Digital Hacks You Don’t Even Need a Consultant For
By Danielle Wright and Evan Stepper
You’ve heard it before. Everything has gone digital. Every big brand, media outlet, indie coffee shop, and both your neighbors are on Twitter. And if you’re a comms person looking to finally venture into digital, it may feel like you’re miles behind.
Luckily for you, we’ve got some hacks up our sleeves to help you transform those traditional comms assets you’re already cooking up into killer social content to feed your online followers. Bon appétit!
Here are 5 ways to spin your current comms assets into digital gold:
Turn a press release into a series of tweets
Press releases are saturated with information, and Twitter thrives on delivering the no-nonsense, must-know headlines for all breaking news coverage. It’s a match made in heaven. Are your Twitter fingers ready? Pull out the boldest quote and tweet it out. Post a staggering stat. Tell your followers to mark their calendars with an upcoming date. Schedule an #ICYMI tweet a few days out as a recap. You just penned 4 great tweets.
Turn an op-ed into quote graphics
Op-eds are the trusty hammer in a comms person’s toolbox. Eloquent and inspiring, these statement pieces are just itching to be thrown over a beautiful picture for an effective Pinterest-worthy (and-every-other-platform-worthy) quote graphic. You don’t even have to be a designer! Tools like Canva and a host of mobile apps can make designing graphics a breeze.
Turn press clips into a weekly round-up newsletter
Like most comms pros, you’re nosey — just like us! You like to know what reporters and influencers are saying about your latest campaign, and chances are your followers would be interested too. Adding an “In-the-News” section to a weekly or monthly email and sharing favorable coverage on your social media accounts are the perfect complement to your campaign. Bonus: you get to vet which stories you want to amplify and which to omit, so get choosey.
Leverage your team as your early follower base
Followers matter on social media, and it’s one of the biggest hurdles when initially building up an account. Getting in front of new audiences is hard without other accounts with followers sharing your content. Luckily you have a wealth of people all around you that care about the same issues you do. Encourage your team to help build the ground floor of your social media following by sharing! As the shares come in, the followers will… well, follow.
Seek out fan photos. Repost tagged photos to your feed.
What’s the best kind of content for a busy comms person? Content that an enthusiastic brand advocate makes for you! Make a habit of searching for your keywords, hashtags, and account handles — people love tagging causes they care about, and more-often-than-not, they’re happy to hear you want to share their post! These posts provide social proof and credibility to your cause and will often be some of the top-performing content on your account. Send a quick dm asking for permission to share, offering to give them photo creds of course(📸:), and post away!
Are we already at 5? Well, just as easy as that you’ll be pumping out content in no time. Once you have that steady stream of posts going out you’ll have a great mix of information and inspiration filling your feed.
RALLY is an issue-driven communications firm | Certified force for good by B Corporation
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