Tag: branding Page 1 of 2

How news brands can get started on Facebook Timeline

On February 29, 2012

On Wednesday, Facebook debuted Timeline for pages. This new design and setup has been available on profiles for awhile and now it is coming to your news account pages. While this is an optional changeover for now, all pages will convert to this new design on March 30, so it gives you a little bit of time to get your pages ready for primetime.

What does Timeline change?

Timeline brings a whole new look and feel to your Facebook page on the front and back ends. The biggest change in appearance is the addition of the cover photo – an 851 x 315 pixel banner image across the top of the page. Converting to this new design will also rearrange your page in a timeline format, with all status updates and important milestones ordered in a tree fashion by date.

There are changes on the admin side of these pages as well. In the top right of your screen, you’ll see a button that says “Admin Panel” – click it to find your analytics and page controls. You’ll also have a few new options on this admin panel, including an ability to see banned users from your page, a log of user and admin activity on your page and (finally!) a place to send and receive private messages from your users.

What you need to do now

Ivan Lajara, a community engagement editor at Digital First Media and Life Editor at the Daily Freeman in Kingston, N.Y., offered a great deal of the following steps and tips for local news outlets to get started on Timeline.

1. Select a cover image

With an image this big (dimensions are 851 x 315 pixels), you have a lot of options. You might opt to include an insider photo of your newsroom or employees, as the New York Times did (above). This might also be a good spot to highlight an excellent local photo from your staff photographers or a historic image from your archives.

You might also opt to ask your fans what they’d like to see in that space — or even ask them to submit photos to feature there, as the Daily Freeman has on their Facebook page.

Note: This image isn’t set in stone, so you can change it as often as you’d like. One thing you shouldn’t do is use your brand’s logo or masthead here – that’s what the square profile photo (which will still show up as your image around Facebook) is there for. Also, Facebook’s TOS prohibits using this place for advertising or to shill for Likes, not that you’d do that anyway.

2. Write a good description for your page

Your description is a bit more prominently featured now, so be sure to write a snappy bit about your publication here. Edit this space by clicking on About.

3. Arrange your apps to highlight the most important ones

Your photos, likes, videos and any apps/contests you had are now displayed as images below your cover photo. You have the ability to feature 10 apps in total, but only four are displayed above the fold. In this space, you should highlight Photos, Likes and two apps.

You can move these featured apps around by hitting the arrow hovering near them on the right. Hover over the app you want to move and click the pencil button that shows up in the top right corner. From here, you can select what app you want to swap in.

Note to Digital First newsrooms: Ivan suggests you highlight SeeClickFix, Obituaries (Legacy has built-in app) Ustream/Livestream, etc.

4. Add a milestone or two to your Timeline

You can do this by going to the status update box (now on the left instead of the top) and clicking Milestone. An obvious one to start with might be when your publication began. Fill in the date and any info you’d like, along with an image if you have it. You might also add in some big events that occurred in your area in the past, such when you launched your website or notable local happenings just to get started. Upload an image of your publication’s old front pages or a historic photo to mark the occasion.

You can highlight photos or stories from the page or fans by making them fill both sides of the timeline. Do this by hitting the Star button on any post. This looks great with photos!

Ivan’s tip: Go back and add dates to the images you’ve already posted to the page by clicking the pencil icon on the image. You can’t tag a current image with a date older than when the Facebook page was created. At least not from the photo. You have to go to the Timeline date, add and event and THEN tag a photo (or cover or front page) to it.

5. Pin a top post

You can pin any of your postings to the top of the page by clicking on the top right of the post on the pencil icon and hitting ‘pin to top’.

Ivan’s tip: This is a great way to highlight stories that haven’t gotten as much attention as you’d like or to bring attention to the biggest item of the day.

6. Hide embarrassing, outdated, or negative posts by you and your fans

One major upside/downside of Timeline is that is makes it easier to find past posts by you and your fans. Check over your timeline for past posts you might want to hide from view for any number of reasons. To hide one from view, click on the pencil icon and select “hide from timeline”.

Right now, page administrators can hit Preview (on the top of your page) to make all these changes without anyone seeing them. If you are a page admin, you’ll see the new page, but you can see how everyone else sees it by clicking into “Until you publish your Page, you can see your old design any time” at the top of the preview screen (below).

Publish your changes along the top of the page when you’ve completed the basic steps. Have fun!

For more info on Facebook Timeline for Pages, check out this helpful post from TechCrunch.

Interacting with the audience as a news brand

By Mandy

On March 30, 2011

In Social Media, Twitter

Last week I went over a few tips for setting a social media strategy and persona for your news org’s branded account(s) and tips for using those accounts as a brand. Today, let’s get into audience engagement on social media tools. These tips have served me well as both a brand and as an individual, helping me to establish great relationships on the old internets.

Audience Interaction in the Social Sphere

Responding: I’d suggest you try to always respond to those who reach out to the brand on Twitter or Facebook with questions, criticism and tips. You can respond via private direct message (if they follow you) or outward replies. If you’re squeamish about public replies, remember: Unless a Twitter user is following both parties, they will not see this interaction in their streams. If the reply is something you think other followers may be interested in, you might want to re-tweet the question/comment and answer it outright.

Note: After you DM a user, you will need to follow them from the brand’s account if you want a reply via direct message. People cannot direct message you unless you are following them.

News Tips: If someone sends a good news tip via Twitter, Facebook or by email, ask them follow-up questions (if necessary) and be sure to publicly acknowledge their contribution. You may want to re-tweet the tip once you have verified it.

Ask for help: If you want a photo or info from the scene of a story, ask for it from your followers.

Be thankful: Treat those supplying you with information as a respected friend – and they just might end up becoming regular tipsters and brand evangelists. If you get a news tip, photo or other info you’d like to use from your followers, be sure to thank and/or credit the user by name in social media messages and the story itself. Credit them on Twitter with (h/t @theirname) or similar when the link is shared. If you use a photo, make sure they are credited in the cutline.

Questions: If someone asks the branded account a question, answer it as soon as you have time (or ask someone else to do so). If you don’t know the answer, tell them you’ll find out and get back to them.

Criticism: If someone offers criticism, address it, even if only to say you’ll pass it to the right person internally. Try to avoid an extended back-and-forth with Twitter users and don’t get into embarrassing Twitter arguments. Once it seems to be approaching a point of no end, take the conversation offline.

Corrections: If you made a mistake, like a misspelled name, wrong link or factual error, it’s best to correct it in a follow-up tweet. Do not erase the first tweet unless you absolutely feel you must – and not without some acknowledgement of the mistake.

Start the conversation: Instead of always offering up a headline and link, add a question element when appropriate. Like, “What’s your favorite”, “do you agree” or whatever. If you want this to be an ongoing topic for the day, you may want to start a hashtag to accompany it.

Responses: If someone gives you a particularly good response, RT it with a link back or some notation as to what it’s about. Example: RT @someguy I think it’s a bad idea. // What do you think of Md’s new traffic law? http://bit.ly/ghgkg

Note: This is an especially good way to keep an ongoing topic going throughout the day. Use this to keep a hashtag going instead of tweeting out a boring old headline on the same thing again.

Channeling the news brand: Persona and strategy

By Mandy

On March 22, 2011

In Social Media

In preparing for my exit from TBD (more on that later), I’ve been training those who will be taking over my duties in communicating as the brand. I thought it might be useful to those who are learning this at their own news organizations to include my training documentation and thoughts on the blog over the next few days.

Note: I’m no social media guru or anything (they don’t exist anyway), but I have quite a bit of experience at setting social media strategy, establishing a brand identity and communicating as a news brand from my time at the Cincinnati Enquirer and TBD.

Most of the individuals I’ve been training for this are fairly experienced Twitter and Facebook users, but they have no experience in using social media as entities other than themselves. It makes quite a difference. When communicating as The Voice of the Organization (cue dramatic music), one has to essentially channel the persona of the brand and speak in its voice.

While it really isn’t possible to keep the exact same voice when several people are communicating as the brand, a steady brand persona can be maintained if you have a plan in place. So let’s get into all that first.

#1: Know Who You Are

The key to communicating as a news brand – especially when many people are behind the curtain – is to have a set persona in mind. If the brand were a person, who would they be? What are their interests? How would they talk? What would their priorities be?

For TBD, for instance, the brand persona is that of a conversational, young, urban-dweller who is in the know but isn’t a know-it-all. The tone is casual, straight-forward, occasionally snarky or sarcastic, but only in the context of funny or feature news. He/she is sort of geeky, curious and enthusiastic to receive and share info.

Some brand managers will establish full identities for the brand, specifying how old he/she would be, where they’d live, economic status, etc. In the case of Colonel Tribune, for instance, a whole identity and background was set up to serve as the account persona. While you don’t have to go into nearly as much detail, it’s good to have answers in mind for the following:

How conversational should the tone be?
Who is my audience and what tone will they expect?
What sort of tone is right for my content?
Am I a friend, a voice of authority or somewhere in-between?
How much two-way communication am I doing?

#2: Set a strategy

There’s nothing worse that following the Twitter feed of a news organization without a strategy. It’s plainly obvious to anyone thats following (especially if they happen to be the competition) if you’re flying blind: Tweeting local news on a national account, sending out misleading links to stories that are out of your area (or off your website), re-tweeting whoever and whatever strikes your fancy, etc.

A strategy for communicating as the brand can be as detailed or simple as you need it to be, but consider these questions when laying it all out:

Is this intended to be general interest or niche?
Is this for breaking news, or more finished stories?
What is the expected coverage area for this account?
If you have multiple branded accounts: How do they work together? Does the same info go out on both at any time?
Who is my audience? What do they want? (You know, a survey never hurts….)
When is my audience online and most able to use this information? (see analytics)
Who is my competition? What do I like or dislike about their brand presence?
Do I re-tweet? Who do I re-tweet – and why?

Once you’ve stablished the kind of news and reader the account is for, set a strategy for what you’ll send out and stick to it.

Other brand managers, what would you suggest to help set a tone or strategy?

More info: Tips for Tweeting/Facebooking as the Brand, Guidelines for Audience Interaction as the Brand

How we did it: Securing an occupied Twitter handle

By Mandy

On August 5, 2010

In Social Media, TBD, Twitter

It can be tough to be a new brand these days. Locking down namespace online is a huge part of a brand build – but much like potential mates, all the good ones seem to be taken.

We ran into that when we started building the brand for the soon-to-launch TBD. It’s a popular acronym, as everyone knows, so securing that namespace in social media was quite challenging. Though we’ve been tweeting for nearly two months as @TBDDC, this week we finally acquired @TBD. This is how it went down.

We wanted @TBD from the start, but it was occupied by a private, dormant account with zeroes across the board – no followers, no follows and no tweets.

Obviously, the first step in this scenario is to try to contact the handle owner. From my own account, I requested to follow this user to see if they were checking their notifications. Either they weren’t checking or I was rejected, because I never heard back.

I also sent the user a couple of @ replies to see if they were even checking those. No response.

It was time to turn to Twitter.

When you want to take this next step, it’s important to note Twitter’s policies in relation to your situation.

The policies are different depending on whether or not the account is active, whether the user is actively impersonating your brand and whether or not you have a registered trademark on your name.

If someone is actively using the handle you want in accordance with the rules, there’s little Twitter can do, even if you have a trademark on the name.

From Twitter:

Where there is a clear intent to mislead others through the unauthorized use of a trademark, Twitter will suspend the account and notify the account holder.

When an account appears to be confusing users, but is not purposefully passing itself off as the brand/company/product, the account holder will be notified and given an opportunity to clear up any potential confusion, per the guidelines listed below.

Contacting the user directly is really your only hope to getting the name in this instance.

If you want to acquire the handle of an inactive account, as we did, it really helps to have a registered trademark on the name. We did not have our trademark registration info right away, but I still submitted a ticket request to have the name released.

Once we got our trademark registration information, I filed another ticket, this time under the trademark policy. This time I filled out the required trademark info. To do this, our Twitter account had to be linked to an email address from our domain (an important thing to note if you have a business or blog without a URL yet). This was the final thing that pushed it over the top and got us @TBD.

If you don’t have a trademark registration, you may still have a chance, though note this important point in Twitter’s inactive username policy:

We are currently working to release all inactive usernames in bulk, but we do not have a set time frame for when this will take place. If a username you would like has been claimed by an account that seems inactive, you should consider selecting an available variation for your use on Twitter.

Even so, it wouldn’t hurt to submit a ticket request from your account to report the inactive name.

When and if you get a username opened up, you can easily change your Twitter handle to the new one without affecting your followers, lists or settings. You can do this from the Account tab of your account Settings. In our case, Twitter rolled @TBDDC over to @TBD for us.

When you change your Twitter handle, you have to be vocal about the change. If you can do it before the changeover, tell your followers what’s coming. After the change, they’ll receive your tweets at the new handle, but they may not realize the difference and may send replies and DMs to your old handle. Tweet about the change and encourage retweets. It might not hurt to briefly re-secure your old handle and put up a message there about the new account.

Note: If you get a second handle for this purpose, be good citizen and don’t name-squat. After a couple of weeks or so, if you aren’t going to use this account for something else, delete it and re-open the name.

But even if you don’t get the handle you want, you shouldn’t let it stop you from jumping into social media. It wasn’t a deterrent for TBD – we were able to build a lot of buzz on @TBDDC before we got the new name (and we were prepared to have that name be permanent).

If you can’t get the username of your brand, think of a way to make your own version. Shorten it, add an adjective or adverb, tack on a location or do something entirely out-of-the-box. It really isn’t all in a name. It all depends on how you use the medium and how well you can promote it elsewhere.

Creating one Facebook page for both sides of your life

By Mandy

On June 28, 2010

In Facebook, Surviving

Thanks to Facebook’s near-constant changes to their privacy settings, it’s tough to keep documentation on them up to date. In preparation for staff training here at TBD, I’ve completely overhauled these resources for anyone wishing to use Facebook for their professional journalism uses as well as their personal lives. I hope you’ll find these useful.

Intro to Facebook for journalists (and any professionals): A guide that explains the basics of Facebook with a glossary or terms and a look at demographics.

Setting up an All-Purpose Facebook Account: Setting up a Facebook page you can easily use for personal and professional contacts.

Sharing Your Content on Facebook: Using your newsfeed to promote content, blogs and social media accounts.

More resources on Facebook you should check out:

Search Facebook status updates at Openbook or OpenFacebookSearch
Mashable’s Facebook Guide for Journalists: An excellent look at using Facebook for finding leads, effective sourcing, ethical issues and more.
Facebook Demographics and Statistics, 2009-2010 (iStrategy Labs)
Ways to get Facebookers to Read Your Story

Twitter is the perfect place to break news (but don’t tell Reuters)

By Mandy

On March 18, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Twitter

When Reuters released its new social media policy last week, their competition had to be salivating. The wire service appears to be digging its own grave by stipulating in no uncertain terms that its reporters are not to use social media to break news. All news is to be broken on the Reuters wire, no exceptions.

The idea of spurning social media for breaking news in order to protect your wire service would be a little like an early 90s telephone service provider spurning the notion of developing an Internet service, instead allowing competitors to use its lines to serve up dial-up service to its customers.

Truth is, Twitter is the perfect medium for breaking news. I think of it as the latest incarnation of the “this just in!” radio bulletin. As a tool, it is immediate, mobile, searchable by keyword and location, you can easily see who has passed on your news (via RTs), link traffic is easily tracked and, best of all, it has your brand attached so you can get credit for the scoop.

There is absolutely nothing more satisfying to this newshound than a series of re-tweets on my item from readers – and even better when it includes a begrudging re-tweet from my competitors.

If a news outlets that uses the Reuters wire is the first to post an item to a social media, it will look as if they broke that news. Their link to the same Reuters content will be the one passed around from retweet to retweet. One would think they might want to get their name on it first – but guess not.

I see this play out every day on my Tweetdeck, as the local TV stations battle to tweet out the latest kooky AP news item from 200 miles away first. I always can’t help but think, “Gee, why isn’t the AP trying to get this into this market’s Twittersphere before local news outlets even get the chance?”

In the end, it won’t matter if they broke the news on the wires first. Most readers don’t read the wires, they read either their preferred media site or social media to get their news. As more and more news organizations take advantage of using Twitter to break news (or in the case of the BBC, mandating it), news providers who are late to the party on every story will eventually render themselves pretty useless as breaking news resources.

It’s downright shameful that an industry leader in breaking news (including some of the biggest breaking news events of the 20th century), would just let that go in favor of protecting a corner of the market that doesn’t benefit its readers or its reporters.

I have to say, the rest of the policy is rather helpful. It largely focuses on explaining how journalists can manage professional and personal brands on Twitter, including guidelines for making corrections in the social media sphere and avoiding accusations of bias with a thorough look at one’s social media profiles. All good info to know.

How the National Enquirer is using social media to campaign for a Pulitzer

By Mandy

On January 13, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Social Media

If you are one of the few that didn’t fall into Monday’s link bait trap put on by Politics Daily, you might not know about Emily Miller’s piece in which she argues that the National Enquirer should be considered for a Pulitzer for breaking the story of John Edwards’ extramarital affair and love child.

Ignoring the basis of her argument, let’s examine the excellent social media marketing at play here.

The entire tone of the piece is aimed at stoking the fires behind a largely-imagined competition between the National Enquirer and “mainstream media” that is widely-believed and argued by a certain corner of the political spectrum. Never mind that a vast majority of the Enquirer‘s stories – think weight gains/losses, celeb rehab, who’s sleeping with who – are not of any interest to most “mainstream” news outlets anyway (but that’s besides the point).

Note the only quoted source in the story. Note the author in the comments of the story stoking that political fire. See her later the same day actively campaigning for the Enquirer getting the Pulitzer on Twitter. Note the National Enquirer, the same day, writing its own story about Miller’s story, praising her campaigning. Watch the Twitter stream reaction from said media competition theorists. Then see the link bait everywhere (you too, Mr. Romenesko).

The entire Issue-with-a-capital-I has been re-framed as Biased/Mainstream Media is preventing the Upstart/Misunderstood National Enquirer from getting a Pulitzer instead of asking if the story is worth journalism’s highest honor in the first place. Miller and the National Enquirer fed the beast in just the right ways to both get huge gains from their regular bases and a whole new crowd of big media haters who bit the competition bait.

It’s brilliant marketing and more media outlets should take note.

See, the National Enquirer has been using social media to change its brand’s reputation ever since the Edwards story started rolling out in 2007 and 2008. I don’t know how it started, but somehow they have managed to market themselves as a certain-kind-of-conservative’s go-to brand, along with Fox News, of news that is perceived by fans as non-mainstream and unbiased in a world of mainstream and Left-leaning news outlets.

Every day I keep a cursory eye on a Twitter search for the word “enquirer” (to keep an eye out for mentions of my own newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer). At least a half-dozen times during my work day that stream will feature someone saying the National Enquirer is a more reliable source for news than “mainstream” news. You can’t really buy that kind of word-of-mouth love, especially after decades of having such a negative brand reputation.

We as an industry are generally awful about marketing ourselves and managing our brands. I’m not saying you need to actively wage a campaign like this to get noticed, but baby steps help a lot. Somewhere along the line, journalists got the notion that you can’t be good in this business unless everyone thinks your newspaper sucks and to hell with them if they don’t like it. I don’t think this works anymore.

Right now, when bloggers and users in social media denigrate our reporters or brands, the strategy is to keep quiet and don’t let them see you sweat. At worst, some outlets and media companies go further than that to actively alienate and discredit the detractors as a defensive maneuver, which never seems to go over well in the long run.

What we should be doing is contacting the writers, leaving comments and answering questions. We should defend our work and people when necessary and apologize when it’s warranted. We should go on record for interviews, return phone calls and emails – you know, do all those things that companies do when they want to be liked. Even when you don’t have to respond to criticism, we should be out there putting our best foot forward. Start by talking up your work and your paper’s efforts to local bloggers, your competition and your Twitter and Facebook friends. Involve the community in upcoming changes (eve the bad ones) and seek feedback whenever you can.

At the very least, take a cue from the Enquirer on this – you need to have fans somewhere. Find them, court them and keep them in the loop…then you can say to hell with everyone else.

A new media how-to roundup

By Mandy

On November 12, 2009

In Recommended Links, Surviving

Every now and again I try to pass along tips on how journalists at any point in their career can add to their skill set. Here’s some great tips and how-tos I’ve found lately you might find helpful if you want to break into media – or break out.

Taking the plunge and starting your own blog or news website? OJR has a great checklist to help you get off on the right foot. Whether you’re a college student or a mid-career journalist looking to get your name out there in a new way, this should really help you figure out your plan. And, if you use WordPress to host your blog or site (I recommend it), here’s a friendly DIY guide to WordPress troubleshooting from our friends at the OJB.

If you’re looking for a new online storytelling or crowd-sourcing technique, try using a lifestream or eventstream to tell a story in a narrative form using tools like Tumblr or Posterous. Using a stream, you can combine blog posts, tweets, images and other sorts of updates around a subject from several different people to flow into a single “stream” in chronological order. It’s sort of like a Friendfeed that tells a story. Try it out.

Or if you want to get really experimental, try the “mapped” writing model for online news. This technique isn’t so much a narrative as a “choose your own adventure” for long-form news. It involves an overall summary (or nut graf, if you will) followed by a series of “threads” that don’t need to be read in a particular order. I learned about this model back in online journalism class back in j-school – and I never thought it would come into use. Whaddya know.

Data fiends, multimedia producers and Flash fanatics can get great ideas for unique and innovative maps from 10,000 Words. Data visualization is a big deal for online media, buy now the key is making those maps simpler, prettier and fun. (Note: The images on the post are blown out, but it’s a solid list of examples). If you’re just a wannabe data fiend, the blog also has tips for finding and visualizing data. Very cool.

User-generated content doesn’t have to mean “amateur” content. The Knight Digital Media Center offers up some great tips for training citizen journalists that could make submitted news a valuable information asset for your site (and it helps the community too). Remember, not everyone had to sit through several credit hours’ worth of copy editing class – so just be patient.

Reporters, in particular, should consider expanding their social media brand by setting up a YouTube account. Those cats at Old Media, New Tricks have great how-to advice for branding yourself on YouTube. Yes, it can be more than just funny cat videos.

Take it from me, it’s tough to manage comments on your blog or news site, let alone learning to love them and use them to your advantage. I think a lot of the opinion in this piece is a bit pie-in-the-sky (because I’ve been there), but they offer good tips, nonetheless, for understanding online communities and managing commenters.

If you haven’t been using Twitter lists yet, here’s Mashable’s primer on what they are and how they work.

This is more for organizations rather than individuals, but Social Media Today has tips for making employees into effective Social Media Ambassadors. Hint: It goes beyond just getting everyone on Twitter and calling it a day.

Promoting your work online

By Mandy

On June 11, 2009

In Social Media, Surviving

You’re a reporter, blogger or photographer – and we all know you’re working hard. There’s only so much your website and newspaper can do to get readers to your stories – the rest is up to you. You are in charge of your own “brand” as a professional journalist, so here’s some ways to get your work to more people:

• Tweet links to your stories, photos and blog entries on Twitter.

• Link to your stories or some of your photos on Facebook.

How? From your Facebook profile page, click in the empty box where it says “what’s on your mind”? It gives you the option to add a link. Paste in the URL to your story. Now all your Facebook connections can find your stories.
• If you’re a blogger, put the RSS feed to your blog on Facebook.
How? On your profile page, click on Settings just under the “What’s on your mind?” box. From here, you can add links to blogs and other social networking sites (if you’re into that sort of thing).
• Add your stories about national topics to Publish2.com.

Wha? It’s a site just for journalists and news organizations to share news between sites. Submit your story there and it could show up as an “additional link” on lots of other websites like this: http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/jobcuts/
• If you’re on Twitter – make sure people know it.

Put your Twitter link into your outgoing email signature and with your online updates.
Submit your Twitter account for inclusion onto “expertise” sites like http://muckrack.com and http://wefollow.com or manage your account on http://twellow.com.

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