1. Social Media & TTM

2. Misconceptions
There are a lot of popular misconceptions out there on what a social media
manager really does.

3. What are some of these
misonceptions?
• 1. Social Media Management is just posting on Facebook and
Twitter
• 2. A post will acquire a contributor right away, and we should
post 309483094834 times a day about it for it to go viral
• 3. We are paying people to like or follow us when we launch
an ad
• 4. I use Facebook and Twitter, therefore I am THE Social Media
guru.
• 5. Whatever I say is correct and should deserve upmost
attention on our social media pages

4. • These misconceptions lead to a lot of disrespect in the office. Statements
like “ I do my job and post on FB and Twitter at the same time”“You know I
have a twitter, did you use a hashtag?” “You’re just paying people to like
us” have been said in the office and are massively disrespectful. No shit, I
didn’t know a hashtagexisted….. That’s not really doing social media or
being a social media manager. I’m glad you discovered what a hashtag is.
And no I do not pay people to like us.

5. So what is social media?
• Social Media is the means of interactions
among people in which they
create, share, and/or exchange information
and ideas in virtual communities and
networks.

6. What does a Social Media Manager
do?
A social media manager does brand
reputation management, build customer
relationships, marketing, brand representation
and is literally on the frontlines getting a
brand’s name out there. This is what I do all
day (on top of acquisition, hence I work until 8
PM)

7. So what are we doing on Social
Media?
According to recent statistics the top three social media sites used by people in the
journalism world is Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter so we are focusing mainly on these
three sites. We also run a tumblr.

8. Facebook, the page we are all addicted
to

9. Facebook for brands
Facebookis the one website we’re all addicted to. I’m sure we all know how to
use them but Facebook brand pages are different. Here’s how:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
You can not just message people unless they message us
A FB brand page has administrators
You can pay to boost posts
There are analytical tools
You can launch ads

10. What are we doing on Facebook?
Each day we post 2-3 times. Why just a few times? Quality over quantity. Too
many posts can be considered spamming people’s timelines. Just a couple
of posts allows you to highlight good content and concentrate interaction
with our fans. Our competitors like Demotix and Newsmodo rarely post
more then 3 times a day. Posting 20 times will not get more
engagement, good content will

11. What are we posting?
Based on our Facebook statistics our most popular posts are our
requests, followed by photo and video posts. So we mostly
stick to these type of posts.

12. Promoting our Facebook Page
How do you promote a brand page?
1. Highlight a post
2. Paid boost
3. Paid Ads

13. Highlighting a post
• Highlighting a post makes a post double the size as to grab the attention of
of our fans

14. What a regular post looks like:

15. • What a highlighted post looks like:

16. Paid boosted post
A paid boosted post means that we set a budget anywhere from
$5-$100 for our story post to boosted on people’s timeline’s.
It will be highlighted and say that it is sponsored. This is the
best way to promote an important post like an urgent request
so all our followers see it.

17. Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are those little advertisements that you see on the right side of
your timeline. They are tailored to your interests and content you look at.
They can highlight a page, a new promotion, or a post. At the end of the
day it is up to the Facebook user to click like or not. So no we do not pay
people to like us. You are charged per impression or per click, usually
around $.10- $.20 cents.

18. You can really make Facebookads can be very intricate so you can reach the
highest amount of people. They can be in specific countries, age groups,
languages, interests, and sub interests. The point is to gain more likes or
promote a specific product. Here’s just one look at our recent campaign in
French

19. What’s the competition doing on
Facebook?
• Nothing very engaging. They do highlight their contributor’s content and
certain requests. We on top of this offer advice to journalists and highlight
our contributors/requests.

21. Facebook Groups
• Facebook groups, are groups where people with like minded interests can
post statuses, links and photos. Journalists use these groups to network,
give each other advice, and find possible jobs. They’re great ways to
acquire people. If you are going to post PLEASE do not spam. State what is
needed and that you have a budget. Don’t be vague or just plug
Transterra. You will get kicked off! I keep short and simple like NEEDED: 3
minute human interest story on historical Tehrani neighborhoods, email
me for a budget and more details” I always get responses. DON’T POST:
“join Transterra, we’re the best” You will get banned.

22. Twitter, the ultimate conversation
Twitter is the global conversation. Think of it as just FB statuses. Or random
whatsapp messages in a group. People choose to follow based on their
interests and reply to messages. It’s a great source for news and finding
journalists. Tweets are only 140 characters. There are people paid just to
handle twitter accounts.

23. #Hashtags
What’s a hashtag? According to the dictionary a hashtag is a word or phrase
prefixed with the symbol #. It is a form of a metadata tag to identify
messages on a specific topic. For example Egypt activists usually use the
hashtag #Jan25 to refer to the January 25th Revolution. Once you click on
the hashtagged word, all tweets with #Jan25 will show up.

25. We always do our best to use hashtags, especially with countries and
tweets related to journalism. Tweets shouldn’t have more then 2-3
hashtags. It should look like this:
“#Egypt today seems to veering away from the principals of #Jan25” and not
like this “#Egypt is #going #through #many changes since #Jan25”
Hashtagshighlight mostly important subjects to increase the chance of more
people seeing your tweet, so just hashtag what’s important, not every
other word. Using too many hashtags makes you look unprofessional. But
do not think just by attaching a hashtag our tweet will go viral.

26. Lists
In Twitter you can organize the people you follow into lists. This helps you
stay on top of important people and what they’re tweeting about.

27. Klout
• Klout is an analytical tool that measures your influence on Twitter
depending on how many people interact with you and your content. Klout
will give you a score based on 0-100. We are in the middle at 52

28. What do we tweet about?
• According to our Twitter analytics, our most popular posts stories related
to the struggles of independent journalists and tips for freelancers. We
use an application called HooteSuite which allows us to schedule tweets,
and have our mentions, sent tweets, direct messages and lists all next to
each other. We also tweet to new contributors who come on to the site (if
they have a twitter account) Every Friday we do #FF or follow Friday
highlighting new followers in a bid to recognize and appreciate them
following us.

29. How do we compare to the
competition?
TTM vs. News Modo

31. Twitter Ads
• Twitter Ads differ somewhat from Facebook ads. First of all they are not
available in many countries (including in Lebanon and other MENA
countries) And do not have as many interests that you can select. What
you can do is select specific accounts of people that you would want the
campaign to target. It will target their audience. You can either pay to have
a specific tweet promoted or your account promoted to gain more
followers and it will show up. A Facebook ad also costs very little, around
.10 -.20 cents, Twitter adds start $2.50 per new follower.

32. Reaching out to people via Twitter
Many journalists use twitter to gather news, facts, and to network.
When you are trying to acquire somebody via twitter, keep it
short, simple, and be friendly. You do not want to come off as spam. Tweet
to them about what you need and that you noticed that they were in the
target location. Don’t just flat out ask for their email. Ferdaous actually
does a good job of engaging with journalists.

33. Linkedin, the land of professionals
• Linkedin is a social networking site for professionals. If you have a job or
need a job this is for you. People build profiles listing their past
experiences, education, and job skills.

34. On Linkedin people choose to follow company pages. Companies can post status
update and links, people can choose to follow them or not. Linkedin is much more
niche, meaning it is not as interactive or have high numbers like Facebook or
Twitter. The whole world is not on Linkedin like Facebook or Twitter and brand
pages are more recent. We can not message people. It is the most used site by
journalists though so we make sure to post all our most recent requests there.

35. Linkedin Groups
• Linkedin groups are where people of the same profession come together
to discuss as well as network for jobs. They are a great tool for acquisition.
Journalists often post their CV’s, where they’re located, and if they’re
available for assignment.

36. When posting in a group
• You can also post TTM requests. Make sure to tell the specifics (including
budget and contact info and that it is something paid. Do not use them
just to plug Transterra, that is considered spam. Newsmodo’s Social Media
Manager already got called out for that.

37. How can you be part of social media at
TTM?
• Share!
• Engage!
• Email suggestions! But please remember this
is a team effort, do not try shaping social
media to the way you think it should be.