The document discusses strategies for effective engagement on social media platforms like Facebook based on a webinar by Steve Buttry. The key recommendations are to [1] post photos rather than just text updates, and [2] start conversations by asking questions rather than just posting headlines. Additional tips include experimenting with posting photos at different times of day, engaging with comments on posts, and broadening engagement across other platforms like Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram. Readers are encouraged to try these engagement strategies and document the results.

1. Effective engagement
on
Steve Buttry
Digital First Media webinar
October 11, 2012

2. What’s going on?

3. 2 things that help most
• Post photos, not updates
• Start conversations (not headlines)

4. Best practice: Post photos

5. Feel-good photos

6. Breaking news

7. Breaking news

8. Breaking news

9. Odd photos

10. Seasonal photos

11. Seasonal photos

12. Seasonal photos

13. Non-photo images

14. Best practice: Ask question

15. Best practice: Ask question

16. Best practice: Ask question

17. Best practice: Ask question

18. Best practice: Ask question

19. Best practice: Ask question

20. Best practice: Ask question

21. Best practice: Include link

22. Best practice: full URL

23. Best practice: Prompts

24. Best practice: Crowdsource

25. Best practice: Crowdsource

26. Best practice: Crowdsource

27. Best practice: Crowdsource

28. Best practice: keywords

29. Photo issues
• Post one photo of slideshow, with link
• Do you have rights? (Not for AP, Getty)
• For user-submitted photos, specify in
terms that you might use on Facebook
• Include link in cutline (when appropriate)
• Weak photo not likely to engage

30. Experiment

31. Other engagement tips
• Engage with comments
• Post and/or share from personal pages
(selectively; don’t be a spammer)
• Post on pages of interested community
groups
• Display share buttons prominently on
story pages

32. Other engagement tips
• Tag sources in posts
• Ask sources to share your posts on
Facebook
• Comment on related posts (interest
groups, other news orgs’ pages) and
share your link

33. What’s the best time?
• Early morning is print newspaper
time, not Facebook time (see how it
works)
• Peak Facebook traffic: 1-3 pm local time
• Facebook use goes up in evening (&
weekend) – what can you post then?

34. Staff Facebook use
• Subscriptions probably more effective
than journalist pages (need to be public
or decide which posts are public)
• Post your stories on your account/page
• Share, like & comment on some
colleagues’ stories
• Engage w/ comments on your stories

35. Broaden your engagement
• Step up Twitter engagement
• Be sure to post to Google+
• Share images on Pinterest, Instagram

36. Let’s experiment
• Try photos, questions
• Try different approaches
• Try different times of day & evening
• Try posting different volumes
• Post results on Google doc
• Share doc: sbuttry@digitalfirstmedia.com

37. Follow up
• Blog post at stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• Google doc to record what works (and
what doesn’t)
• I’ll blog about experimentation results
• We’re following up w/ Facebook & will
report what they tell us