Social Media 101 Twitter and Facebook Strategy for College Newsrooms

#social101 NYC12 3/19/2012

Mandy Jenkins @mjenkins

Find Your Persona

Questions to Ask

• What sort of tone is right for my audience?

• Who is my audience?

• What do they want?

• When is my audience online?

Who You Should Follow •  Other on and off-campus publications

•  Student and local blogs

•  Those who RT and reply to you

•  Popular people in the local Twittersphere

•  Your staff

Finding who to follow

• By subject/location: Twellow.com, Wefollow.com

• Look at others’ follows/followers

• Spy on Twitter lists/Search

Listorious.com

Interacting With Users

8 Rules of Social Interaction

1. Respond to replies, comments and questions (especially questions) everywhere

2. Be transparent in all you do

3. Ask for help when you need it 4. Be thankful

8 Rules of Social Interaction

5. Make corrections quickly and publicly

6. Address criticism without spats

7. Be consistent

8. Don't just push your content out

Who manages it?

When do we update?

Think like a student! It snowed - are sidewalks plowed? Are

classes on time? Is there an awesome thing happening today? Wha? Free burritos? What's going on tonight? What happened last night?

Search.Twitter.Com

Search by keywords, location, time All public tweets Also can be done in desktop, mobile apps

RT News and Photos

Ask For Tips

Trendsmap.com

Local Twitter Trends

trendsmap.com/local/us/cityname

Curate Your Campus •  Keep open searches for local keywords for

daily use

•  Establish a hashtag for students to send you info/photos

Go Live For News & Events Update often, maybe start a hashtag?

Storify.com

Curate & Publish

What Not to Do

Brands Behaving Badly

Brands Behaving Badly

Facebook Be more than just friends

Create An Engaging Presence

Take advantage of timeline with photos, milestones and videos

Whatever You 'Like' • What would you share on Facebook?

•  Ask questions, feature the responses in stories

•  During news, you can't overpost

•  Photos and videos work well

Watch Analytics

Wording Matters

• Posed Questions +64%

• Call to read or take a closer look +37%

• Personal reflections +25%

• Clever, catchy tone +18%

% more feedback over average Source: Facebook

Images Matter

Mandy Jenkins

Twitter: @mjenkins ZombieJournalism.com

Find these slides at:

slideshare.net/mandyjenkins