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Research & Reports
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NewsWhip’s analysis of social media video in the first half of 2020 came to these conclusions: |
- Engagement with Facebook video posts (1,600 average) was higher than photo posts (1,100) and link posts (360).
- Engagement with native Facebook video posts was highest on average, followed by live video and embedded video. Live video dominated comments, however, with more than 4x the comments as native or embedded video.
- Pages that have a niche and stick to it have a loyal video audience.
- There is very little correlation between Facebook post engagement and Page likes – meaning that Page likes have little to do with how many people engage with video on Facebook.
- Public media shout out: PBS NewsHour was singled out as a Facebook Page with the highest proportion of comments, once you factor out religious pages.
- The top videos on Facebook averaged around three minutes, longer than one year ago when the top videos averaged two.
- Instagram videos see “significantly” more engagement than Facebook videos.
- While media brands and publishers have more engagement on Facebook, celebrities and influencers have more engagement on Instagram.
- Comment counts are lower on Instagram than other platforms — it is harder to get comments on Instagram than on Facebook.
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Social Media Best Practices
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LinkedIn Growth Tips
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LinkedIn held a “Guide to Pages and Organic Presence on LinkedIn” virtual open session packed with tips for optimizing and growing your Company Page on LinkedIn. I watched the webinar and game away with these top tips: |
- Complete your page: Upload your official logo, and fill out the industry, description, organization type, location, and website fields. Set three hashtags for the Page and interact on these Communities Hashtag feeds (admin view > home > right hand widget “Community Hashtags” to track hashtags specific to your Page).
- Since the pandemic, Company Pages have been posting more often and at all hours. You’re online more, your audiences are as well. Pages that post daily get twice the member engagement (but don’t post more than once a day).
- Use content suggestions (under Admin view > content > trending articles) to find what topics are trending with your followers. Refine insights by job function, industry, seniority and more.
- Leverage the voice of your employees and fans to highlight the best of your brand. Go to your Activity Feed to see who mentions or tags you in their posts.
- Mix up your post types: Video, images, documents. New post types: LinkedIn Live, Stories. Mix up the content as well: give kudos to an employee, spotlight an inspirational leader, and showcase thought leadership
- LinkedIn Live uses a live API so you can live stream to your Company Page or a LinkedIn Event (or both). LinkedIn Live gives you data such as audience retention, engagements, and who attended.
- The use case for LinkedIn Stories is different than normal Stories. Show behind the scenes at your company – what is it like for your employees? — or establish thought leadership.
- Video on LinkedIn performs the best with a strong opening, especially because there is no custom thumbnail for LinkedIn. Keep videos casual, authentic and not overly-produced. Videos between 1-3 minutes perform the best, and add captioning to optimize for mobile audiences.
- LinkedIn Events is now a feature open to all. Creates an Event Page and you can invite first degree connections to attend. Those who RSVP get notified ahead of time and when the event goes live.
- Make each post a two-sided conversation – ask questions, respond to comments.
- Include 2-3 community hashtags with each post.
- Encourage your employees to re-share your content. Use the feature “Employee notifications” that lets you ping your employees on LinkedIn up to once a week, to re-share key company page content.
- Link to your LinkedIn Company Page in your marketing comms.
- Review analytics to identify what content performed best
- Low hanging fruit for anyone running a Company Page: Ask each employee to update their LinkedIn profile to include the company; add a LinkedIn follow button to your website; and invite your first-degree profile connections to follow your Page (Bonus: run a campaign to all employees to do this).
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Editorial Guidelines
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So you’ve made an error. Now what? Even if you’re very careful, errors can still happen. And corrections must follow – no matter the platform. Read this memo on PBS’ Standards & Practices portal for guidance on how best to make corrections on social media. (Note: PBS Hub password required) |
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New Sprout Features!
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- We now have custom bit.lys fully integrated into Sprout. All local units using wgbh.org will have their links automatically shortened using the to.wgbh.org custom URL, and WORLD Channel has their own to.worldchannel.org. All national units that use pbs.org will be automatically shortened to to.pbs.org via PBS’s own bit.ly account.
- We have set up UTM tracking for all teams within Sprout. This means that any link you post from Sprout will include parameters such as source (Facebook, Twitter) and campaign so you can track performance from Sprout versus earned social from within Google Analytics. All intel on these UTMs will appear in GA. If you want additional custom tracking codes implemented, ping Jackie Bruleigh in the #Sprout-User-Group channel to set them up!
- You can now add descriptive (alt) text for images publishing to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
- You can now tag Instagram photos in your Compose window.
- Autosave asset is now an option from the Compose window, allowing you to save any image, video or document to the Sprout Asset Library.
- You can now moderate Twitter replies directly through Sprout. This new Twitter option to suppress spam and abuse is now available through your Smart Inbox (“Messages”).
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Internal Announcements
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- CrowdTangle Webinar: Debunked! How Investigators at BuzzFeed and the Digital Forensic Research Lab Use CrowdTangle To Hunt Misinformation (RSVP: August 25th)
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Platform Updates
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- Twitter rolled out the ability to moderate replies to all users.
- Facebook now allows Page owners to host and monetize online events on its platform all in one place. Page owners can create an online event, set a price, promote the event, collect payment and host the event, all in one place.
- Facebook also announced that for small businesses, it won’t collect fees from paid online events on Facebook for at least a year.
- Instagram rolled out a “suggested posts” feature when users reach the end of their feed.
- LinkedIn shared its product roadmap preview: in the coming year LinkedIn will debut an Events Tab on Company Pages, the ability to schedule LinkedIn Live streams, a LinkedIn Events Registration Form, Event retargeting, Event Ads, LinkedIn Stories for both Companies and individuals, LinkedIn Stories Ads, and the ability to boost posts.
- Facebook took steps to differentiate between a straight news outlet and a political persuasion operation. Media outlets that are owned by a political entity or a political person can still register as a News Page and advertise on Facebook, but they will no longer be eligible for inclusion in the Facebook News tab, and they won’t have access to news messaging on the Messenger Business Platform or the WhatsApp business API.
- Snapchat partnered with TikTok creators to launch body lenses that track and change in response to people’s body movements.
- Facebook expanded its brand partnership tag to public groups. When a group admin tags a post as branded content, a “Paid Partnership” label now appears at the top of the post. Facebook has also rolled out a paid subscription option and ads in the group feed.
- Instagram will ask suspicious accounts to verify their identity with government ID.
- Facebook shuts down its “Facebook Lite” app.
- Giphy now lets users create animated video meeting backdrops using its GIF library.
- TikTok added two-factor authentication through SMS or email.
- TikTok now lets users put text on video thumbnails.
- Pinterest and Vimeo partnered to make it easier to create video pins.
- Scribd buys SlideShare from LinkedIn.
- TikTok has created an information hub website and Twitter account to address “rumors and misinformation” about the platform.
- Snapchat is now allowing users to easily share content that was previously proprietary to Snapchat off of the app, like original shows, content from its Discover partners and celebrity Snapchats. The update will allow Snapchat users to share “Snap Originals,” “Shows” and “Publisher Stories” with their friends off the platform using easily shareable links.
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Weekend Reads
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