Using Social Media to Tell the Weather Story

2012 Social Media Boot Camps
Sponsored by

2012 NWA Social Media Boot Camps

Welcome
Social Media Boot Camp Agenda

Renee Willet – Social Media Marketing for TWC

Tim Brice – El Paso National Weather Service

Tiffany Sunday – Emerging Tech Strategist

#NWAS12

@rwillet 2012 NWA Social Media Boot Camps
2012 NWA Social Media Boot Camp

Using Social Media to Tell the Weather Story
There are so many tools available:
•Twitter
•Facebook
•Storify
•Google+
•Instagram

Which one do you use
to tell the best story
and how?

#NWAS12


Twitter
1. Get important weather information out to the public quickly and
succinctly
2. Small, bite-size nuggets of information with links to full story or
more details
3. Use hash-tags to follow and participate in specific conversations
4. Curate key information on a local level from citizens and
government officials pertaining to the weather event being
covered
5. Breaking news element
6. Post more frequently than other social networks. 2-3x an hour,
more if severe weather is occurring

#NWAS12


Facebook
1. More conversational and interactive in nature
2. Use to solicit photos, questions, story ideas, polling
3. Tease upcoming stories and ask for feedback from fans
4. Share links to articles on website
• Great way to drive traffic back to website/blog
5. Very visual – posts have great interaction when paired
with a photo
6. Post less frequently than Twitter – on average 4-5x a day

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1. Curation tool used to tell a
complete story utilizing
content from across various
social networks
2. Drag and drop style for
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
and Instagram content

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Instagram
1. Searchable like Twitter
2. Follow users and/or hashtags
3. Share/like photos that are relevant to your story
4. Create photo contests to increase engagement

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Trusting Information on Social Media
Social media is a wonderful tool, but you need to ensure the information you
are sharing is accurate

1. Follow verified accounts only, or non-verified accounts that are known to
be reliable, as fact-checking is crucial
2. Use common sense – if a photo or a storm report doesn’t seem logical
given a situation, work to verify the report before sharing on social
3. Use internet tools to verify photos
• Google "Search by Image" - http://www.google.com/imghp?sbi=1
• Reverse Image Search via TinEye - http://tineye.com
• Using the image URL or by uploading, both services will do a
check to see if your photo has been used in the past and/or if it
looks awfully similar to another photo.
• These services will best be used for supposed tornado,
earthquake, flood, lightning, hurricane and tsunami imagery.

#NWAS12


Fostering Engagement
We’ve learned over the years that there are 4 basic things people who follow you
on social media are seeking:
1. Information
2. Recognition
3. Connection
4. Entertaining/engaging content

Some basic way to achieve this are:
1. Ask questions
2. Interact with your fans/followers
• Answer their questions
• Re-Tweet their tweets/Like their photos
3. Be yourself – this is an opportunity for you to share your personality with
your fans and its ok to talk about things other than the weather

#NWAS12


Be Engaging, But Also Exercise Caution
While you want to interact with your fans on a deeper level, you must also
be mindful of what you share

1. Assume nothing is private. If it’s on social media, regardless of the
safeguards you take, assume anyone can see what you’ve posted
2. Do not share personal information with your audience
3. If a fan is getting too personal or is harassing in their posts to or about
you:
1. Either block and report them (Facebook) or report them (Twitter)
2. Do not engage with them as that will encourage them to continue
because they know they have your attention
3. If you feel threatened, work with local authorities to determine how
best to handle

#NWAS12

@timbrice17 2012 NWA Social Media Boot Camps

Google Plus, Hootsuite and
Facebook Oh My!

#NWAS12


What is Google Plus?

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Circles, Circles Everywhere

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Hangout with your friends or alone

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Social Media Dashboards
• Allows you to monitor and publish
– Hootsuite
– TweetDeck
– MediaFunnel
– Sproat Social
– Argyle Social
– Seesmic –
• Just bought by Hootsuite
– Plus many others…

#NWAS12

@timbrice17 2012 NWA Social Media Boot Camp Session

Social Media Dashboards
• Post to FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and other SM
platforms
• Monitor FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and other SM
platforms
– Twitter – searches, keywords and lists
– FB – monitor activity on your pages
• Schedule posts in the future
• Shorten links
• Analytics
#NWAS12


Using Twitter - Hootsuite
• To many retweets (RT) in your streams, filter them out –
• #nmwx OR #nmfire -filter:retweets

• Extraneous words in your streams, filter them out –
• snow OR rain OR wind OR ice –cream

• To many tweets from an annoying user in your streams , filter them out –
• #okwx OR #okice -centexwx –StormAlertsOK

• Set up a stream of local media, law enforcement, and power users –
• from:elpasotimes OR from:abc7breaking OR from:krqe OR from:LOSRanchosEM

• Hootsuite training document
• http://owl.li/dKXIV

• NWS Hootsuite training video - Twitter streams and searches -
• http://owl.li/99HR4
#NWAS12


Facebook – the good, the bad and
the ugly

#NWAS12


Facebook pages ≠ profiles
• Profile page for your friends and family (Friend)

• Profile page for your persona (subscribe)

• Pages – for your business (Like)

• Page posts only reach 12% of users (unless you
pay $$$ for a higher percentage)

#NWAS12


Facebook pages ≠ profiles
Profile Page Profile Page + Fan Page
Subscribe
Number of 5,000 Unlimited Unlimited
followers
Requires approval Yes No No
to follow
Multiple Admins No No Yes
Multiple Fan Pages No No Yes
Search-engine No No Yes
Friendly
Promote with Ads No No Yes
Analytics No No Yes
How many fans see Depends on All (subscribe to all 12%
posts updates)

#NWAS12


Facebook – the good, the bad and the
ugly
• Only about 12% of people see your fan page
posts.

• Set up a profile page and
allow people to subscribe

• Make sure they select “all updates”

#NWAS12


Facebook – the good, the bad and
the ugly

• Facebook keeps changing the rules!

#NWAS12

@tiffany_sunday 2012 NWA Social Media Boot Camps

LinkedIn – More Than A Resume Placeholder

#NWAS12


How to Effectively Use LinkedIn
1. Profile
• Summary
• Experience
• Recommendations

2. Profile Organizer

3. Data Mining
• How to Find People and Information
• Groups
• NWA LinkedIn Group
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1858089&t
rk=myg_ugrp_ovr

#NWAS12


What is Your Social Media Ranking?
1. Klout www.klout.com
• Growing influence with retailers
• Posting information can be delayed

1. Kred www.kred.com
• Community influence rather than number of followers
• Pulls data from Twitter

2. RebelMouse www.rebelmouse.com
• Startup – similar to Pinterest
• Compiles photos and information from the web

#NWAS12


Maintaining and Protecting Your Online Profile
1. Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts

2. FourSquare www.foursquare.com
• Post When Leaving

3. Spam and Hackers
• Double Check Before You “Click” and “Like”
• In Doubt, Use Google to Double Check Posting or Person

4. Passwords
• 14 plus characters
• Different passwords for banking and Social Media

5. Value of Social Media Profiles
• Intangible Assets
• IP / Who Owns the Content

#NWAS12

Special Thank You to Renee Willet and
The Weather Channel for Sponsoring
the 2012 Social Media Boot Camps!

Using Social Media to Tell the Weather Story

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