30 to 3,000
My 5-Step Guide to microblogging and the secret to how I generated over 3,000 impressions to my tweets. All while reporting The Bureau of Investigative Journalisms virtual event ‘How is British chicken fuelling global deforestation?’.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term — Sprout Social identified microblogging as a combination of instant messaging and content production. With a microblog, you share short messages with an online audience to improve engagement, so I put exactly that to the test — to find out more about my experiences, read on and check out my mini vlog of the day below.
My Microblogging Experience with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Microblogging can range from retweets to hashtags, but what makes it so unique is the real time updates and more importantly the real time feedback and interactions. The book every journalist should read ‘Online Journalism: the essential guide’ also describes this as live blogging. When looking at the Media Richness Theory microblogging ticks every single box, from rapid feedback to personal focus and natural language; microblogging could be argued as one of the best forms of communication in SNS’s (Social Networking Sites). And YOU most likely partake in microblogging, subconsciously, on a daily basis.
“Communication media differ in the richness of the information processed. This is based on feedback capability, the communication channels utilised, language variety, and personal focus. The more a medium incorporates these characteristics, the richer it is.” -Media Richness Theory
But how can we make our microblogging stand out among the crowd, beat algorithms and the competition? I have devised a 5-step guide after my own experiences when microblogging The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’ live virtual event — How are British chickens aiding global deforestation? I decided to microblog a live event as I not only wanted disseminate this information to a wider audience but wanted to educate people who maybe didn’t have time to watch the event, and inspire people who maybe didn’t even realise the event was happening… and YOU can do the same for your audience.
1. So, what is the point?First of all one of the main things to remember when microblogging is that the best way to attract an engaged and interested audience is to give your messaging purpose. The key purpose to my live microblogging was education; I was being continually fed information that at first glance could appear confusing and overwhelming. Through the art of microblogging I was able to break down this information for my Twitter audience, all while making it so engaging that they wanted to share and RT for their own followers, creating a snowball of ambient journalism.
Twitter has been described as the platform of “ambient journalism” by Herminda in The Social Media Handbook as it presents a “multi-faceted and fragmented news-experience, where citizens are producing small pieces of content that can be collectively considered as journalism” not only this but Twitter also acknowledges the audiences as both a receiver and a sender. This is why creating affective a useful microblogging tweets can not only teach your audience something, but means you can learn along the way.
2. The secret ingredient..To give your tweets #visibility, #’s are ESSENTIAL.
You can’t just # anything… are you tweeting about an event that has a relevant hashtag? Or a hot topic in the news today? Have you looked at what hashtags people you follow are using? For me it was #ClimateActionInYourArea. After a range of preparation and research I found this had the most interactions compared to similar in the field at the time. Hashtags are, in my opinion, the best way to engage with people who aren’t following you in your field. In order to find the best and most effective hashtags you can use sites such as Brand Mentions to see how many times a hashtag has been liked, shared and used.
3. Digital Networking
The second thing that took my tweets from 30 engagement to 3,000 was the use of niche and relevant @’s. As you can see my top 3 tweets all include tags to people and companies who are relevant within the industry. I felt microblogging was an effective way to increase traffic towards my twitter site as it encouraged me not only to engage with others tweets but to tag others and therefore spark conversation within the social media platform. What I found key when microblogging a live event was engaging with participants prior to the event. This even meant some of my tweets got attraction from users with a special #bluetick and I could attend the event with an already built raport. Make you’re self know with the industry in the early stages of your event or blogging experience — it’s important to have personal, relational and community connections across all of your socials!
4. Stay active, without even getting up…”Media with high interactivity is likely to satisfy users.” — Advertising, Promotion and New Media
Microblogging is said to cultivate excitement and curiosity in users so is important to stay active when posting. Posting regularly is one of the best ways to stay engaged in your chosen community, and replies and RT’s can be a great way to attract others to your page. Creating regular polls also allowed me to gather information and hear other peoples opinions (155 people to be exact) and gave each and every one of my tweets content gratification. Consistency is also key when helping to #beatthealgorythm, but another thing that can help is posting during key times. The below infographic courtesy of Sprout Social acted as my bible when tweeting!
5. A pictures worth a thousand words…or at least over 280 charactersOne of your goals for microblogging should be entertainment motivations. Whether this through info-graphics, GIF’s or a video — visual microblogging is key to increased engagements. As part of my live microblogging experience I decided to vlog the event to add an extra layer of information; it can be difficult to type everything you want to say while listening to the events so posting a video was a great way to inform my readers. In my tweets I was simply sharing information and thoughts however a vlog allowed me to go further and share emotions and my experience, contrast to the text heavy experience on Twitter. I also shared this on Instagram with an infographic which enabled me to use cross-posting to my advantage; A great tool for journalists to utilise.
And finally, if you take away anything from this blog, remember:
- Make your information relevant — does it inform, educate or entertain?
- Consistency is key
- Diversify your content!
Happy Tweeting!
For some more twitter inspiration check out @DFCJourno and my latest twitter list ‘Welcome to Vegan Twitter’. To find out more information about the event check out TBIJ website.
WEEK 4 : TEDxTalk of the Week
Welcome back to TEDxTalk of the week. This week I was completely inspired by Luvvie Ajayj and her journey of writing and blogging. Happy watching.
