Fresh Air (@nprfreshair) Associate Producer Melody Kramer (@mkramer) presented to public radio stations as part of NPR Digital Services training. Participants live-tweeted her presentation.

1. Fresh Air’s Social Media
Melody Kramer
@mkramer
melodykramer@gmail.com

2. My job
• Write/produce everything on freshair.npr.org (web-ify our stories)
• Produce and write daily billboards/promos for show
• Produce/write generic promos
• Social media for show
• Thinking long term about strategic projects for the show
• Occasionally other writing as needed
• Social media is a relatively small portion of my day, both in times of time I have
and fitting it in with the rest of my workload
• I don’t have much of a strategy for social media other than using my gut
instincts for what will work. I like the Internet. I like the topics we have on our
show. So I think ‘How would I like to see this on Twitter?’
• Generally, I don’t check metrics more than once a month or so. It has no
bearing on how we book guests (nor should it) and I don’t want to be influenced
by them. A poet gets the same web treatment on our show as a major science
article that I know will get a lot of traffic based on the topic.

3. Not Having Much of a Strategy: Is it
Working?
• Web metrics say yes. Unique visitors are up.

4. Page views are up.

5. Visits are up.

6. Fresh Air’s Social Media
• Ranked in order of most to least importance:
• Tumblr: nprfreshair.tumblr.com
• Twitter: @nprfreshair
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/freshairwithterrygross
• Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/melodykramer/
• G+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/109396345849925053430/

7. What I Use Tumblr For:
• To let people know about upcoming guests
• To highlight parts of an interview [Tumblr is really good at this.]
• We don’t have a blog. Tumblr functions as our blog.
• Subversive: To let other journalists who follow our Tumblr know about
upcoming guests in the hopes they will write about our stuff [this seems to
be working, based on what’s mentioned and where.]
• Things that work: photos, quotes, posting stuff that fits within Fresh Air’s
aesthetic but isn’t show stuff specifically, developing a voice that works with
the audience [20-40 something workers/students], Animated Gifs.
• Things that don’t work: Constantly promoting stuff on the show, posts that
are too long, posts that don’t fit in with the vibe of the site.
• Good Tumblrs with voices: WNYC, Newsweek, Sesame Street, Today’s
Document

8. What I use Twitter for:
• Take mental breaks from writing
• Connect with audience and get feedback immediately
• Correct errors (they let us know before the refeed)
• Ask questions
• Goof off occasionally
What works on Twitter: being a real person and not a corporate account (The account reflects the
POV of a 27-year-old who works for Fresh Air), not overthinking a tweet, tracking keywords in
Tweetdeck [‘Terry Gross,’ ‘Fresh Air,’ ‘Guest Name,’ ‘Guest Twitter Account name’]
What doesn’t work: Just posting links, being a drone, not having a voice.
Have the guest/subject do the work for you: I email every single publicist before and after
interviews, telling them what our social media account names are and asking for the guests
@/FB name. Afterwards, I send them a link and say “Please pass it along to GUEST in case
they’d like to post it. Oh, and here’s our Twitter/FB info in case they want to mention it.”

9. What I Use Facebook For
• My mom’s on Facebook. She gets Facebook. She doesn’t ‘get’ other social media.
• I think of every Facebook post in terms of ‘Does this work for my mom?’
• What I use Facebook for: Polls, Questions, Photos
• What Facebook is good for: Reaching a wide audience, Engaging (though not as
much as Twitter/ Tumblr.)
• Use @ in front of GUEST NAME and SUBJECT to see if they have Facebook pages.
If so, your post will appear on their wall as well (if their settings are set up in a certain
way.)
– Example: @Wes Anderson will be on Fresh Air today to talk about @The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

10. What I use Pinterest and G+ For:
• Not much.
– I just post our content every day. It takes 2
seconds. These are very niche audiences and
I don’t have time to build them.
– Use your time wisely. If something’s not
working, ditch it.

11. A Typical Day
• There is no typical Fresh Air social media
day.
• Some topics work better on Twitter/Tumblr
(exercise, science, celebrities.)
• Some days I don’t have time to tweet.
• That’s okay. People know I’m a person.
• I don’t spend more than 30mins/1hr a day
on social media, at most. (that’s a
generous estimate)

12. Let’s go to Twitter and Tumblr and
Facebook and take a look around
• Using Aziz Ansari as an example.
• Using Gretchen Reynolds (20
minutes/standup) as an example.

13. Things that have worked really well
• Asking questions when we need help as a show.
(People like helping.)
• Being polite. Not responding to people who are
not very nice. (There’s a line. Don’t cross it. If
you think you might be crossing it, step back.
Twitter isn’t worth it.)
• Public radio sing-a-long
– We can do more things like this to help each other!

14. Stations/people I see doing cool
stuff
• @wdet
• @kqed
• @newshour
• @morningedition
• @nprfunfacts not a public radio person. Need
more stuff like this because it’s awesome.
• Things they have in common: personal, voice,
people having fun

15. Things I think Public Media Should
Do More
• More collaboration between shows/stations (
http://storify.com/ThisAmerLife/public-radio-blood-feud-2012
)
• Try things out. If it doesn’t work, who cares?
• Don’t overthink any of this stuff