8 social media tips to start off 2018

When Twitter expanded its character limit to 280 from 140 late last year, it was for users to be able to express themselves better on the social media platform. But do development organizations need that much space? The answer varies. For Matthias Lufkens, managing director for digital at global public relations and communications firm Burson-Marsteller and lead author of the 2017 Twiplomacy report on international organizations’ usage of social media, the rule has been to keep it short. “If you use the 280 characters, cut them up in bullet points etc. But don't use them to add the title of the people or the meeting,” he told Devex. Twitter, he said, is basically a “headline.” When it’s well written and engaging, followers are likely to click on the attached link and read more, or retweet a message. But as with writing headlines, tweets and other forms of social media require great care and thought. While the different social media platforms Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have forever altered the way people and organizations communicate, allowing for wider interactions and dynamic conversations that lead to powerful advocacies and strong calls to action, a lazy post or a careless tweet is likely to be ineffective and damaging. The challenge for many development organizations is that their social media teams are very much in their infancy, composing of a few or only one person. Social media platforms, to some, are nothing more than an “add-on,” an avenue to broadcast press releases, or sometimes, a means to “impress leadership.” “There is still the race to get more followers to impress leadership, but that’s not really the point. What counts are the connections,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you have 50,000 followers, 100,000 or several million. It’s more how well your message resonates with your audience, and [whether] your audience [will] take action.” There’s no sure-fire way to reach these milestones on social, but here are a few tips Lufkens shared, as gleaned from the study, his experience, and hours of analyzing social posts. 1. Keep it short The rule applies not just in text, but in videos too. Different social media platforms apply different time limits, but if your video runs several minutes long, you might want to reconsider. “You lose most of your viewers after a minute,” he said, adding that organizations should ensure the first three seconds of a video are “contagious” or at least capture the viewer’s attention. 2. Sub your videos A lot of social posts nowadays contain visual content, which in some ways help to tell a story with only a short description. For organizations using video, Lufkens advises adding subtitles, not only to address language barriers, but also to ensure the video actually gets viewed. A lot of people nowadays are watching their videos on mute, whether as a courtesy to other passengers on the train or bus ride home, out of privacy, or keeping co-workers — and the boss — from catching them watching fluff content at work. But if the sound plays an important part in the video, say so from the very first shot, he said. 3. Tweet and retweet One of the most active international organizations on Twitter is the World Economic Forum, and it publishes about 106 tweets a day, said the digital managing director who also previously worked with the organization to design its digital strategies. Some of these tweets, however, are recycled content that’s been shared on the social media platform in the past week or so. The reason: Not everyone in an organization’s follower list will see the tweet when it is published the first time. Only a small fraction will see it. So if organizations share the same content over a period of a few weeks, it allows for their message to reach a wider set of audiences. 4. Add a call to action Whether to make a pledge to use antibiotics responsibly, or a simple request for people to retweet if they agree with the statement the organization published. In the tweet below, UNICEF gathered nearly 1000 retweets agreeing to their statement on the benefits of investing in girls. “Some may think like you’re begging for a retweet, but actually if you don’t do that, people won’t do it. So it’s good to encourage them to do something and that’s going to really drive the engagement,” Lufkens said. 5. Careful with that ‘boost’ button Social media platforms give organizations an opportunity to promote their posts. This helps organizations promote their brand, but also engage a wider set of people, some of whom may not yet be following them on Facebook or Twitter. But these “boosts” come with a price. So Lufkens recommends organizations only consider boosting a post that’s already performing well. “If you see a post is working well, then you might want to put money behind it and maybe for a specific group of people or promoted in a certain country,” he said. “We've seen some examples of posts that were clearly promoted, but that didn't get engagement because the message didn't resonate with the audience. So you can throw as much money as you want behind a post, but it won't go viral. It may get a lot of likes maybe, but not the outcome that you wanted to have, such as the click throughs and interaction.” 6. Allow for creativity Organizations often post links of press releases and reports on social, assuming their followers would likely click through. But what if they don’t? Then the hours and months spent working on that document have gone to naught. Lufkens underscores that writing for social requires creativity. If it’s a 50-page report, find a way to whittle down the report’s message in as few words, like coming up with a series of 10 tweets, or through the use of visuals, such as graphics. Organizations can try coming up with suggested tweets or Facebook posts as well, that other members of the organization can push on their own social media accounts. “When you write social copy for social media, always think about your audience. Don't just think about, ‘we've been asked to post this news release.’ It will never fly. You have to think about how is this going to be interesting for our audience ... but often a lot of organizations forget that,” he said. 7. Analyze Just like evaluating their programs, organizations need to make an analysis of how their social media content perform. This is crucial to see what works and what doesn’t. The report’s author said that the World Economic Forum has a team behind the organization’s social posts, and they meet daily to discuss what performed well on their social feeds recently, and what their plans of action for the day. 8. Get your executive on board An executive can bring in a lot of eyeballs for the work the organization does, gather support around an issue, and build the organization’s brand. So organizations should also think about how to build their executive’s profile online, if they are not yet active on social. Watch this space for our upcoming tips on how organizations can get their executives on Twitter.