This is a quick little explainer that goes over how powerful social media is, why it's powerful, how to harness that power, and how to avoid common mistakes.

1. Toledo Press Club Presentation

2. Power of One Viral Picture
 UGC sent by a viewer
 160k shares, 51 likes
 Seen by more than 5 million
people
 Launched our TAT to 683k
 Launched WTOL posts to
6.3m people in 1 week

3. How do you harness the power of
social media?
 Posting content your user wants the way they want
it

4. How do you harness the power of
social media?
 Post content your user wants they way they want it
 Maintain consistent engagement

5. How do you harness the power of
social media?
 Post content your user wants they way they want it
 Consistent engagement
 Have a social strategy

6. Pitfall: It’s easy to fail!

7. Social Strategy
 Posting strategy should involve tone, content choice,
timing
 NEWS: Breaking news and weather strategy in place
 Engagement/Clarity/Accuracy should be the goal
 Best Practices need to be in place so expectations are
clear
 Digital staff needs constant training and feedback, just
like newscasts reporters and producers
 Managers need to have judgment conversations about
what worked and what didn’t

8. Successful Posts on Facebook
 Image
 Video
 Text only
 Posts w/Links & Images
 Video Only
 Video w/links

9. Be ready to deliver when it counts
 Impactful event
coverage provides
huge opportunities to
prove brand value,
create loyalty, build
new audience

10. Social Strategy pays off
 Consistency of posting and engagement are key to
keeping Talking About This number high
 The higher the TAT, the more attention and
engagement your posts will get
Engagement = REACH
REACH = Eyeballs on your brand

11. Pitfall: Falling on Empty Ears
 No scheduled posting strategy, no consistent
engagement, low TAT = much smaller audience on
Facebook

12. Power: Twitter
 Twitter can be a breaking news tool
 All on-air talent should use Twitter as a breaking news
and Recruit to watch tool, especially reporters
 Tweetdeck should be employed by managers to monitor
activity of talent, competition, station account, and @
mentions/replies

13. What works on Twitter

14. Social Media Management
 Shoutlet, Buffer, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck are all good
ways to monitor and manage multiple posts at once

15. Pitfall: The Race
 One of the main pitfalls of social media in journalism
is the race to be first. Because it’s competitive and
time-sensitive, many journalists jump the gun and
make mistakes. This can run the gamut from a spelling
mistake to retweeting an unreliable source to grabbing
a Facebook profile picture of a murder victim and
having it be the wrong person.
 Instead of a race to be first, newsrooms should
emphasize the race to be right. Old-fashioned official
confirmation and spell-check still go a long way.

16. Pitfall: The Filter
 Journalists have to stay unbiased, so reporters need to
be careful when they can and cannot express personal
opinions in a public forum
 People like to fight on the Internet, and it can be a
liability to your credibility as a station. Rule of thumb:
Never post what you wouldn’t say out loud
 Some selfie addicts blur the line between journalist
and personality – and it can be hard for viewers to take
talent seriously if they’re not careful about
maintaining a professional image online.

17. Power: Pushes to monetized
platforms
 You may not get credit for Facebook likes and retweets
but it pays to build a loyal social audience. Posts &
tweets that include links to stories/articles, many
times with an attached video or slideshow, can be huge
drivers to your .com

18. Planning makes perfect
You can’t harness the power of social media without a
plan. Sure, there’s luck involved in big posts… but it’s
mostly good planning.