The document summarizes a presentation on digital storytelling and social media strategies. It discusses how to improve storytelling through techniques like creating curiosity gaps and using surprising language. It also covers best practices for brand journalism, such as adding value to readers and following journalism principles. Additionally, the document outlines key components of an effective social media strategy, including setting SMART objectives, understanding your audience, developing a strategy and tactics, creating a calendar, and measuring results. It concludes with an overview of Hootsuite's social media management features.

1. The Power of
Digital Storytelling
Presented by Reade Beaudoin
February 21, 2014
@readebeaudoin
Social Media
Workshop

2. My Goal
You all have stories to share about your
organization and my hope is that by the end of
our session today you will have the tools to share
those stories efficiently and effectively to help
achieve your organization’s goals.

3. Items We Will Cover
How to improve you storytelling
Brand Journalism, become the “experts” in your
field
Key components of a social media strategy
In-depth look at Hootsuite

4. Is Social Media Here to Stay?

5. Simply Put… Yes!
Social media is here to
stay, but it’s a dynamic
world
New tools are coming
out everyday
It’s important to be
aware of what’s out
there
Each new tool is a new
way to share your
organization’s story

6. Big Picture #SM Stats
via Social Media Today, Feb 18, 2014
72% of all Internet users are now active on social media
89% of those between 18 and 29 years old are social
media users
72% of individuals aged 30 to 49 are engaged in social
media
60% of people between 50 to 60 years old are active on
social media
43% of those 65 years old and above are engaged in
social media
71% of users access social media from a mobile device

7. There have been great
societies that did not
use the wheel, but there
have been no societies
that did not tell stories.
-Ursula K. LeGuin

8. The Art of
Storytelling
If you want to take your social
media initiatives to the next
level you have to become a
storyteller
You have stories to share.
First you need to find them,
then you need to find the best
way to communicate them.

9. 8 Simple Ways to
Improve Your
Digital Storytelling

10. 1. CREATE A “CURIOSITY
GAP”
Ensure every headline
has a “curiosity gap.”
Too vague, the readers
aren’t interested
Too specific, the readers
already know the whole
story
Just enough intrigue to
encourage click-throughs
and still enough mystery
that the payoff of reading
the story will encourage
readers to share it.

11. 2. NUMBERS HELP US
UNDERSTAND
Digits in particular are more shareable
Instead of “Ten ways to…” you should use “10 ways
to…”
Dan Heath, who found that one of the six principles of
all ideas that “stick” is to make them concrete--using
digits and specific facts rather than broad statements.

12. 3. CHOOSE THE RIGHT WORDS
The most popular blog
posts had these
words in their titles:
Smart
Surprising
Science
History
Hacks (or a variation
like hackers)
Huge/Big
Critical
Most Retweetable
words/phrases
Please Retweet
Free
Social
Check Out
Blog Post
Great
You
Top
Specific words are more popular than others, particularly in headlines.
From Takipi’s research.

13. 4. MAKE IT SCARCE
The team from
Takipi found that using
negative, dark, and
aggressive words in
titles lead to more
shares.
For instance, including
the words no, without,
and stop lead to more
shares that more
positively framed titles
using words
like do or start.

14. 5. DON’T EXPECT
ANNOUNCEMENTS TO BE
POPULAR
In Takipi’s research of tech blogs, posts including the
words "announcing," "wins," "celebrates," or grows
usually fell near the bottom of the most-shared list.
These stories are staples so do your best to inject
sharable content into these stories i.e pictures, video,
calls to action… etc

15. 6. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE &
TAILOR YOUR LANGUAGE
TO THEM
Your particular audience will determine what works best for
you.
Upworthy notes that middle-aged women are the biggest
sharers online, so there’s a pretty high chance you’ll want
to get them on board if you’re trying to increase how much
your content gets shared.
This could mean avoiding jargon or slang, keeping
your word choices simple and your sentences
short, or avoiding swearing.
The trick to getting it right for your audience? Test
everything.

16. 7. MAKE IT SURPRISING
8 Surprising New Instagram Statistics to
Get the Most out of the Picture Social
Network
The surprising history of the to-do list and
how to design one that actually works
The surprising history of Twitter’s hashtag
and 4 ways to get the most out of them
Another of the six
principles of ideas that
“stick” from Chip and Dan
Heath’s research is to
use the element of
surprise.
Presenting something
unexpected--breaking a
pattern--will help you to
capture attention,
according to their
research.
This works in two
parts: surprise captures
our attention initially,
and interest holds it.

17. 8. USE MORE VERBS AND
LESS NOUNS
Social media scientist
Dan Zarrella analyzed
200,000 tweets that
included links and
found that those that
included adverbs and
verbs had higher click-
through rates than
those using more
nouns and adjectives.

18. Brand Journalism
Become the Subject Matter Expert

19. What is
Brand
Journalism?
??
Simply put, it’s using the
tools, tactics and style of
journalism to tell your
organization’s story.

20. Why is Brand Journalism
Effective?
Increases you organization’s credibility
Builds trust with your target audience
Drives traffic to your website
Increases engagement
Helps achieve communication goals
Puts the power in your organization's hands
It’s measurable

21. Best Practices
It’s not about you
You NEED to add value to the readers day
Follow the principles of Journalism
Headlines
Ledes
Strong images
Be quick, be timely & anticipate trends
Forgive yourself

22. How to Get Started
Build an Editorial Calendar, then stick to it
Brain Storm yearly events
Schedule regular features
Clearly define Roles and Responsibilities
Walk before you run
Stay Flexible

23. Social Media
Strategy
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to
victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before
defeat.
- Sun Tzu

24. The Value of Planning
1. SMART Objectives
2. Audience
3. Strategy
4. Tactics
5. Calendar/Timetable
6. Budget
7. Evaluation

25. 1. Create SMART
Objectives

26. OBJECTIVE SMART OBJECTIVE
Increase traffic to our
website
Raise monthly traffic to our
homepage by 20% over the
next three months.
Bolster our volunteer
numbers.
Add 10 new volunteers to
our volunteer schedule over
the next six months.
Get more people talking to
us on our Facebook page.
Increase the the number of
comments, likes and shares
on our Facebook page by
15% during our weekend
Easter fundraiser.

27. 2. Audience
Who are you trying to reach?
Your communications/marketing efforts should be
directed toward a specific and defined audience
Examples
Potato Board: “Women between the ages of 25-
64, with children living at home and food and
nutrition media.”
Cranberry Marketing Committee: “Nurse
practitioners, dietitians, and physician assistants.”

28. 3. Strategy
A strategy is a somewhat broad statement describing
how an objective is to be achieved
It provides guidelines and key message themes for
the overall program, and also offers a rationale for the
actions for the program’s components.
Example
Leverage the City of Fort Saskatchewan’s digital
resources to increase awareness for the launch of our
new website.
Convert awareness of our organization into increased
volunteer numbers

29. 4. Tactics
In contrast to strategies, tactics are the hands on
part of the plan.
They describe the specific activities that help you
achieve your stated objectives
Examples
Event Hashtag
Increase post frequency
Infographics
Behind the scenes photos
Pose questions

30. 5. Calendar/Timetable
The next step is to determine a timetable and
stick to it
Helps organize your plan
Gives you a list of deadlines to meet
Integral for the evaluation process

31. 6. Measurement
When objectives are measurable can
demonstrate your efforts effectiveness
Revisit your SMART Objective. Did you achieve
your goal?
What worked, what didn’t what can be improved?

32. Example of a
Communication Strategy

33. Hootsuite
All your Social Media Sites On One Dashboard

34. Hootsuite Basics
Setting Up Your Dashboard
Add Social Network
Add Stream
Reply, DM, Retweet, add image, Owly
Save Draft
Scheduled Posts (Auto Schedule)
Review Scheduled Posts

35. Advanced Hootsuite
Advanced Features
Hootlet
Custom Analytics
Hootsuite Syndicator
Hootsuite Conversations
Hootsuite Teams

37. Final Questions

38. Thank You
Reade Beaudoin
• Twitter: @ReadeBeaudoin
• Linkedin: Reade Beaudoin
• Email: readebeaudoin@ymail.com