Tips for navigating the changing landscape of social media
When I was tapped to be the Gather guest curator for September I knew social media would be my topic of choice. As The Intercept’s audience engagement producer, social media is primary to my role and this past year has introduced a whiplash of emotions as that landscape changes. We all remember how the infamous “pivot to video” shaped news organizations' content creation and business models. Less than a decade later, we’re still at the mercy of social media platforms and their disdain for news in favor of content creators and, unironically, video.
With the changing landscape of social media and the emergence of platforms, news organizations are trying to figure out what works best for them and where to invest their resources. In this lightning chat, we heard how journalists are adapting their approaches to social media and engagement approaches. For this lightning chat, I brought in two journalists who were able to shed light on how newsrooms can adapt to this new era of social media on the local and national level.
Panelists:
- Adriana Lacy, Adriana Lacy Consulting
- Beth O’Malley, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
While Adriana and Beth left us with many gems on how to approach this era, there were four key takeaways that can be implemented as we tackle the changing platforms.
Keep Up with Tech News
In 2018, Vice reported that Facebook was moving away from catering to news publisher’s needs in order “to emphasize ‘meaningful interaction’ between friends and family.”
“For the last few years, the articles much of the news industry publishes — and even the formats they publish in — have been dictated by the whims of a tech giant that seems to have more interest in experimenting with its algorithm than serving its own users, let alone the readers of third party media companies. As advertisers left traditional media companies for the promise of targeted ads on Facebook (and Google), news outlets were forced to align themselves closely with their biggest existential threat.
Entire business models have risen and fallen with Facebook’s tweaks to its opaque algorithm.”
In 2023, Adriana Lacy says the best way for journalists to be informed about new algorithms and business models is to follow tech news to figure out what platforms will prioritize or get rid of.
“I think a lot of times a lot of our strategy can be informed by that coverage. I think a great example of that is when we started to see last year, Facebook had one of their earnings calls and they mentioned that they weren’t getting a lot of revenue in terms of ads and things from Instagram stories and kind of show that wasn’t really going to be a big point of focus for them anymore,” Lacy said. “Same with IGTV, and they kind of started to pivot.”
Get Off Platforms
As social media platforms become “increasingly hostile for news,” getting offline is a great option for newsrooms — especially local news.
Lacy says events and newsletters are a “bright area if engagement” on the local level: “I also just think the proximity of being really close to your audience, which you don’t necessarily get to do on the national stage, is really great.”
In February, Babz Rawls Ivy, editor-in-chief of the Black-owned newspaper Inner-City News spoke to Poynter about the power of being present:
“Don’t show up just for the tragedy. Don’t show up just for the shootings and the trauma. Show up for the celebratory things. Show up to the high school football and basketball games. Show up to the cookouts. Show up to the community event that’s going on,” Rawls Ivy said. “If you are sincere about fostering better relationships, get to know the people who you are writing about. So much more of their lives is not just about trauma and the tragedy that happens in these neighborhoods.”
(Re)-pivot back to video
The St. Louis Dispatch-Post is investing in their TikTok strategy. Beth O’Malley admitted that her approach to the platform was a bit dated based on her personal algorithm.
“I was definitely aware of TikTok, but the algorithm was never sending me the cool fun stuff it was sending me the old lady stuff, and that’s fine. So I did not do a lot of experimenting. I did a lot of re-editing existing news video with maybe a narration over it, or just letting the video audio speak for itself in terms of what we wanted to say.”
So they have invested in a new social media hire and video hire to run some experiments for the best strategy.
Videos — specifically short form — can also be a way to tackle multiple platforms, Lacy says.
“The good thing about that is you can post that TikTok to Instagram reels to Youtube shorts. And it’s a little versatile like that. So I’ve seen a lot of people kind of lean in that way with explainers and content like that to really reach younger audiences that maybe they wouldn’t have reached on Twitter or Facebook.”
Be intentional about where you invest time and money
With the drastic changes on well-known social media platforms like X/Twitter and the emergence of newer ones like Mastadon, BlueSky, and Threads engagement strategies may be upended.
While there’s no blueprint for this approach, Lacy says it is ideal to meet your audience where they are and test those strategies.
“There’s some newsrooms where you see that newsletters are the best strategy other the ones, you see, Twitter is the best strategy. So I think you know, having that relationship and engagement with your audience can really inform that because you can start to see where your audiences, what they’re interested in.”
O’Malley says know your goals, there is no need to waste your time.
“You have to know what your goals are with each different platform. And it’s okay to say, I gotta step away from Twitter. And we’re only gonna get clicks from Twitter like we’re not going to engage anymore. And we kind of tried to indicate that to our audience.”
While the relationship between social media and news has been through many iterations, platforms will always be a vehicle for reaching audiences. Based on this lighting chat, It’s best to evaluate what works for your audience and team to develop a sustainable strategy for engagement.
Alyxaundria Sanford was Gather’s guest curator for September. She’s the Audience Engagement Producer at The Intercept and an adjunct professor at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and Hunter College.
