Three Social Media Posts #3: What Worked? What Didn’t?
The Washington Post nailed Instagram
WaPo did a great job visualizing the fact. The red color grabbed viewers’ attention. The lines from the mouth directed viewers to the fact stated in text. The captions complemented the illustration. It added context by acceptance rates of foreign languages by parties and races.
Users see visuals before they see captions on Instagram. Great visual elements can direct viewers to read the captions, and captions should always add on to, instead of repeating, the visuals. The post included all the key elements of great Instagram content.
Vox made Twitter video with great audiograms, but . . .
A lot of videos made from audiograms underperformed on social media. When viewers see videos, they expect visually appealing elements in the first few seconds, which audiograms are not good at. The video was also too long. Ten to 90 seconds is usually the rule for social videos, but this one lasted over two minutes with all audiograms. It would bore viewers after a few seconds. Therefore, if publishers really wanted to go for audiograms to promote podcasts, they should keep the videos under 30 seconds and include the most shocking or interesting quote/audio only.
The Center for Public Integrity shared a post from CIR, but very well-done
In previous posts, I stated that viewers see posts before they see headlines on social media, and therefore the order of the two elements mattered. CPI nailed it. It stated a shocking fact of the exploitation of drug rehab patients, and then transitioned well into the headline — viewers would know what “they” in the headline referred to.
CPI also tagged Reveal in the post. On social media, appropriate tagging makes posts stand out. Tagged parties are usually happy to engage with the posts. Furthermore, in this case, CPI gave proper credit to Reveal, the original publisher.
