1. BEST PRACTICES:
DIGITAL STRATEGIES
@buffyandrews

2.  Social media is about engagement
 It’s not a one-way conversation (That’s called
broadcasting.)
 Divide your time on social media in thirds.
1/3 engaging (retweets, replies, responding)
1/3 promoting (sharing story links, videos, etc.)
1/3 being yourself (have voice/show personality)
Keep in mind

3.  Tweets
 Headlines
 Captions
 Blurbs
 Blog posts
 Text messages
 Facebook posts
 Lists
 Fortune cookie fortunes
 Sonnets
Writing short

4.  Focus. Zero in. What’s the most important piece of
information to share?
 Ask yourself, what information can I leave out?
 Tighten. Eliminate needless words
 Cut weaker elements: adverbs, passive constructions,
prepositional phrases, etc.
 The shorter the sentence the greater the value of each
word
 More powerful the message, the shorter the sentence (I
do.)
Writing short

5.  Employ SEO best practices
 Put most important word at the end of the sentence ie. In
Macbeth, the messenger says: “The queen, my lord, is
dead.”
 Revise, polish proofread
 Good reporting critical for short writing success
 It takes more time not less to write something good and
short
 Donald Murray: Brevity comes from selection and not
compression
Writing short

7.  Links
 Images
 Quotes
 Retweets
 Questions or comments of your own
Types of tweets

8.  Tweet every day. You have to be consistent
 Join the conversation. Engage
 Tweets not all about you
 Have something interesting to say. Add value
 Find and follow people who share your interest
 Retweet, reply and promote others
 Live tweet events and breaking news
Twitter tips

9.  Don’t tweet headlines. Use regular language and
distill the story for the readers. Talk to the reader.
Tweet an interesting fact or tidbit or quote.
 Tweet more handwritten tweets instead of retweets.
“Normal” tweets get more engagement.
ie. “Reporter @buffyandrews is covering the Wolf
rally right now”
Twitter tips

10.  Use @mention in tweets helps people notice you
 When you include someone’s handle, they’ll see it in
their “mentions” feed
 If you’re lucky, they’ll follow you back
 Twitter is all about connecting.
Don’t miss this opportunity to connect
Twitter tips

11. @ accounts

12. @accounts

13.  Quickest way to find someone Twitter handle is to use
Google
 Its search function is better than Twitter’s.
 Just google “person’s name” and “Twitter” and you
should find what you’re looking for.
Twitter tips

14.  Difference between at @reply
and @mention
 @Buffyandrews, only people
who will see this tweet is the
sender, me and our mutual
followers
 To have this tweet seen by
everyone, add “.” before name.
ie. .@buffyandrews
Twitter tips

15.  Add relevant hashtags. Check to see if hashtag you’re
considering is one that’s used (use Twitter search
function or tool such as Hashtracking)
Ie. Check #childabuse and you might
find #domesticviolence
#negligence #abuse
Twitter tips

16. #hashtags

17. #hashtags

18.  Include photo in tweet for
better engagement
Twitter tips

19.  ‘Steal’ followers from other accounts
 Use hashtags to find people with shared interests
 Don’t use all 140 characters. Leave room for others to
retweet. About 24 extra characters is sufficient.
 Pay attention to tone. Talk to the readers, use verbs
that tell them to look, watch, see what so-and-so did.
Think of wording such as: Here’s why, this is why,
what would, etc.
Twitter tips

20.  Share good stories multiple times a day, and again on
another day. If a tweet works well one time, try it
again at a different time. A tweet could be sent out
three different times and hit a different audience
each time.
 Use Twitter Advance Search to find people in your
community.
 Use www.justunfollow.com for routine maintenance
of account.
Twitter tips

21.  Schedule posts using Tweetdeck or Hootsuite
 Include photo in tweet for better engagement
Twitter tips

22.  Use the right search terms to find the right sources
 People relating personal experience use “me” and
“my”
 “on” is another good term
 Example: Trying to find sources for a train crash.
My uncle was on that train.
So in this case using the search terms my, on and train
would have brought up this tweet.
Twitter search

23.  Think about what you’d tweet if you were in that
situation and search for the words that would
probably be in it.
 Better searching+better sourcing=better stories
Twitter search

25.  How many people use Facebook: 1.393 billion monthly
active users
 Total number of Facebook daily active users: 890 million
 Average number of Facebook friends for U.S. females: 250
 Time spent on Facebook per user per day: 21 minutes
 Percentage of teens that are friends with their parents on
Facebook: 70 percent
 Percentage of all U.S. senior citizens that use Facebook: 31
percent
Facebook facts

26.  OWN Breaking News. Own the local breaking news on
Facebook. Post an update before there’s even
something on the website. Come back with new posts
for updates and to share the links, and also add the
link in comments in the past post. Identify breaking
news as “Breaking” or “Breaking news” and consider
using #Breaking.
Facebook best practices

27. Breaking news

28. Breaking news

29.  Upload videos directly. Add a link to the story in the
status part.
Facebook best practices

30. Videos

31.  USE Photos. Be visual. There’s power in strong
images. Those that evoke an emotion and
immediately attract the viewer’s gaze work the best,
be they funny, unusual, etc.
Facebook best practices

32. Photos

33.  Could have used weather map here
 People share maps, especially severe weather
Photos

34. Photos

35.  Tags. Consider using hashtags and tagging, when
appropriate, in posts.
Facebook best practices

36. Tags

37. Tags

38.  Responsiveness: Responding to messages, wall posts
and readers asking questions.
 Sharing. Consider sharing a status from a police
department, local organization, community group,
etc. that might be of interest to your readers.
Facebook best practices

39. Sharing

40.  Encourage action. For example, in some cases, like
when you’re posting a photo of a wanted person,
start the post with SHARE on the first line and then
type your text etc. That call to action can do well
when appropriate.
Facebook best practices

41.  Be a human. Be conversational. Avoid sounding like a
headline or feed. The link preview does that work.
Use the post text to share a quote that pops, or
interesting fact or tidbit, or some chatter that speaks
directly to readers.
Facebook best practices

42. Share quote from story

43. Be conversational

44. Be conversational

45. Be conversational

46. Be conversational

47. Be conversational

48.  Don’t repeat in post the headline url brings in
Facebook best practices

49.  Drive people to website
Facebook best practices

50. Facebook best practices
 Don’t post entire
article online. Drive
people to website.

51.  Only ask a question if you would:
 Actually ask it to a friend (on Facebook or real life)
 Be likely to answer a similar question if you saw it on
Facebook
 Don't use a throw-away question that does not meet
the above criteria: engaging snippets or facts from
the post are more effective.
Facebook best practices

52. Questions

53. Questions

54.  Guerrilla marketing. Share your content via
conversational status posts on appropriate Facebook
pages, Facebook group, Google+ communities, etc.
It’s best to share as a comment in a thread.
Facebook best practices

55. Marketing your content
Find the right audience for your work

56.  Perhaps the most important tool in your marketing
toolbox
 It’s the new word-of-mouth advertising (Facebook,
Twitter, Digg, review sites, etc.)
 Efficient, allows you to connect with people
interested in your work
 Helps you engage with your audience
Marketing your content

57. Who should promote
 Every journalist should promote
his/her work using a variety of
social media channels.
 The responsibility for promotion
begins with you. Not your editor
or anyone else.
 No one cares about your work
more than you. Own it.

58. Why promote
 Bring content to the attention
of those most likely to be
interested.
 By building audience, we build
more opportunities to stack
digital dimes.

59. How to promote
 Share links in a conversational way in places where the links
would be relevant, welcome content. These include:
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Websites
Google+
Blogs

60. Identify audience
 Identify the audience
for your content (blog
post, story, video,
slideshow, etc.)
 If you want to hook
fish, you have to cast
your line where they
swim.
 Use tools like Topsy to
find potential targets

61. Match audience with content
 Read Across America Day
 Seuss FB page
 Kids Craft Corner FB
page
 PetSmart
 Petco
 Elementary teachers
 Elementary schools
 Children’s book
publishers
 Etc.

62. Match audience with content
 Medical marijuana
 Epilepsy FB pages
 Epilepsy Google groups
 Epilepsy Twitter accounts
 Etc.

63. Look at metrics
 Measure value of your hard work; adjust if
necessary
 Watch what gets the most traffic, most links, most
social shares, most comments
 Social media audience will help spread your
content if they find it worthwhile
 Content that attracts most attention tends to be
well-defined and focused
Buffy Andrews

64.  Find relevant Facebook pages
 Be conversational; don’t want to come across as a
spammer
 Comment within thread that makes sense
 Tag people in comment when appropriate
 Include links, keywords, hashtags in post
 Higher engagement on weekends
Facebook promo tips

65. Facebook promo tips
 Found Whitney Museum's
Facebook page
 Saw post about Jeff
Koons’ retrospective
 Embedded link to our
coverage within comment
thread to post

66. Facebook promo tips
 When you post within comment
thread on Facebook, check to see
who shared the post. Those who
shared post are potential targets.

67. Twitter promo tips
 Research and find
relevant Twitter handles
to include in tweet

68. Twitter promo tips
 Research and find relevant
hashtags to include in
tweet.
 Handwritten posts better
than automatic posts.

69. Google+ promo tips
 Research and find
relevant Google+
accounts to tag
 Type “@NAME” to locate
accounts

70. Google+ promo tips
 Research and find
relevant Google+
accounts to tag
 Type “@NAME” to
locate accounts

71. Google+ promo tips
 Research and find
relevant hashtags to
include
 Type “#SUBJECT”

72. Google+
 Find relevant Google groups to join and share content

73. Google+ promo tips
 Medical marijuana story
 Helps child with seizures

74. Promo via national websites
Buffy Andrews

75.  Pinterest
 Blogs
 Newsletters
 Etc.
Other places

76. SEO Tips
Increase your traffic through best practices

77. Why it matters?
 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps drive traffic
to your website
 When people are searching for something (service,
product, article, etc.) they use most relevant
keywords
 By making your site more SEO friendly, more people
will find it. The more people who find it, the better
Buffy Andrews

78. Web headlines can stand alone
 Do you immediately know from the headline what the
article is about?
Buffy Andrews

79. Use keywords
 Think about how you would search for something.
 Put keywords at or near the beginning of the
headline. Word order matters.
Buffy Andrews

80. Don’t abbreviate
 Always use full names for:
Famous people
Organizations
Places
Teams
Businesses
etc.
Buffy Andrews

81. Use city/region names
 Be specific with geographic names
Buffy Andrews

82. Don’t use puns, cute headlines
 They’re great for print, horrible for website
 Print: Too much Heat
 Web: Detroit Pistons lose to Miami Heat 101-98
Buffy Andrews

83. Not too long or too short
 Aim for about 8 words or 65 characters
Buffy Andrews

84. Use full company names, etc.
 Put the names of companies, organizations, etc. in
headline
Buffy Andrews

85. Descriptions/keywords
 If the person’s name is not familiar to your audience,
use a likely search phrase.
Buffy Andrews

86. Use descriptive first words
 Start columns with the columnist’s name and
opinions with the word OPINION. Likewise, use
PHOTO or VIDEO to denote multimedia.
Buffy Andrews

87. Helpful articles
 55 quick SEO tips
 5 Tips to Boost Your SEO in a Competitive Online
Environment
Buffy Andrews

88. Parting words
 Content finds readers; they often don’t look for it
 Best content provides value to reader
 Use SEO best practices
 Don’t be afraid to try new things and fail
 Be a visionary
Buffy Andrews

89. Follow me
Buffy Andrews
• Buffy’s World:
http://www.yorkblog.com/buffy/
• Buffy’s Write Zone:
http://buffyswritezone.blogspot.com/
• Author website:
www.authorbuffyandrews.com
• Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Buffyandrews
• Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/buffy.andre
ws
• Google+:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102646936
236475852585/posts

90. Follow me
 Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/buffyandrews/
 Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/buffyandrews
 Storify: http://storify.com/buffyandrews
 Instagram: buffyandrews
 Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=40047960
 RebelMouse: https://www.rebelmouse.com/Buffyandrews
 Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7370309-buffy-
andrews
Buffy Andrews

91. Contact
Buffy Andrews
Assistant Managing Editor
Social media/Engagement
York Daily Record/Sunday News
Email: Buffy@ydr.com
Phone: 717-771-2052
Buffy Andrews