Highlights from NPR’s social media learnings in 2016
We’re new to Medium and thought it would be helpful to highlight some of the work we’ve published this year about social platforms and best practices for journalists:
- This year, NPR dove into social video, primarily focusing on Facebook Live. Video editor Claire O’Neill shares some of what we’ve learned there, from various editorial approaches to analytics.
- Do you run a media org or brand’s Twitter account? Steve Mullis lays out how NPR hosts Twitter. Have you thought about how to use your Twitter account to tell stories? Steve shares how we try to infuse NPR’s twitter account with storytelling.
- We use storytelling as the framework for how we approach Snapchat, too. NPR social media desk alum Vesta Partovi helped us retool our approach.
- Don’t underestimate the value of visuals when it comes to social media. It’s important to create effective social graphics to help your story travel beyond your established audience. Malaka Gharib, Lori Todd and Rachel Ketterer’s research provides six styles you might want to try.
- In the social media callouts guide, Serri Graslie lays out the five steps for creating a successful callout and Lori Todd shares some tips on how to effectively engage with the audience throughout the process.
- As a social media producer or editor, it’s tough to distill best practices on platforms as each constantly iterates on their products. Our audience insights analyst Dan Frohlich has worked with us throughout the year to test our theories — and he’s written analyses on Facebook preferred audience tags and Facebook publishing times.