By Abby Young-Powell
This week I have been Social Media Editor for the Hackney Post. It has been stimulating, hard work and a learning curve. Here is some of what I have learnt so far…
Those who don’t know may (wrongly) assume that it’s an easy job, to Tweet for a living. So you’ve just been sitting on Facebook all day? My housemates ask. Well yes, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
Firstly, it is important to set up a Social Media Strategy. Alison Battisby, Head of Social Media for Crowd Marketing, has said that it is important to have clear goals; i.e. how many followers do you want to gain on Twitter? How many page views are you striving for? In a strategy you must clearly set out your purpose, processes and platforms.
Working as Social Media Editor for a news room involves communication. It means sitting alongside the reporters and negotiating with the Editors. A large part of your job is helping to source stories using Social Media and putting reporters in touch with potential case studies and interviewees. Social Media platforms are a tool that it is your job to utilise.
It has been important to ensure the Hackney Post and its reporter’s work is as visible as possible. This involves some thought. When are people most likely to see Twitter and Facebook updates? Early in the morning is a good time, as is midday. Posting out content more than once helps to ensure a number of people are accessing your paper’s copy, but content should be worded differently to keep your Tweets engaging. Every morning we Tweet and Facebook links to articles, as well as publish links to stories as they are published on the website.
Building up a community of followers is important as it increases the paper’s readership. There are a number of ways to do this. The first is to provide engaging and lively content. Good news stories, questions, polls and photos work well on social media. It is also important to respond to people and refer them both to and from Facebook from Twitter and vice versa.
So far the social media side of the Hackney Post is going well. We have checked our analytics and it’s looking good. We are still learning though, and improving as we go along, so if you can think of something that I have missed Tweet us and let us know…