How to Grow an Engaged, Loyal Audience
Program Date: Jan. 11, 2022

5 takeaways:

Your audience isn’t everyone. Getting your story in front of everyone isn’t just impossible, it’s inefficient. You need to identify the social medical audience that is most likely to be interested in and share your story, said Alexander A. Pyles, a University of Maryland professor and audience editor for Capital News Service. Think about the demographics of your story – who is affected, who would be interested. “There are actually some pretty stark differences across the platforms,” Pyles said. “It’s important just to realize how different these little online ecosystems are.” For instance, Facebook users are 60% white, so Pyles does not advocate spending more time there but notes Facebook groups congregate around a certain topic or geographic area who are highly active and engaged.

Listen while you lurk. Once you find the right online community, “spend a whole lot of time just listening,” Pyles said. “You probably heard the term lurking … just hang out on these platforms and understand the conversations that are happening. And in those conversations, there are usually some questions.” Answering those questions can often make for a good story. “Once we’re at the publication phase, we want to come back to those communities and show them what we found. That only works though, if you do the work ahead of time. If you spend the time actively listening, actively asking questions,” Pyles said. If you “parachute in” to a Facebook group or sub-Reddit, “you get run out of the online square.”

What if I don’t want to be a ‘personality’? Some journalists feel intimidated about sharing personal details on social media. Others feel downright indignant, Pyles said: “Now I have to be a personality? I can’t just be a reporter giving you important information?” Pyles advises sharing about your reporting process and notes that reporters fear being scooped but rarely are. “Can we say a little bit more about ourselves or at least how we do our work that might help a user come to us for important information that they need to navigate the world?” he said. “Do a little bit of behind the scenes show and tell. And I think that’s a really powerful way to use social media, especially when you’re trying to get an audience to trust that you have done the work on an investigation.”

Combatting a common frustration. Many journalists express annoyance at readers who, well, don’t read. “They just read the headline and then they believe a snarky comment and they move on. Frustrating. Totally get it,” Pyles said. “But because we know that users do that, it becomes incumbent on us to give them a little bit more information. … I don’t think it’s enough to tweet a modified version of the headline or the lead, and then walk away.” Provide context on social media both to inform the audience about the subject matter and to show that your reporting delves beyond the headline into the complexities of the issue. Someone who may not be a newspaper subscriber may still be a Twitter follower. “Maybe by giving them a little bit more, they’ll see that we’re doing really good reporting, thorough reporting, and maybe they’ll come to us for the full story later,” Pyles said.

What to know about algorithms. Although social media platforms change their algorithms regularly and keep them under wraps, some best practices have emerged. “Ask questions. Engage frequently. You use native video if you can. Use photographs if you can. I’m not saying don’t link to your article, but maybe every one of your posts shouldn’t be a link,” Pyles said. “We already know that Facebook has made it harder for news orgs to organically show up in a user’s timeline, so you as the individual are already in a better spot than your employer.” When there’s engagement on your posts, respond quickly — even if it’s just your college buddies, responding will help the post show up in more feeds. Know when to use hashtags. “On a platform like Instagram, hashtags are absolutely critical because that’s where a lot of the search functionality of that platform comes into play. On a platform like Twitter, it’s really pointless unless the hashtag is trending or is tied to a particular event,” Pyles said.


Speaker: 

Alexander A. Pyles, Audience Editor, Capital News Service; Lecturer, University of Maryland


This program was funded by the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation. NPF is solely responsible for the content.

Alexander Pyles
Audience Editor, Capital News Service; Lecturer, University of Maryland
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Resources for Social Media for Reluctant Reporters
Social Media: How to Get Your Investigation the Attention It Deserves
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