Isthmus is an alternative weekly newspaper in Madison, WI that targets young professionals. It aims to expand its reach to this niche audience through its website and social media presence. Currently, Isthmus' social media strategy focuses on promoting weekend events through its online event calendar, The Guide. However, an analysis found room for improvement in Isthmus' social media engagement, particularly on weekends. The report provides recommendations to optimize Isthmus' social media strategy to better "own the weekend," including increasing weekend Twitter output, engaging with local influencers, and promoting events through photos and hashtags.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGY REPORT
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
SOCIAL MEDIA AND NEWS
SPRING 2014
ISTHMUS
JESSICA LEVINE
KATIE MAHUMED
ALYSSA SAGE
ABBY BECKER
MEL BEAUDRY

2. ISTHMUSIDENTITY
THE NEW EPIC EMPLOYEE
THE GUIDE
OWNING THE WEEKEND
Isthmus is known as Madison’s alternative weekly newspaper and caters its diverse arts
and news content to a niche audience. The newspaper currently reaches about 40 per-
cent of adults in Dane County and has the largest weekday circulation of any newspa-
per in the city retail trading zone. As a weekly alternative, Isthmus targets young profes-
sionals in Madison, specifically, those new to Madison and in need of some direction.
Isthmus seeks to expand more into this niche audience, targeting the younger profes-
sional demographic.“The New Epic Employee”represents an audience between the
ages of 18 and 34 and working in the Madison area. These readers may not know where
to find information regarding local art, events and news - Isthmus offers an outlet.
One of Isthmus’most popular features is The Guide on the newspaper’s website The
Daily Page, which serves as an informational calendar and place to find out what is hap-
pening on a given night in Madison. With so many events and happenings, readers can
turn to the calendar for guidance. The Guide also features a“Critics Choice”that nar-
rows down the list of daily events to a select few chosen by members of Isthmus staff
that serve as recommendations from Madison natives.
The primary strategy to achieve the goal of driving more traffic not only to The Guide,
but to Isthmus as a whole revolves around one central theme: weekend engagement.
We call it,“Own the Weekend.”This will work to encourage participation from readers
on various social media platforms to utilize Isthmus Guide and to share experiences,
photos and stories from their weekends.

3. ANALYSIS
WEBSITE/MOBILE SITE PROMOTION
SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION
Isthmus’homepage has a widget that displays a four day forecast of upcoming social
events along with a separate curated calendar of the week’s Critics’Choice events. Both
Isthmus’homepage and The Guide homepage offer only Critics’Choice events at first
view but allow readers the option to expand the calendar to display all daily events.
The mobile version of The Guide is inaccessible—users are able to load the homepage
of The Daily Page, but the link to The Guide is unreliable.
When reading event information on The Guide’s webpage, readers have the option
to tweet out a brief description of a given event along with a link back to the website.
The day-to-day activity on Isthmus’ Twitter page doesn’t include consistent significant
mention of the guide feature or links to the online calendar. Any tweets promoting
Madison-based events typically link to an in-depth article about the event first and
then provide a link to The Guide in the sidebar of the article. There is no mention of The
Guide in Isthmus’Twitter bio and no implementation of a consistent hashtag that refer-
ences The Guide. A deeper Twitter analysis via Twitonomy also revealed Isthmus’Twitter
page is least active during Saturday and Sunday.
Event descriptions on The Guide provide an option to“like”the given event’s Facebook
page and“share”it with your Facebook friends. Instead of linking back to the original
guide feature through thedailypage.com, most Facebook content links to Facebook
event pages. The one (and possibly only) consistent linking activity back to The Guide
feature is a weekly Facebook post displaying the week’s Critics’Choice events.
2

4. METRICS
KLOUT: 61
A Klout score is a number between 1 and 100 that represents an account’s influence
online. The higher the number, the more influential you are. According to Klout.com in
June 2013, the average Klout score is 40. Users with a score of 63 are in the top 5 per-
cent of all users. Klout scores are the accumulation of influence across all networks. For
Isthmus, this primarily includes its Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Reach and exposure are vital characteristics of boosting influence online through social
media networks. According to the Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Metrics on Business
2 Community, reach is the potential audience for a message based on a total follower
account, such as Facebook likes, Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections. Exposure
measures an account’s potential audience by measuring the number of followers each
of an account’s follower has. Every time a person shares something on social media, it
is delivered to their list of followers, which is called an impression for each individual
instance. All the impressions together are included in a message’s exposure.
Reach and Exposure for @IsthmusTDP
- 39,844 accounts reached
- 57,826 impressions (exposure)
Source: Tweetreach, http://www.business2community.com/social-media/beginners-guide-social-
media-metrics-reach-exposure-0851679#!GdaC7

5. QUAMMETRICS
TWITTER
@IsthmusTDP history
- Joined Twitter Nov. 3, 2008 (Numbers
last updated 28 April 2014)
- Bio: Madison, Wisconsin’s source for
news and opinion, nightlife, arts, theater,
music, movies, food and restaurants,
beer and wine, recreation, events, more!
- 17,438 tweets
- following 4,400
- follows 14,471
- 650 listed
Data taken from May 15 to April 5,
2013 on the account @IsthmusTDP
- 3,110 mentions
- 1,008 retweets
- 47 replies
- 2,120 links
- 1,957 hashtags
- 588 tweets favorited for a total of 926
times
4

6. METRICS
TWITTER
@IsthmusTDP tweeted on average approximately 10 times per day from May 15-April 15.
According to results from Twitonomy, @IsthmusTDP tweets the most on Fridays and
the least on Saturdays and Sundays. On Saturday, the account puts out approximately
157 tweets, which is 4.9 percent of overall content output for the set period of time.
Sundays are lower at 40 tweets making up 1.3 percent. Thursdays and Fridays are the
two days with the most content with 620 tweets on Thursday (19.4 percent) and Fridays
with 754 tweets (23.6 percent). To effectively“own the weekend,”@IsthmusTDP should
boost content on Wednesday to promote weekend activities featured on The Guide
and make Saturday a much greater percentage of @IsthmusTDP’s Twitter output.

7. METRICS
The accounts also puts out the greatest amount of content between the hours of 2 p.m.
and 5 p.m. According to successful bloggers, it is best to tweet between 1 and 3 p.m.,
which the account is currently doing.
To promote The Guide and Isthmus as the go-to source for weekend news, @IsthmusT-
DP should boost its weekend social media content and create a consistent schedule for
promoting weekend events and a system for tweeting from weekend events with the
hashtag #madguide.
Tracking the average engagement is important to ensure that @IsthmusTDP is reaching
its audience. Measuring the average engagement rate allows Isthmus to see how fol-
lowers are interacting with content put out by Isthmus.
6
Source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/beginners-guide-social-media-metrics-
reach-exposure-0851679#!GdaC7

8. METRICS
FACEBOOK
- 7,815 likes
- Posts on an irregular schedule
Posting content on Facebook with an image generates 120 percent more engagement
than a typical post, according to Nimble. Isthmus posts with photos, which increases
the organizations reach and exposure. Isthmus’current Facebook posts incorporate
hashtags such as #IsthmusGreenDay and #alacarte and tags key influencers that are as-
sociated with the story link.

9. METRICS
SUGGESTIONS
Photo albums gain 180 percent more exposure, and videos gain 100 percent, accord-
ing to Nimble. Additionally, Facebook posts between 100 and 250 characters receive
60 percent more likes, comments and shares than longer posts, according to Constant
Contact. A post should be dedicated to incorporating more content such as photos
and videos than just a block of text. Isthmus does a fairly productive job of this and
posts shorter pieces of content but could benefit more from posting photo galleries of
events, videos and other forms of multimedia content.
The goal of Isthmus should be to reach more people during the weekend than the
week. Thursday, Friday and Saturday combined make up approximately 47.9 percent
of @IsthmusTDP’s overall Twitter output. Bumping the overall weekend percentage up
to 60 percent would provide a greater presence consistent with“owning the weekend.”
Twitter output on Wednesday should also increase from its current 17 percent to at
least 25 percent.
For Facebook, Isthmus should strive to post content between 1 and 4 p.m. daily be-
cause that is the time most users are online. These posts can include content that is
published in each weekly print edition in addition to spontaneous images and news
content that occur throughout the week. During the weekend, the Facebook page
should be used to post about events around Madison to make Isthmus a force of con-
tent for“owning the weekend.”
8
Source: http://www.nimble.com/blog/posting-and-analyzing-on-facebook/
http://blogs.constantcontact.com/product-blogs/social-media-marketing/post-on-facebook/
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.frederickjgoodall.com%2Fbest-times-to-post-
on-social-media%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGQr6ADw5Kfxy3c5kvfQwpjKa4ekw

10. SOCIALMEDIAPLAN
WEBSITE
TWITTER
We understand that changing the website to make it more appealing is not an option
at this point in time, but we feel like changing the location of the social media connec-
tions will benefit Isthmus overall. If possible, we suggest moving the social media con-
nections above the menu of tabs, which reads, from left to right,“The Paper, The Daily,
The Forum, The Guide, etc.”We feel this relocation will make it more noticeable and ac-
cessible for the audience. Thus, leading the audience to connect with Isthmus on these
multiple platforms. This will hopefully increase follows and hopefully, consequently
shares of material to help drive traffic back to the site.
Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet! Twitter should be the most important social platform uti-
lized at this point in time for your demographic. A recent study from comScore shows
that the majority of users from 18-24 and 25-34 years are on Twitter more than Face-
book and Linkedin. To be precise, 18.2% on Twitter compared to 14.1% on Facebook for
18-24 year olds and 21.4% compared to 19% for 25-34 year olds.

11. SOCIALMEDIAPLAN
We recommend the creation of a regular schedule, followed every week, to constantly
promote the guide and drive traffic to the website. Since we are working on“owning
the weekend”, we suggest Wednesday at 2 p.m. to send out a“welcome the weekend”
tweet. We chose 2 p.m. because the best time to tweet is from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. dur-
ing the day, and we chose Wednesday because many younger professionals consider
Thursday as a part of the weekend. This tweet will include a teaser to events for the
weekend with a link to the guide including any related hashtags as well as the hashtag
#madguide. This specific time to promote events will also train followers to expect up-
coming weekend content from @IsthmusTDP.
A tool that will become useful in this process is Hootsuite. Here, it is possible to plan
tweets promoting these events all weekend long. For example, on Wednesday, take a
quick half hour to time out the tweets for Thursday - Sunday for each event. This way
an event will always have at least one promotional tweet during the weekend incase a
reporter isn’t on the scene or busy schedules interfere with tweeting.
10

12. SOCIALMEDIAPLAN
Throughout the weekend, prior to popular events and if possible during these events,
tweets should be sent out with a link to that event on the guide (if prior) or as simple
as i.e.“This event is a hit! People are loving the vibe. Check out more events coming up
this weekend (link) #madguide.”If Isthmus reporters are covering these events, they
should tweet @IsthmusTDP with #madguide and include pictures, quotes, Vines or any
other interesting content that would make a Twitter follower interested in the event.
Events should be promoted on Twitter as much as possible, especially throughout the
weekend. By tweeting about upcoming weekend events and including the handles
of venues, Isthmus can create buzz about the event and about The Guide. Each tweet
should link back to Isthmus’The Guide webpage and use the hashtag #madguide. We
feel that the more events are promoted via twitter the higher chance more followers
will click on the link to the guide when it is always accessible on their twitter feed.
The account @IsthmusTDP should also send out engaging tweets during events ask-
ing followers to tweet about their experience to the hashtag #madguide. According to
Poynter, it is increasingly important to allow people to join the conversation.
#MADGUIDE

13. SOCIALMEDIAPLAN
TWITTER ENGAGEMENT
Increasing how mentions and replies will boost engagement, which will show Isthmus
readers and Twitter followers that Isthmus is the reliable source for weekend events
in Madison. We recommend Isthmus tries to engage with their followers on Twitter at
least 5 to 10 times a day on the weekend, Thursday through Sunday. This concept will
amplify the“own the weekend”concept with a constant flow of tweets and engage-
ment on the weekend. These engaging tweets will have to be more than simply reply-
ing to mentions, but also searching for key hastags and“drop in replying,”which would
be replying to someone who may not be a follower but replying to a tweet they sent
regarding Madison.
For example, if Sally tweeted“Loved the farmers market this
morning! What a great start to my Saturday #farmersmarket
#madison,”@IsthmusTDB can reply to Sally by saying“Keep
your Saturday awesome by attending the (insert event name
here) tonight! and it’s free! (insert link) #madguide”
Engagement like this will not only boost awareness of Isthmus but it will hopefully
increase traffic and followers. Simple engagement such as including venues’handles
in tweets can encourage key influencers to engage with the #madguide, which will
promote Isthmus and The Guide. Retweeting these venues tweets about an event and
including the link and #madguide in the retweet is another way to gain traffic. Engag-
ing with the host of events featured in The Guide, such as the Orpheum or the Majestic,
is an important way to convey to readers that Isthmus is a go-to source for what’s hap-
pening in Madison.
12

14. SOCIALMEDIAPLAN
LOCAL INFLUENCERS
An idea to look into to promote engagement is to coordinate deals between venues
that are featured on The Guide. Deals and promotions could include ideas such as the
Majestic giving away tickets to events by using the hashtag #madguide or a bar giving
discounts for following @IsthmusTDP or tweeting at both accounts.
Engagement with local influencers on Twitter is another significant part of the pro-
motional strategy. For example, according to tweetreach, @MadNewsMan helped @
IsthmusTDP get 24,400 impressions. In other words, Isthmus tweets were delivered to
24,400 timelines due to @MadNewsMan’s social network.
We have developed a list of top Madison influencers and significant
hashtags for Isthmus to engage with to increase its exposure:
1. @MadNewsMan (24,400 impressions)
Madison News has 1,525 followers and
tweets stories from news outlets around
the Madison area.
2. @WEDanceWiscon (10,638 impressions)
WE Dance Wisconsin has 5,319 followers.
This account is dedicated to sharing in-
formation about DJs and promoting EDM
events in Wisconsin. This is a good influ-
encer to engage with because of Madi-
son’s diverse music scene.
3. @MadOpera (9,932 impressions)
Madison Opera has 4,966 followers. It is
the Twitter handle of the Madison Op-
era company, which is associated with
the Overture Center for the Arts. Both of
these organizations are a part of Madison’s
art scene.
4. @wcoconcerts (3,802 impressions)
Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is another
influencer in the Madison art scene.
They are responsible for Concerts on the
Square, a popular summer activity. With
3,803 followers, they are a good influencer
to engage with.
5. @OvertureCenter
The Overture Center has 3,352 follow-
ers. The Center plays host to many events
promoted through the Guide, so this is
a sensible and strategic connection for
Isthmus.

15. SOCIALMEDIAPLAN
14
6. @MajesticMadison
The Majestic theatre is a popular party
destination for music lovers, especially in
Isthmus’s target age range. This account
promotes concerts happening at the
Majestic and around Madison. It has 6,917
followers.
7. @UWMadison
UW-Madison has 66,400 followers. It is
followed by students and alumni, which
make it a significant influencer in the
Madison community. This will provide
excellent exposure for Isthmus because
many of the young professionals working
in Madison graduate from UW-Madison.
8. @CityofMadison
The City of Madison has 12,900 followers.
It promotes news and information about
the Madison community. If Isthmus wants
to be seen as the source for social happen-
ings in the Madison area, this is an excel-
lent influencer to connect with because
City of Madison is already viewed as a
source of information.
9. @madisonfood
Adam Powell has 7,271 followers, and he
is a published author of two books, The
Onion, Isthmus and Wired. He also has
diverse interests according to his Twitter
bio: food, culture, and technology. Adam
is already an established influencer, and
the fact that he has a broad range of in-
terests means that he probably has an
equally diverse network. He is a significant
influencer that can help Isthmus tap into
niche groups in Madison, especially food
and technology.
10. @zackthemackg
Zack the Mack has 3,453 followers. He is
a young, 23-year-old entrepreneur and
someone that the target Epic employee
could relate to. Zack tweets about every-
thing and anything. His use of hashtags
and links in almost every tweet shows that
he knows how to network and use social
media strategically. Engaging with this
influencer would help Isthmus reach the
younger audience. He is also ranked 30th
on twitaholic’s Top 100 list to follow in
Madison.
Source: http://allthingsd.com/20131202/as-twitter-grows-up-its-users-dont/
http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/209695/how-journalists-can-measure-engage-
ment

16. SOCIALMEDIAPLAN
FACEBOOK
1. #UWSocial
2. #Madison
3. #OnWisconsin
4. #madtown
5. #Badgers
Since hashtags frequently change according to current events and news, it is helpful
to use tools like the website Trendsmap to discover what conversations are going on.
Trendsmap lists trending hashtags in real time by location. Just search for“Madison,
United States”and you will get a list of popular hashtags to use along with #madguide.
Using other, trending hashtags will help Isthmus locate the active audiences on Twitter
and tap into new conversations.
Facebook will not be as important of a platform for the promotion of the guide. How-
ever, we still think it is useful for sharing Isthmus’stories and links to gain traffic. Be-
cause Facebook has now adopted the use of hashtags, we think the most beneficial
way to use Facebook as a“welcome the weekend”platform, like twitter, on Wednesdays
at 2 p.m., but also a“Weekend Wrap-up.”The idea of a“Weekend Wrap-up”every Mon-
day, a quick post about the events from the weekend or a story from one of the events
with a link to the guide to promote the next coming week of events. Facebook will have
fewer posts than Twitter but have the same setup and standards. Any major events
should be promoted on both Facebook and Twitter, at roughly the same time and al-
ways including the link and #madguide.
Also we noticed Isthmus posts on Facebook about the critics choice on a Friday. We feel
this post should move to Wednesday at 2 p.m. as your“Welcome the Weekend”post.
This way, followers will have more time to plan the weekend ahead of them.
HASHTAGS

17. RECOMMENDATIONS
SOCIAL MEDIA INTERN
We understand allocating social media to the freelance writers will be a difficult task. If
possible, we think Isthmus will benefit greatly from a social media intern. The position
would not have to be paid, but it would be a perfect segway for the paper to begin it’s
social media plan of owning the weekend. We believe many students and the like will
be eager to jump on the opportunity to be a social media intern and carry out this plan
for Isthmus. This way, there will be one sole person responsible for the social media
and only the social media. It would be a great opportunity to really promote The Guide
and work on engaging with the audience more. As owning the weekend takes off and
if social media is delegated to an intern or a specific position, we feel that the engag-
ing tweets of 5 to 10 times a day throughout the weekend should progress into 5 to 10
times a day everyday and hopefully over time this number can increase. Also, the per-
son in this position could focus on the gradual transition from Twitter to Facebook once
a solid following has been established and engagement has become regular.
16

18. RECOMMENDATIONS
TRANSITION TO FACEBOOK
Given that a majority of individuals in the Madison community, and especially on UW’s
campus, are engaged on Facebook, this may be an important social media platform to
utilize in the future. Only a portion of these individuals are on Twitter, which means that
there are more opportunities for engagement on Facebook. It is important to build re-
lationships with readers. Unlike other platforms, Facebook allows organizations the op-
portunity to do more than post a link to a news story. Instead, you can create a conver-
sation around that item - whether a local news story, event write up or lifestyle piece.
As well, Facebook allows you to explore multiple facets: posting about local news and
events, creating conversations with debate topics and status questions, embedding
videos, posting photos, and then calling on readers to engage by sharing their own.

19. LONGTERMGOALS
ISTHMUS APPLICATION
People are using their mobile devices more and more to engage with content, discover
news, make schedules, read email and to use social applications. We believe an op-
portunity exists for Isthmus to connect with its audience through a mobile application.
In addition to promoting The Guide, this application will allow users to read Isthmus
news stories and dining reviews on their phone in a more efficient way than logging
on to Isthmus’website. However, this application will help drive traffic to the website
through“read more”links on each page of content. An application only functions if it is
simple and easy to understand, so these“read more”links are necessary.
Before launching the application, it is important to generate buzz to get people excited
about the app and to give them a little preview of what benefits that app can provide
for them. This means show your audience how the app will make their lives easier. This
can be done through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posts. Instagram could be espe-
cially beneficial for this because it is visually oriented. Isthmus could use this platform
to show wireframes or screenshots of different functions and pages of the app. We
recommend starting to generate buzz at least a month in advance of the launch.
The next page provides an overview of what functions the application could provide
for users and an explanation of each function.
18
Source: http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/digital-transform/mobile/

20. LONGTERMGOALS

21. LONGTERMGOALS
INSTAGRAM
Why use Instagram?
Although Instagram is not a social media platform of immediate importance for the
early promotion of Isthmus’Guide, it’s one well-worth considering for future promo-
tion. A recent social media report done by Business Insider’s research service BI Intel-
ligence revealed that 90% of the 150 million Instagram users are under age 35 and that
17% of urban-residing adults use the platform. Both of these statistics fall in line with
the demographics of Isthmus’target audience: Madison’s young, epic employee.
How can Instagram be used to promote The Guide?
The goal with Instagram, similar to other social media platforms,, is to direct traffic to
Isthmus’Guide page. One way Instagram can be used to promote the Guide is by post-
ing preview or“teaser”photos of upcoming events. The preview photos can display an
image that leaves Instagram users curious enough to follow the link back to Isthmus’
site for more information on the event being advertised. Instagram can also be used
to encourage engagement with followers. People that attend events can document
their experience on Instagram by posting a photo and geo-tagging the location of the
event. Since the Guide advertises strictly Madison-based events Instagram’s geo-tag-
ging feature will be apt for showing Madison residents where recurring events/shows
are located. The key is finding a proven method that will ensure that users will click on
the link back to Isthmus’website to view the full calendar of Madison events. Using
Instagram to promote The Guide is also beneficial because of the sheer popularity the
app has reached. Not incorporating the app in a future strategic plan could mean not
reaching a significant portion of the“epic employee”audience.
20

22. CONCLUSION
TWITTER
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
To effectively“own the weekend,”@IsthmusTDP should boost content on Wednesdays
to promote weekend events and activities featured on The Guide. Isthmus should also
boost content on Twitter on Saturdays and make that day a greater percentage of @
IsthmusTDP’s Twitter output. Isthmus should also utilize Hootsuite to schedule and
strategize tweets for the weekend. Twitter should be emphasized over the 2014 sum-
mer.
Once Twitter gains a greater presence, Isthmus should transition over to Facebook as
a primary platform for Isthmus content. Content on Facebook should contain pho-
tos, videos and other multimedia content to effectively engage its audience. Isthmus
should focus on transitioning to Facebook during Fall-Spring 2014-’15.
If Isthmus chooses to pursue an Instagram account, this should be done after Twitter
and Facebook for Isthmus are strengthened and have a greater following. Instagram
content should be integrated with Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, each Instagram
post should contain a link to The Guide.
APPLICATION
Creating a new app for Isthmus is a long-term project that would benefit the news or-
ganization but other social media platforms should take priority at this point.

23. CONTACT
JESSICA LEVINE
jmlevine14@gmail.com
@jmlevine28
ABBY BECKER
abbybecker4@gmail.com
@abecker_4
MEL BEAUDRY
beaudrymel@gmail.com
@beaudry_mel
KATIE MAHUMED
katiemahumed@gmail.com
@katie_mahumed
ALYSSA SAGE
alyssasage1656@gmail.com
@alyssasageee
22