’s coming

from other users or The Crimson White itself.

“It seems like more people I know who do not necessarily go out of their way

to get The Crimson White have interacted with it because of social media,” Izor said.

“I don’t pick up a Crimson White every day. In fact, most days I don’t. And yet, I

know more than half the stories on a daily basis, mainly because social media

directs me there in the ten minutes I’m killing between classes. When there are

important things…I see other people posting it through social media. It’s almost like

the social media progress the CW has made this year has inspired social media

interaction with The CW from people who are not necessarily in The CW.”

Donaldson said he usually picks up the print edition. If he sees an article he

really likes and thinks should be read by others, he’ll retweet it. He said he does this

at least once a week. Senior Phillip Grant said that when he sees an interesting story

from the CW Twitter, he’ll actually go get a print edition to read it in that format.

Research Question 3: Which stories and topics garnered the most click-

through on Twitter and Facebook?

It’s clear that the Community Engagement Team’s efforts to harness social

media have raised the CW’s web traffic, but which stories specifically are people

flocking to through social media? The five most heavily clicked CW links during fall

2010 were:

Kappa Sigma gets charter revoked – 381 clicks

Brawl at BP leaves man hospitalized – 307 clicks

Who is Cameron Newton? – 248 clicks

Farewell Four Loko – 84 clicks

CW Facebook Semester in Review – 80 clicks

The stories that received the most clicks were big breaking news stories.

Following the breaking news were features on names and products very

recognizable to college students—Cameron Newton, Four Loko and Facebook. The

data seems to show that students are most interested in receiving from The Crimson

White dramatic breaking news or odd stories that catch their eye based on name

recognition.

The Community Engagement Team identified controversial opinions columns,

sports stories and big national stories as the types of stories that can often attract a

lot of clicks.

When CW Content Goes Viral

However, what The CW chooses to present and what users decide to

distribute through social media can be very different. On Nov. 8 The Crimson White

published a column called “Scientific support for creationism strong,” which

attempted to provide a scientific basis for teaching creationism in science classes in

schools. The column was tweeted by movie critic Roger Ebert with the comment,

“Supports creationism in Alabama paper, gets annihilated in the comments.” That

tweet was retweeted by 52 other people and the column ended up attracting 771

visits through Twitter on that day alone. Overall the column received 1900

pageviews from Twitter, about 20% of its total of 9600 pageviews (35% of its views

came from being posted on reddit.com). A similar situation happened with a Dec. 3

column critical of Qatar’s selection as the host of the 2022 World Cup. The column

garnered hundreds of hits from people outside the UA community through Twitter.

While the creationism article garnered huge hits largely by being placed on a

national pedestal, there have also been articles that have gone viral on social media

within the UA community. A September 17 article that was extremely critical of the

University of Alabama marching band received almost 4500 pageviews from

Facebook (two thirds of its total pageviews). It only received 648 views from people

navigating directly to it from the CW website. This example shows the powerful

effects social media can have in distributing information rapidly.

Research Question 4: What stories and topics generated the most

conversation through social media?

Sometimes the stories that attract a lot of hits and the stories that generate a

lot of conversation can be very different. While comments on the actual CW website

are almost entirely for opinions articles, interactions on Twitter and Facebook are

much more diverse. The five articles/questions that garnered the most comments

on the CW Facebook page were:

A debate about the role of unpopular opinions in a newspaper in the fallout

over the marching band column – 26 comments

A reposting of an al.com article that showed that Tim James was leading the

polls for the gubernatorial Republican primary – 19 responses

Reactions to the gubernatorial debate held on the UA campus in September –

13 comments

Asking people to describe their experience at the Universit’s “Quiddtich on

the Quad” event in 3 words – 13 comments

Discussion about the World Cup over the summer – 11 comments

While people will use The CW’s Facebook page to talk about CW content, they

also seem to have a very strong interest in using the page as a gathering place to

discuss state and national issues. It can also be a good place to get simple, “fun”

reactions or responses to certain stories—the Quidditch response is a good

example, and requests for favorite mobile phone apps and favorite Christmas songs

also received strong responses.

Research Question 5: What are the most effective methods in sparking

conversation and driving traffic through social media?

In general, the stories that resonate strongly through social media reference

a common experience that many users can relate to—hence the “social” aspect of

the discussion. Steinberg pointed to parking problems on campus as an issue that

had gotten lots of responses on Twitter. “Thousands of students are going through

campus trying to park and it’s really easy for people to be like, ‘This is frustrating

me.’ Done. You don’t have to have any knowledge of any particular reference to

culture to talk about parking or Bama Dining. It just appeals to everybody. Broad-

based, low intellectual-level topics are usually pretty big.”

The Crimson White also puts tweets in the print edition through an

occasional “Tweet of the Week” section, where the Community Engagement Team

will gather tweets with opinions for an upcoming news story, and the most

interesting tweets will be printed alongside the story. This program usually

generates lots of conversation, and all the users interviewed remembered exactly

how many times their tweets had been selected to be printed in the paper.

Izor said stories about campus issues inspire him to become engaged with

the CW. “We have an apathetic campus and we have a campus full of apathetic

students,” he said. “Social media is a way that all of us can essentially put forth our

complains or our ideas that never make it to University officials. Social media is a

way that we’re already interacting and expressing our opinion so readily that it

takes a platform like that to engage a campus where students are not usually

engaging themselves.”

Donaldson, Stephens and Grant also said hot-button issues are most likely to

get them talking and sharing.

Discussion

Overall the Community Engagement Team’s use of social media seems to

have significantly affected users’ perception of The Crimson White and made them

feel more connected to the publication. Their efforts have also helped to create a

greater culture of sharing CW content, so that users are more likely to distribute CW

content themselves through social media than they were a year ago.

The CE Teaam has achieved some of its success by being much more

conversational than many news organizations. Most tweets from the CE team do not

post link to headlines, but instead lead discussions or provide students answers to

questions about campus life. “We try to stay aloof but also progress the

conversation,” said Josh Hedrick, assistant community manager. “We try to respond

to everyone who engages with us.” Hedrick said they typically talk to 90-95% of t he

people that tweet them, especially if they are first-time engagers. The CW also

follows anyone who engages with The CW on Twitter.

“Sometimes we can use other people’s ideas to progress the conversation. So

we can be opinionated, but it’s not our ideas,” Steinberg said.

It was interesting that users feel that The CW is only now engaging and

listening to them through social media, when the publication has had an opinions

page that accepts student columns and letters to the editor for decades. Donaldson

said students today prefer social media over letters for expressing their views

because it’s easier and more interactive. “It’s easier to defend yourself. Once you

send a letter to the editor, you’re likely not going to respond to what could be a

response to your letter. On Facebook, if you write a comment and someone writes a

comment responding to you, you can write back and have dialogue on Facebook.”

Interactivity—a concept completely foreign to newspapers a few short years

ago—plays a key role in getting young people to care about a product. Because The

Crimson White has become a much more interactive publication, it has managed to

get people more deeply invested in its coveage.

Regarding the future development of the team, Hedrick said he’d like to see

the team develop more autonomy, with a similar amount of power to the editorial

and advertising departments of the organization.

Steinberg said she’d like to see the group begin making attempts to use

FourSquare to get people to “check in” at the CW table at various physical events.

She also stressed getting students to send in more photos, through tools such as

Twitpic and Flickr.

She said more specific roles for team members would be useful—having a

social media coordinator, an outreach coordinator and other roles.

i Albarran et. al (2010) Social Media and Young Latinos: A Cross-Cultural Examination (Academic paper presented at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication 2010 Convention)

ii Zerba, Amy (2010). What Some Young Adults Dislike About Print Newspapers and Their Ideas for Change. (Academic paper presented at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication 2010 Convention)

iii Gleason, Stephanie (2010, March). Harnessing Social Media: News outlets are assigning staffers to focus on networking.. American Journalism Review http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4860

iv Rieder, Rem (2010, September). Celebrating Innovation: Exciting new approaches to journalism. American Journalism Review, http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4919