Social Media Strategy for Publishers

It’s commonly accepted business wisdom these days that a social media presence is vital to growing an audience or customer base and ultimately increasing revenues. But social media strategy is not simply creating a Facebook page or Twitter account and posting or tweeting away without regularity or overall goals or direction. Anyone can do that, and many do. All posts are not created equal: some posts are indeed better than others. Here's some strategic advice for those in the publishing industry (although the basic principles, of course, work for all industries).

A printing press, not a primitive computer!

1. Plan your tweets and posts by creating an editorial calendar. Make note of holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. (personal and those observed by society). Relate such posts to magazine content whenever possible, or simply show you care about subscribers, contributors, advertisers and similar groups. When you can’t build a theme by tying into social concerns, build personal goodwill, instead. Obviously, the more advance planning you do, the easier it is to come up with content—and not just any content, but content which advances your overall strategy. And you won’t have gaps in your postings, gaps in which your customers forget about your presence and turn to competitors for content. In social media, gaps are anathema. What if any publication decides not to publish a scheduled issue? People tend to forget. Same thing here.
   
2. Tweet and blog about the issues you truly care about, with a special emphasis on synergy between your interests and your business. For example, it makes perfect sense for a magazine to post about social issues. Not editorials, per se, but demonstrate common ground on the issues which all citizens care about. You are community leaders, and this is a perfect way to demonstrate that fact.
   
3. Post “advancers” of coming stories, and then post descriptive links to published articles (after all, what good is social media if we can’t drive traffic to the web site?)
   
4. A picture is worth a thousand words. And it doesn't necessarily need to be a picture which appears in the magazine, although that’s certainly ideal.
   
5. Don’t overdo it. Social media posts should be regular, but not so much they become viewed as “spam” or become lost in the Internet noise.
   
6. Retweet or repost information from persons and organizations you trust. It builds goodwill, and as they say, what goes around comes around. What we’re doing isn’t called “social networking” for nothing.
   
7. As publishers, this will not come as a surprise: Be clear, concise and understandable. Write for your audience, one of the common sense tactics which never fails.
   
8. Don’t forget that with Twitter, there is a 140 character limit. Don’t consider it a hindrance; consider it a challenge and a means to be precise. Pay as much attention to crafting the tweet as you do the article or content itself (after all, it must stand out in the constant noise of the Internet).
   
9. Never forget that your target audience is likely catching up on social media even until the late hours. As you plan your social media calendar, don't hesitate to post important updates after normal office hours. Your customers are paying attention, and so should you. Unless they lack Internet access at home, people don’t merely use the web from 9 to 5.
   
10. Learn from the prominent players in your field. There are best practices out there; identify and use them. Study The New York Times, for example. Or whatever your favorite publications might be.
    
11. For Twitter, use hashtags to broaden your audience and join popular conversations (make sure your tweets are relevant to the hashtag, though). For an explanation of hashtags, Google the term or contact us to discuss the concept.

Put these principles into practice and see immediate improvements in your social media efforts, not to mention a larger audience and greater return on your investment. In summary, our goal is to drive content to the web site, and send even more hard copies flying off the shelves. Social media is the way to do it.