TWO WEIRD TRICKS to never be invited to speak to journalists again // Social media best practices in 2015
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Journalists are judged increasingly by how they engage and grow their social networks to drive traffic to themselves and their outlets. As tempting as it may be to take Twitter or website clicks at face value, metrics transcend any one platform or type of data. Even the savviest struggle to stay ahead, as editors wonder what they *should* do and the value of what they do *already*. Here’s a primer on the questions to ask and the types of data needed to get ahead. Measure your social media presence, expand your impact, increase your ROI, and convey the value you add to your news outlet.
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TWO WEIRD TRICKS to never be invited to speak to journalists again // Social media best practices in 2015
- 1. Two weird tricks to never be invited back. (or, How journalists need to use social media in 2015)
- 2. 1. Do what MuzzFeed does. ¯_()_/¯ 2: Embrace the comment section. (°□°
- 3. Jon Cowperthwait: Hello! • University of Chicago-trained political scientist (go Maroons!)… • … turned filmmaker • … turned agency flack doing social media strategy, and disillusioned with the snake-oil peddlers of “social media analytics” • … turned founding team member of awe.sm: quantitative analytics that focuses on Social ROI.
- 5. • If a retailer knew you didn’t spend that much money, but your sharing brought people who did, you’d still be a VIP. • Able to track: Jon made this tweet, which brought this customer, who spent $X… • … so send Jon emails an hour earlier; he’ll use the time to tweet.
- 6. • If a (purely hypothetical) content publisher knew… • This article, promoted on social media, doesn’t just get clicks, but… • …clicks who turn into visitors who read more articles • …and those articles are more likely to be shared, driving more traffic… • Then they could automatically promote it (it’s a gateway drug!)
- 7. 1: Do what MuzzFeed does. ¯_()_/¯ 2: Embrace the comment section. (°□° 3: Talk about analytics. (ᕗ ಠರೃ)ᕗ
- 8. Social is marketing. (So: it’s a means to an end, not inherently valuable.) • Important conversations (e.g., Ferguson) will still happen, but these are the minority — most of social is promotion. ☹
- 9. Social is maSrokceiatl iisn mga.rketing… Paid Owned • In traditional marketing comms, ! ⋆ # Autumn! Moxxandra McLain @misstillytilly I couldn’t decide between green and pink, so I bought both! I LOVE this year’s colors. ac.me/xyz1234 via @acmefashion Today only SAVE 30%: What’s your cardigan story? ! Tweet Like # Pin it Jing Yee @jiiiiiing I like to go apple picking with my hubby and our little man! ac.me/xyz5432 via @acmefashion #cardiganstory ! ⋆ # Acme Fashion @acmefashion TODAY ONLY! 30% off our classic cardigans. What’s your #cardiganstory ? ac.me/abc6789 ! ⋆ # Earned acmefashion 30% off The Classic Carsdeleicgtead nitems Buy one in every color and wear it all the time. This is a garment that you must own to be accepted by your friends. • 100% polyester • machine washable • fully edible • classic cut Autumn! Clothes you can wear in the fall. Shop now! Juniors Petites Men ! Tweet Like # Pin it “paid” is advertising; “owned” is (e.g.) a house banner; “earned” is press pickup resulting from PR • Social media marketing is not dissimilar
- 10. …and it’s huge. 65% 70% of a brand’s reputation will come from its social media presence of active online adult social networkers shop online $5Bn $30Bn +500% 2011 2015 four-year increase in social commerce 2015
- 11. Social has ROI. (Whether you measure it or not.) • If you invest — time, headcount, budget for paid amplification… — there sure as heck had better be a return on that investment. • And… good news: there is!
- 12. 1: Do what MuzzFeed does. (And it’s not what you think.) ¯_()_/¯
- 13. Refresher: the marketing funnel Visits Pageviews Comments Shares $ • Basic funnel math: I mail 1000 sales letters; 100 people inquire back; 10 schedule a meeting; 1 person buys. • For simplicity, assume it has to be funnel shaped (people don’t materialize to purchase without being marketed to…). • The less each layer shrinks as you go down, the better you’re doing.
- 14. Shares Traffic Websites have funnels too Visits Pageviews Comments Clickbait everyone assumes this is all that MuzzFeed concentrates on…
- 15. Shares Traffic The funnel Visits Pageviews Comments Clickbait Engagement Amplification Longform content Unpaid evangelists everyone assumes this is all that MuzzFeed concentrates on… …but here is where stuff gets interesting.
- 16. Aside: a primer on drugs • Low barrier to entry • Not intimidating • Low barrier to exit • High barrier to entry • Holy crap — it’s crack • High barrier to exit
- 17. Content is like this, too — cheap gateway drugs vs. crack = =
- 18. Do your gateway drugs work? Traffic Visits Pageviews Comments Shares Clickbait Engagement Amplification Longform content ???
- 19. How to be a content pusher • Which varieties are popular? — content analysis • What school should I sell outside? — channel analysis • Who buys? — per-post analysis • Who becomes an addict? — conversion tracking
- 20. Content analysis ! ! ⋆ ! | ! • For a given story — across everywhere that it’s been promoted/amplified — what is its total performance?
- 21. Channel analysis • How do different social networks stack up … not just at who puts more into the top of the funnel, but at moving people down to the heavier stuff too? • i.e., not just where do I get clicks, but where do I get engaged readers?
- 22. Per-post analysis • For each post — i.e., a tweet, or a pin, or a Facebook share… — what did I get? • This requires tracking each of them individually.
- 23. Conversion tracking Conversion tracking social sharing address-bar sharing address-bar sharing subscription / engagement • Whatever the goal — sharing?, pageviews?, subscriptions?… — how much happens… • Per social post? • Per piece of content? • Whatever the goal — sharing?, pageviews?, subscriptions?… — how much happens… • Per social post? • Per piece of content? share-button sharing commenting
- 24. “Autumn nights. Pumpkin soup, crunchy leaves, and a cardi…” “Autumn nights. Pumpkin soup, crunchy leaves, and a cardigan swea…” “Do you have a can-do attitude, a smile that could light up Shea Stad…” “Do you have a can-do attitude, a smile that could light up Shea Stadium, and …” “Do you have a can-do attitude, a smile that could light up Shea Stad…” • Do you know, in one source of truth, everything that happens with, from, and after your social efforts? (You totally should…)
- 25. ¯_()_/¯ LOLWUT
- 26. How to do what MuzzFeed does (because you can) • Content analysis: Site analytics. Site analytics. Site analytics. Site analytics! The data already exists within your company; ask your digital editor for access to it. • Channel analysis: Social networks’ data — e.g., Twitter’s ad dash, Facebook Insights — are free. They’re also built into tools like Hootsuite. • Per-post analysis: Track every individual post using tracking links — from e.g., Bitly (also free). • Conversion-tracking: Have code on-site to measure activity. Startups like Mixpanel make this easier cheaper than before — but this is still the most politically technically challenging task on this list.
- 27. channel analysis content analysis conversion tracking ! ! ⋆ ! | # followers replies favorites retweets $ conversions clicks pageviews impressions per-post analysis • You can MacGuyver this together from disparate free (/cheap) sources…
- 28. ' followers channel analysis content analysis conversion tracking ! retweets ⋆ favorites # replies impressions clicks | pageviews $ Owned Media Tracking Performance Links Conversion Tracking ( child shares Downstream Reshare Tracking conversions per-post analysis • … or pay money (to, e.g., my former employer) to get it aggregated.
- 29. ¡Sí, se puede!
- 30. 2: Embrace the comment section. (Sorry.) (°□°
- 31. Comments bring additional traffic and engagement… Shares Traffic Engagement Amplification Visits Pageviews +1% time on site Comments +15% comments +1% pageviews +26% comments It’s data from a company that powers comment sections on websites — so obviously they’re biased…
- 32. …in ways you can measure Shares Traffic Engagement Amplification Visits Pageviews ⬆ visits ⬆ time on site ⬆ pageviews Comments ⬆ comments ⬆ sharing ? ? … but a) it makes sense, and b) using MuzzFeed-style integrated analytics you can actually measure this directly (and you should).
- 33. http://acmefashion.com/home#xyz1234abcd There are scads of ways to share off a site… http://acmefashion.c!om/home?awesm=ac.me_xyz1234 acmefashion acmefashion Autumn! Clothes you can wear in the fall. Shop now! Juniors Petites Men ! 30% off selected items acmefashion Share Link Share This Link Write something… The Classic Cardigan acmefashion.com Buy one in every color and wear them all the time! Share a link with your followers Does this make me look more “Charlotte” or “Schoolmarm”? ac.me/qrs4566 http://acmefashion.com/home#xyz1234abcd Autumn! Clothes you can wear in the fall. Shop now! Juniors Petites Men 30% off selected items Autumn! Clothes you can wear in the fall. Shop now! Juniors Petites Men ! 30% off selected items and the comment section is a particularly effective one.
- 34. And sharing begets sharing begets sharing 10 clicks 4 clicks 9 clicks 18 clicks 5 4 17 6 42 8 7 18 4 $ Your initial share didn’t just bring you 10 clicks after all — it actually brought you 152 and a sale.
- 35. A deep dive with real data ≠ Tech blogger Mark Suster, bothsidesofthetable.com (who despite the resemblance is not Peter Sellers’ character from “Being There”)
- 36. • Suster has typical sharing touchpoints on his site; tracked conversions include signups and comments
- 37. 122 126 1 clicks pageviews follower 1 comment • One specific tweet: 777 clicks = ~4000 pageviews 13 comments = a commenter who then promoted on LinkedIn, which drew 122 additional clicks = an additional commenter…
- 38. 122 126 1 clicks pageviews follower 1 ∞ comment • and that comment brought additional traffic, additional sharing, and additional comments, which begat more sharing and comments… • All this just from one tweet. It’s possible to track all of them, and you discover a combinatorial explosion of data. • Commenters drive a lot of traffic.
- 39. Commenters: maybe not that terrible! Commenters 23% 80% more likely to share content Commenters’ posts more traffic than non-commenters than shares by non-commenters Data data from J. Cowperthwait (whoever that is), Q3–Q4 2013, actress across all all awe.awe.sm-sm-tracked tracked sites sites with with comment comment sections — not vertical-specific for news sites alone… …BUT: this provides a general order of magnitude of the importance of tolerating the commentariat.
- 40. (°□° THAT IS THE STUPIDEST THING IN THE WORLD YOU ARE A IDIOT WHY DON’T YOU DIE UGH STUPID COMMUNIST
- 41. Seriously, though? I have to deal with these people? (Yes. And here’s how.) • Subscribe to comment feeds: RSS feed or email digest of comments on every story. • Do not feed the trolls but… • … Reward good behavior by responding. • Ride the multiplier. Because now we know: it’s huge.
- 43. Thanks! Jonathan E Cowperthwait j@cowp.co http://cowp.co/twitter Say hi!