By Laine Higgins
@lainehiggins
USA TODAY Sports intern
With the growing popularity of reporting through social media, publications can push out news within minutes of when it breaks, satisfying subscribers’ craving for instant information gratification.
Panelists Tommy Deas of the Tuscaloosa News, Jim Reeser of Pittsburgh’s The Citizens’ Voice and Laken Litman of USA TODAY Sports encouraged APSE conference attendees to carve out as big of a social media presence as possible.
The trio advocated the use of social media to promote content. Specifically, Deas suggested promoting articles before they come out in print and sharing photos of fans. Explaining his logic, he said with a laugh, “fans like to look at pictures of other fans looking stupid.”
Litman stressed the importance of driving traffic to your publication’s website. She highlighted For The Win’s strategy of using teaser headlines as tweeting copy to encourage followers to click on links.
The panel invited conference attendees to discuss the blurred lines of social media reporting, such as what content produced by high school and collegiate athletes should become news and when it is appropriate to contact minors through social media websites.
THREE KEY TAKEAWAYS:
_ Maximize each character: the best tweets entice readers to engage, by retweeting, replying or following links back to your publication’s homepage. Be careful not to give away your entire story in your tweet; more readers will interact if you leave them a kernel of suspense.
_ Think before you tweet. Don’t press “send” on any information that is unverified or wouldn’t make the cut for your publication’s print edition. When in doubt, don’t tweet it out.
_ The more the merrier. Fresh Facebook content is good content. The site’s algorithm promotes posts with links, so the more links you post, the higher they will appear in your subscribers’ newsfeeds.
