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��SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ORGANIZING:

A GUIDE FOR ReImagine Appalachia

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TRAINING GOALS

Learn best practices for social media management
Identify and create compelling content
Tips and tricks to engage your audience
Learn how to increase visibility
Write strong post copy
Move from a personal to a professional voice

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MESSAGING

We develop and use messaging so that the media tells your story

We use message frames not just to explain a policy position, but to put it in the context of the things that matter to you (your values)

We talk about our values because that’s how we connect an unfamiliar issue to familiar beliefs held by the general public

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What makes for good content?

It is topical, engaging and informative�
It is contextual �
It reflects the messaging and values of your group or organization

Where does content come from?

From news outlets �
From you! Images/graphics, photos, polls�
Readers: Feedly, Google Alerts, RSS feeds

CREATING & CURATING CONTENT

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Always provide context and message framing to accompany the content that you are posting.

What makes for good post copy?

It is short and concise.
It is engaging.
It summarizes a key point or message of the article or original content.
It relates the content to the message frame or values of your organization.

WRITING POST COPY

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Make event flyers, graphics, videos, memes, documents, slideshow presentations, Tiktoks, & more!
501(c)(3) nonprofits can get for free!
thousands of templates to choose from--you do not have to be a designer!
Add coworkers or others members of your Canva team to edit
save in various formats: videos, gifs, PDFs, jpg, etc.

CANVA

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You can take one image and resize it to fit the sizes to another social media platform. For instance, go from Twitter → Instagram

CANVA

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https://linktr.ee/newdeal4us
One-stop shop for hosting all your links!
Great for Instagram and Twitter bios
Add different categories

website
events
blogs
press hits

linktr.ee

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Getting started: accounts, hashtags, lists
Respond; it increases engagement and grows connections
An eye-catching, clever bio gets you more followers
Engage other users directly
Update your pinned tweet
Repeat tweets: get more traffic, hit multiple time zones, reach new followers�

MANAGING A TWITTER/”X” ACCOUNT

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Don’t just push out information - join a larger conversation- see what’s trending
Use images/videos/gifs/emojis
Avd. 2 mny abrvs
#Don’t #use #a #hashtag #for #every #word
Shorten links by using a service like bit.ly
Use a scheduler like TweetDeck or Buffer
We love Twitter Chats!
Tweet threads
Tag partners

TWITTER TIPS

1. Understand how @-mentions work

Twitter assumes, almost always correctly, that the intention with @ tweets is for a direct conversation with another user, so it treats those tweets as if they are to be private. Only the person tweeting, the person being tweeted at, and those who follow both accounts will see the tweets in their streams.

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again!

2. It’s OK to tweet the same thing multiple times

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again! This is where TweetDeck or Buffer helps. Knowing that it’s OK to repost content takes a lot of pressure off the content curation process. If I find a great link, I shouldn’t worry if I’ve already tweeted it before. Reposting can be a good thing.

3. Whatever the ideal ratio is, I found it fruitless to chase this ratio in the early going. I joined Twitter to engage, and so engage I did.

My stumbling block here was noticing the enviable follower-following ratio of top users on Twitter. Part of me wanted the cool factor of being followed by thousands while only following a handful. A healthy follower-following ratio could wait. In the meantime, I adopted the rule to follow those who follow you.

Being selective can actually slow down your growth. One of the quickest ways to build a following, according to KissMetrics, is to follow as many people as you can.

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TWITTER EXAMPLES

memes!

1. Understand how @-mentions work

Twitter assumes, almost always correctly, that the intention with @ tweets is for a direct conversation with another user, so it treats those tweets as if they are to be private. Only the person tweeting, the person being tweeted at, and those who follow both accounts will see the tweets in their streams.

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again!

2. It’s OK to tweet the same thing multiple times

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again! This is where TweetDeck or Buffer helps. Knowing that it’s OK to repost content takes a lot of pressure off the content curation process. If I find a great link, I shouldn’t worry if I’ve already tweeted it before. Reposting can be a good thing.

3. Whatever the ideal ratio is, I found it fruitless to chase this ratio in the early going. I joined Twitter to engage, and so engage I did.

My stumbling block here was noticing the enviable follower-following ratio of top users on Twitter. Part of me wanted the cool factor of being followed by thousands while only following a handful. A healthy follower-following ratio could wait. In the meantime, I adopted the rule to follow those who follow you.

Being selective can actually slow down your growth. One of the quickest ways to build a following, according to KissMetrics, is to follow as many people as you can.

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TWITTER EXAMPLES

action alerts with visual- showing urgency!

1. Understand how @-mentions work

Twitter assumes, almost always correctly, that the intention with @ tweets is for a direct conversation with another user, so it treats those tweets as if they are to be private. Only the person tweeting, the person being tweeted at, and those who follow both accounts will see the tweets in their streams.

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again!

2. It’s OK to tweet the same thing multiple times

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again! This is where TweetDeck or Buffer helps. Knowing that it’s OK to repost content takes a lot of pressure off the content curation process. If I find a great link, I shouldn’t worry if I’ve already tweeted it before. Reposting can be a good thing.

3. Whatever the ideal ratio is, I found it fruitless to chase this ratio in the early going. I joined Twitter to engage, and so engage I did.

My stumbling block here was noticing the enviable follower-following ratio of top users on Twitter. Part of me wanted the cool factor of being followed by thousands while only following a handful. A healthy follower-following ratio could wait. In the meantime, I adopted the rule to follow those who follow you.

Being selective can actually slow down your growth. One of the quickest ways to build a following, according to KissMetrics, is to follow as many people as you can.

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TWITTER EXAMPLES

something interactive/ something relative to news cycle

1. Understand how @-mentions work

Twitter assumes, almost always correctly, that the intention with @ tweets is for a direct conversation with another user, so it treats those tweets as if they are to be private. Only the person tweeting, the person being tweeted at, and those who follow both accounts will see the tweets in their streams.

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again!

2. It’s OK to tweet the same thing multiple times

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again! This is where TweetDeck or Buffer helps. Knowing that it’s OK to repost content takes a lot of pressure off the content curation process. If I find a great link, I shouldn’t worry if I’ve already tweeted it before. Reposting can be a good thing.

3. Whatever the ideal ratio is, I found it fruitless to chase this ratio in the early going. I joined Twitter to engage, and so engage I did.

My stumbling block here was noticing the enviable follower-following ratio of top users on Twitter. Part of me wanted the cool factor of being followed by thousands while only following a handful. A healthy follower-following ratio could wait. In the meantime, I adopted the rule to follow those who follow you.

Being selective can actually slow down your growth. One of the quickest ways to build a following, according to KissMetrics, is to follow as many people as you can.

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TWITTER EXAMPLES

Twitter threads with images and gifs

1. Understand how @-mentions work

Twitter assumes, almost always correctly, that the intention with @ tweets is for a direct conversation with another user, so it treats those tweets as if they are to be private. Only the person tweeting, the person being tweeted at, and those who follow both accounts will see the tweets in their streams.

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again!

2. It’s OK to tweet the same thing multiple times

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again! This is where TweetDeck or Buffer helps. Knowing that it’s OK to repost content takes a lot of pressure off the content curation process. If I find a great link, I shouldn’t worry if I’ve already tweeted it before. Reposting can be a good thing.

3. Whatever the ideal ratio is, I found it fruitless to chase this ratio in the early going. I joined Twitter to engage, and so engage I did.

My stumbling block here was noticing the enviable follower-following ratio of top users on Twitter. Part of me wanted the cool factor of being followed by thousands while only following a handful. A healthy follower-following ratio could wait. In the meantime, I adopted the rule to follow those who follow you.

Being selective can actually slow down your growth. One of the quickest ways to build a following, according to KissMetrics, is to follow as many people as you can.

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TWITTER CHAT

It’s a virtual panel discussion in real time over Twitter.

There’s a moderator (which will be my personal or our digital comms director’s account) and there are panelists, will be you and your organizations!

The purpose is to create social media buzz, hopefully become trending on twitter, and use our collective followings to reach a wider audience.

Example: https://twitter.com/newdeal4us/status/1438231639658799114?s=46&t=ttf20stwlT7hCDcWBR5l6g

1. Understand how @-mentions work

Twitter assumes, almost always correctly, that the intention with @ tweets is for a direct conversation with another user, so it treats those tweets as if they are to be private. Only the person tweeting, the person being tweeted at, and those who follow both accounts will see the tweets in their streams.

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again!

2. It’s OK to tweet the same thing multiple times

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again! This is where TweetDeck or Buffer helps. Knowing that it’s OK to repost content takes a lot of pressure off the content curation process. If I find a great link, I shouldn’t worry if I’ve already tweeted it before. Reposting can be a good thing.

3. Whatever the ideal ratio is, I found it fruitless to chase this ratio in the early going. I joined Twitter to engage, and so engage I did.

My stumbling block here was noticing the enviable follower-following ratio of top users on Twitter. Part of me wanted the cool factor of being followed by thousands while only following a handful. A healthy follower-following ratio could wait. In the meantime, I adopted the rule to follow those who follow you.

Being selective can actually slow down your growth. One of the quickest ways to build a following, according to KissMetrics, is to follow as many people as you can.

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TWITTER CHAT

Here is how it works:

We write the questions out ahead of time, and send them out a day or two before the chat so all panelists will have time to draft their responses.
We develop a unique hashtag for the chat specifically – we use that in all our questions and answers.
We pick a time and day for the chat.
We promote the chat together over social media and send out an email to our lists to encourage them to join and follow along
We all get on the phone at the specified time for the chat so the moderator can be sure everyone knows what question is being posted and can keep track of any other tweets panelists might need to respond to.
On the specified time, we start the chat with an intro and roll call.
The moderator puts out questions to the panel – signifying the question and which number question it is by beginning the tweet with Q1, Q2, Q3 etc. The hashtag appears in every tweet
The panelists reply to each question with their answer and put A1, A2, A3… at the beginning of the tweet – always using the hashtag. (Retweeting with comment is the best way to reply)
We usually do about 10 questions. It lasts for an hour. It is very fun!

1. Understand how @-mentions work

Twitter assumes, almost always correctly, that the intention with @ tweets is for a direct conversation with another user, so it treats those tweets as if they are to be private. Only the person tweeting, the person being tweeted at, and those who follow both accounts will see the tweets in their streams.

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again!

2. It’s OK to tweet the same thing multiple times

Let’s say you have an amazing piece of content that you love and your audience loves. It would be a shame to bring it up once and never speak of it again! This is where TweetDeck or Buffer helps. Knowing that it’s OK to repost content takes a lot of pressure off the content curation process. If I find a great link, I shouldn’t worry if I’ve already tweeted it before. Reposting can be a good thing.

3. Whatever the ideal ratio is, I found it fruitless to chase this ratio in the early going. I joined Twitter to engage, and so engage I did.

My stumbling block here was noticing the enviable follower-following ratio of top users on Twitter. Part of me wanted the cool factor of being followed by thousands while only following a handful. A healthy follower-following ratio could wait. In the meantime, I adopted the rule to follow those who follow you.

Being selective can actually slow down your growth. One of the quickest ways to build a following, according to KissMetrics, is to follow as many people as you can.

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Claim your Page's vanity URL�Use a recognizable profile pic (logo is best), and an engaging cover photo
Earn the "Very responsive to messages" badge
Always remove links from your post copy
You can use “@followers” to your posts once a day that will allow you to notify your followers about a post (higher viewership)
Make sure images are properly formatted: use Canva!

MANAGING A FACEBOOK/ “META” PAGE

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Mix up content—videos, photos, news articles, stories
Create a content calendar
Post strategically—figure out when and how often to post based on your audience
Prioritize quality over quantity
Respond to comments and messages quickly
Let people talk in the comments. The more chatter, the more visibility (unless online bullying is occurring)
Never share a link without providing context and message framing
Encourage reviews and respond promptly to negative ones

MANAGING A FACEBOOK PAGE (cont.)

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Know when your followers are online to maximize your post’s visibility and reach.

POST AT THE RIGHT TIME

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Make sure your account is set up as a business profile, for access to insights like impressions, engagement, and reach
Verify that the account is public
Give your Instagram bio the attention it deserves
Don’t let your content get stale! Vary your content mix, use IGTV, and stories.
Turn on push notifications
See what followers are liking: this helps inform ongoing content strategy, use relevant hashtags
Find optimal posting time. Experiment to see which times are most effective for your own audience, referring to the insights for business profiles
Use tag handles in the caption AND the photo itself
Instagram ads: Ads look more like regular photos in a user’s feed than on perhaps any other platform, so this Instagram tip is worth trying out if you can put some money behind your social media efforts. (Use Facebook “Ads Manager,”).

MANAGING A BUSINESS INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT

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-Instagram carousel are great for sharable content, especially with visuals

- cultural content

Examples of Instagram Posts

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latest trends and memes!

Examples of Instagram Posts

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Video content

Examples of Instagram Posts

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-screenshot Twitter threads with graphics and share on Instagram

Examples of Instagram Posts

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Keep your posting short, professional, and concise
Write with an eye to your organization’s mission and values
Always proofread!�Make your posts easy to read and understand.
Avoid using lingo, too many abbreviations, and hashtags
Be mindful of your etiquette: do not like your own posts
Maintain appropriate boundaries with the information you post and share

MOVING FROM PERSONAL TO PROFESSIONAL

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there are trends that come out daily, week-- try to stay relevant
can use canva to help edit and then upload to Tiktok
highlight cultural topics, events, campaigns

Examples:

Tiktok

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WORKING WITH THE MEDIA

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TRAINING GOALS

Basic interviewing skills
Tricks and tips for different media interview scenarios
The importance of staying on message
Understand the importance of practice and preparation
Develop tools for handling difficult interview settings
Understand the importance of body language

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WHAT TO DO WHEN THE PRESS CALLS

Don’t answer the call.
If you answer, tell the reporter you’re busy and you’ll need to call them back.
Call your organizer/member leader!
You NEVER need to do an interview you don’t want to do.

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WHY DO MEDIA INTERVIEWS?

Best tool to tell your story
Convey key messages to multiple audiences
Telling your story means TAKING BACK POWER
Talking directly to the press means you can influence the story the reporter writes

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We aren’t trying to answer the reporter’s question; we’re trying to tell our story�
We do that by PIVOTING and BRIDGING (turning questions back to our messaging)

It is ok not to know the answer

Remember that we’re trying to talk to the public, not the reporter

Always remember: YOU ARE THE EXPERT �
Always ask to make a final comment

STAYING “ON MESSAGE”

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MAKING ACTIONS PRESS-WORTHY

Unusual alliances: one of journalism’s favorite narratives is the odd couple�
Link your news to current events�
Think visually

Use the right messenger: having a good message is not enough; it is important to use the right influencer for your audience

Make it the first, the largest, or the only, but don’t lie; maintaining credibility is key (“perhaps the biggest” and “among the first” are useful phrases)�
Action logic: someone who doesn’t know anything about the campaign can quickly understand why the action is being done�
Photos – they say 1,000 words

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SPOKESPERSON TIPS

Know your messaging
Master the pivot/bridge
Remember that reporters are not your friends
Avoid using jargon or acronyms
Don’t bury the lede
Never say ‘No Comment’ (just repeat your messaging)
Be engaging and warm (let your personality shine through!)
Don’t panic/get defensive: this is an opportunity to correct misconceptions!
Prepare and practice

What are the three most important ideas you want the audience to hear?

Every answer should include at least one of your messages in every answer.

Pivot/Bridge: Know how to “bridge,” from the question to the message. (“The most important thing to remember is…” or, “What we believe is…)

Reporters are not your friends: the journalist may legitimately be friendly – but she’s not your friend. Don’t trust your comfort level.

Speak Everyday English: You may think you sound more credible if you speak with big, jargon-filled words. You won’t – those words just erect a barrier between you and the audience

Don’t Bury Your Lead: When answering a question, don’t lead up to your conclusion. Give the most interesting part of your answer, or your “lead,” first. If you have additional time, you can go back and provide more context – but if you don’t start with your lead, the reporter may cut you off before you get a chance to state it at all.

Be Engaging: This sounds like clichéd advice, but it’s not. Most new spokespersons think they have to bury their most engaging traits in order to come across looking like an “official” or “credible” spokesperson. They usually just look boring instead. Be your passionate self. Gesture. Convey warmth and smile when appropriate.

Watch Your Tone: If you feel defensive, you will look defensive. Instead of greeting tough questions with panic, welcome them as opportunities to correct the record. Instead of thinking, “Oh, no! Here comes a tough question!” think, “I’m delighted you’re giving me this opportunity to correct that misconception.” Even if you don’t have a perfect answer, the audience will be more inclined to believe a response from a spokesperson who doesn’t come across as defensive.

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ABC method:

Acknowledge the question

Bridge

Content (the message)

MASTER THE PIVOT (BRIDGING)

That’s not my area of expertise but I can say …
I don’t know about that, but what I do know is …
That’s a good question, but it’s important to remember that …
I don’t know that, but what I can tell you is …
Here’s what we do know …
If your listeners keep only one thing in mind, it’s that …
The thing we are focusing on is …
I wouldn’t say that. What I would say is …
I’m glad you brought that up, because (insert talking point) …
You’d have to ask them (the opposition) that, but _______ United believes that ...

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After the interview:

Debrief with others; what did they think?
Watch/listen to yourself and evaluate how it went.
Re-evaluate your talking points.
Leverage and amplify.
Practice some more, change what didn’t work.

WATCH AND LEARN!

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PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE