The Social Media Bible: The Abridged Post

To make it easier for people to start using social media in the way set out in the original social media bible, I have created this abridged version. Hopefully this version won’t put people off with its length. Now it’s almost 2 pages shorter, there’s no excuse not to read it & start implementing what’s said. (Try to) enjoy!

Facebook

·         Not as popular for promoting  news as it used to be (without creating fancy apps) but doesn’t mean it should be overlooked

·         The way facebook should be used, in terms of post sturcture, is similar to that of twitter (see below)

·         As there is no character limit on facebook, the introductory sentence(s) can be longer and a little more detailed than twitter

·         All the different WINOL facebook pages should like each other in the same way that all the WINOL twitter accounts should follow one another

·         You should all like the WINOL sites and try to promote them to their friends and family as much as you think is appropriate

Twitter

·         Try not to “over sex” tweets

·         Don’t spam your followers with same-y tweets but try to keep up a good online presence

·         Avoid retweeting other people too much as it may look like we are promoting the user; instead check the information from that tweet, reword it to suite your angle, images or to include new information

·         When talking about an upcoming event ensure it is definitely happening and ,if it’s not our event, try not to sound like you’re promoting it (unless they’re promoting us back)

·         Third years that set up twitter accounts last year (such as SportsWeek) should pass on the log in details on to the next generation

·         Posts from @WINOL should look like this: “Title in quote marks” short line taken from the news story – winol.co.uk/link_direct_to_article

·         The line from the story often has to be edited to fit the 140-character tweet limit.

·         Remember that website links always take up 20 characters, no matter how long or short they actually are

·         Tweets should, ideally, be written by the reporter & sound similar to the headlines at the beginning of the bulletin as these will tease the twitter user into reading the article

·         The reporter should also have at least an idea, though ideally a firm list, of twitter accounts to tweet directly to

·         Each WINOL member should have their own professional account (separate to their personal ones) to keep people up to date with their story’s & to preview what will be coming up on WINOL (ideally including a picture)

·         All of these accounts should also follow WINOL and all of the magazine and Sports accounts to keep you up to date with what’s happening

Tumblr

·         Try to upload each post with at least one picture, though text stories can still be quite effective

·         It’s incredibly important to use as many relevant tags as possible

·         If you use a creative commons photo, ensure you attribute it underneath your text story

·         You can use multiple photos and or .gifs (moving photos and a staple of tumblr) which should make it stand out more and make it more likely for people to “re-blog” it

·         We’ve only created a tumblr feed for News so far, but it would work better for magazines, especially Absolute:ly as it’s very visual & would appeal to a fairly large portion of tumblr users.

Pinterest

·         If/when we start using Pinterest we must only use our own photos, not other peoples creative commons pictures

·         Create a different board for each magazine plus sport and news

·         Could do one for each individual sport too

·         Under each picture there should be a short headline-style description and another link back to the site

·         Before we can use this though, we need considerably better pictures

Flickr

·         Should try to stop using screen shots for pictures

·         Photos we took should be made creative commons with accreditation

·         Photos that are not ours should be made private

·         Rename photos and add descriptions to flickr uploads & a link to the relevant WINOL article

Please Note

·         This will be updated as social media changes

·         The Social Media Editor should be made admin for all facebook pages and have log in details for magazine social networks so they can edit  or delete content they feel is inappropriate or inaccurate.

E-mail

·         Once a week on a Wednesday, the social media editor should e-mail people at the university

·         Using the university e-mail system, you can send the message out to everyone by clicking “New” then “To…” and searching “Faculty” in the pop up box. Double click on all relevant search results to add the list to the message recipients then press “OK.”

·         See the original Social Media Bible for e-mail layout