The SNO Report: Social media tips

On social media, show there’s a person behind the post. You’re busy, and you want to promote the new content on your site. The simple solution appears to be a plugin that will automatically post to Facebook and send a tweet whenever a new story is published. Resist the temptation! Readers want to see a little personality. That means crafting the posts and tweets individually.

Show your personality. Have a little fun with the headline. Pose a question. Pique the reader’s interest. Make sure there’s enough context to get a click.

Take advantage of the benefits of each platform. Twitter allows just 140 characters, meaning a pithy tweet. Facebook provides more than 63,000 characters. You don’t need to write that much — a few sentences are great. Include a picture. Ask a question. Provide context.

Preschedule the posts. Get in the writing zone for an hour and bang out a few dozen posts. WordPress allows you to schedule stories to be published in the future. Social media tools like Hootsuite or TweetDeck allow you to manage multiple accounts and schedule tweets — with images — to be seen when your audience is active — even if you already went to bed. Experiment with different times to see which gets clicks.

Resurface older content to fill the calendar. Try a “ICYMI” (In Case You Missed It) post from earlier in the week, or from a couple weeks ago. Preschedule these for weekend mornings and Sunday evening to bump up your traffic. Find a balance between craft and efficiency.

Want more tips? Read this. And this. Or this.

Get ready for next semester with a SNO Training Session

Whether you’ve just begun exploring the world of online-first journalism, or you’re a seasoned pro looking to kick your site up a few notches, SNO offers four personalized training sessions to meet you and your staff’s needs. Feeling overwhelmed by WordPress and not sure where to begin? Our adviser and stafftrainings will walk you through the basics and get you on the road to publishing your first stories. Want to add some pizazz to your homepage so it stands out in a crowd? Our design training will show you how to customize the look and feel of your pages and stories. Maybe you’re ready to dig deeper–our advanced training will help you fine-tune your site to glorious perfection.

Our trainings last up to an hour and are conducted over the phone. Using a screen-sharing program, you’ll follow along with one of our experienced and friendly trainers. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to ask all your burning questions. And we guarantee you’ll leave the session with renewed confidence and excitement about the possibilities of your site.

Order a training session today–we’ll make sure you get the information you need. All for just $75.