Best Media Practices

Now a top-five referrer to the websites of many a publisher, as well as a valuable feedback tool, Facebook has become an essential part of the content and audience development strategies of most media organizations.

To capitalize on the potential of Facebook and other user-heavy social networks, publishers have hired community managers and digital strategists to optimize traffic and engagement on those platforms. Editors, reporters and producers are likewise tapping into Facebook, using reactions from fans to improve their storytelling methods.

We spoke with several talented people fulfilling these roles at major media organizations, and we’ve gathered their thoughts below.

1. Choose the Right Media Content

Publishers have found that certain kinds of content perform better than others on Facebook, particularly content that inspires emotional connections with readers.

“We share stories that are emotional triggers, that are not just informational,” says Ryan Osborn, director of social media at NBC News, noting that stories about social justice, politics and timely issues tend to inspire the best discussions.

The goal across NBC’s portfolio of pages, which includes the Today show and Dateline, he says, is less about driving traffic to NBCNews.com or to fans’ TVs, and more about starting conversations, which provide valuable feedback to the network’s producers and reporters.

Andy Carvin, a senior strategist on NPR‘s social media desk, says that reporters and producers begin the story selection process by asking themselves what stories their friends would want to share and talk about with other people on Facebook. Carvin says stories about science, music and culture are among the biggest traffic drivers, and that exclusive first listens of new music “are always a hit.”

2. Add a Thoughtful Caption

Story links with a thoughtful question or statement attached tend to perform much better in terms of response and click-throughs, the experts say.

“Posing questions is a good way to stir debate,” says Ed O’Keefe, executive producer of ABCNews.com. “We don’t always ask a question, however. Sometimes [we post] a statement or perspective, sometimes photo or videos,” he adds.

Other publishers agree that variety and thoughtfulness are key. Brainless, formulaic questions are uninteresting and often offensive to readers — and readers will let them know that they find them so.

“Understand that your fans and followers are expecting the same editorial quality from your brand no matter what platform they are on. Take the time to craft engaging editorial posts,” advises Laura Heck, executive director of audience development at Time.com.

NPR’s Carvin agrees: “If you’re going to ask them questions, ask them smart ones; don’t waste their time with pandering questions.”

Posts should also have a reasonable amount of personality, O’Keefe says. “Post as a user,” he advises. “Really try to infuse it with the personal as much as [you] can. If it’s stuffy and individual, no one’s going to read it,” he explains.

3. Time Your Posts

The amount of times publishers post to their Facebook walls each day varies. Time.com posts six to eight posts per day on Facebook, Heck says. Additional posts are sent overnight from staff at Time’s international bureaus, when readers outside of the U.S. are more active, Allie Townsend, Time.com’s social media producer, says.

NPR posts 8 to 10 stories per day, Carvin says, spacing them out “by at least an hour” so as not to overwhelm fans. “You’d think that 8 to 10 times per day is too much, but when we’ve surveyed our users, less than 10% of them felt it was too much, so it seems to be our sweet spot,” he adds, noting that additional posts are sent out at night “to reach a crowd that’s different than our daytime crowd.”

Anxious not to overwhelm its audience, NBC News posts about five times per day on average, Osborn says.

Publishers say they will make exceptions to their posting schedules to allow for breaking news announcements, although Kanalley of the Huffington Post says the company “shows restraint during breaking news,” because Facebook’s environment is different than Twitter’s.

Last month, KMOV TV station turned to Facebook when a tornado struck the St. Louis airport, posting warnings to readers, as well as photos and videos of damage, some of which were crowdsourced from readers. Posts were tagged by individual journalists, more closely replicating the broadcaster-to-viewer experience, and adding a layer of transparency to the updates.

4. Listen & Engage

Unlike many other forms of media, Facebook is not a broadcast platform; it’s a social one. As such, listening and responding to fans is an essential part of a media organization’s Facebook strategy, publishers say.

“We don’t want to become a news organization that only places value in the number of clicks we generate per post,” says Townsend of Time.com. “We want to be a gathering place for people to discuss the news of the day,” she explains, adding that readers “want to feel like there’s someone on the other end listening to what they have to say.”

NPR’s Carvin agrees. “Let [your fans] know there are real people running the page, not just a faceless, monolithic institution,” he says. “And if you’re able to create journalism around any information you’ve gleaned from them, be sure to report back to them so they can see the result of their efforts. It’s important for them to know that they’re actually helping you be a better news organization,” he advises.

The Huffington Post closely monitors conversations after posting, traffic and trends editor Craig Kanalley says. “It’s a great way to get honest feedback about how we’re doing,” he explains. “When clarification is needed, we will jump into a Facebook comment thread and do so using the Huffington Post account itself” — a common practice across large media organizations, we’ve found.

5. Use Feedback to Inform Storytelling

While publishers recognize Facebook’s value as a traffic referrer, many emphasize the platform’s value as a tool for feedback that can help improve not only their social media strategies, but also the way they source, develop and tell stories.

“It’s about interacting with the people who love us and listening to the people who don’t, because both can help us strengthen our reporting,” says Carvin of NPR. “We monitor a variety of metrics just like any other news organization would on Facebook, but we pay particular attention to whenever our interactions with the public lead to better journalism. If talking with our Facebook fans helps us report or tell a story better, that’s a success in my book,” he adds.

Time.com’s Heck agrees. “We often review analytics and insights to understand more about our top-performing posts, but look at our Facebook page primarily as an editorial tool.”

6. Journalists Should Use It, Too

Facebook’s utility doesn’t begin and end in the digital strategy department. Facebook is also proving useful for journalists, and is keen to be seen as such.

Facebook’s Vadim Lavrusik, an adjunct professor at Columbia’s journalism school who recently joined the company to oversee journalist outreach efforts, encourages journalists to set up their own public Pages. With Pages, journalists can attract a following greater than the 5,000 friend limit imposed on personal profiles, and create a newsfeed unique from the one that appears on their personal profiles.

He points to journalists such as Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, who has used his Page to post updates while reporting abroad. These posts often give readers a behind-the-scenes look at Kristof’s reporting, ranging from reports of heavy gunfire heard during phone interviews with sources in Libya, to real-time updates of protests in Bahrain. These updates, Lavrusik says, spread through the newsfeeds of his more than 200,000 Facebook fans, reaching thousands of potential new readers in the process.

Writers like Rob Carrick of the Globe and Mail and Fareed Zakaria of CNN are also utilizing Facebook as a tool to solicit feedback and start dialogues with readers, whilst Diane Sawyer’s team posts behind-the-scenes videos of her meetings and interviews to her Page.

Source: Mashable

More Information on Social Media Communication

You can read more about social media communication inside our communication blog.