Social Media Best Practices Guide

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- Table of Content - …3 …6FACEBOOK … 10 How to Craft Perfect Facebook Posts … 11 How to Campaign with Facebook … 11TWITTER … 13 Tips for All Tips for New Accounts … 15 TwitterAds … 16INSTAGRAM … 17 Insta 101: Understanding the BasicsLINKEDIN Company Page What is a Sponsored Update?WEB ACTIVISTS Objectives, Set up, Promotion 2

FACEBOOKHow to Craft Perfect Facebook PostsKeep it short & sweetKeep posts to 160 characters or fewer to prevent some of your content getting cut offbehind a “see more” link. This is also an important rule of thumb in general becauseFacebook users tend to engage with short and direct messaging more often — posts withless than 80 characters tend to get the most engagement.Have a look at Google, bitly, owly to shorten your links.Photos are worth a million LikesPhotos are the primary type of content posted and shared on Facebook. From a user’sperspective, photos are the most engaging type of content on Facebook. Make sure you areusing the right image size. Post with Image Facebook Cover 851 x 315 px Facebook Event Cover Photo 784 x 295 px Facebook Post 940 x 788 px Link Image / Facebook Ad 1200 x 627 pxWorth checking out: Canva.com - an online tool that offers free right sized templates foralmost every social media platform.Facebook vs. YouTubeFor the first time ever, content creators are now posting more native Facebook videos thanYouTube videos on their pages and you should, too. Why? Facebook and YouTube becamecompetitors in the battle for video market share, which means Facebook favors your videopost hosted on Facebook in terms of reach and also enables the auto-play function in theNews Feed, whereas YouTube links are penalized with restricted reach.CTAs - Call-To-ActionUsers can like, share, and comment your post. When drafting a post, keeping a clear CTA inmind helps you to improve the post engagement. One time, look for shares (interesting linksfor example). Another time, ask for comments (“what do you think of…”). Beautiful pictureswill get you easy likes. 3

Perfect timingUse the Insights Tab in your Facebook Page to see when your community is online. 4

It’s called Social MediaYou got your community talking? Great! Now is the time to respond (i.e. liking the commentor replying). Even a short “Thank you” is much appreciated and helps you build yourcommunity.FreebiesHow would you feel if one of your friends was constantly asking you for something … Canyou please sign this? Can you give me some money? Can you make time for this event?Pretty annoying, isn’t it. In other words, provide positive content without wanting anything,for example a beautiful picture, a video of nature, free advice for bio-gardening…Let’s get (not) emotionalEmotion sharing through a video or post is a bit like social glue, maintain and strengtheningrelationships. Even if we’re not in the same place, the fact that we both feel the same waybonds us together. So does any emotion boost sharing? Certainly NOT!Positive High Arousel Low ArouselNegative Awe Contentment Excitement Sadness Amusement (Humor) Anger AnxietyAnger and anxiety lead people to share because like awe as well as humor, they are high-arousal emotions. They kindle the fire, activate people, and drive them to take action. Low-arousal emotions, however, like sadness, decrease sharing. Contentment has the sameeffect.Further reading: Berger, Jonah. Contagious. London: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Print.300 out of 1500As the amount of content grows, the speed of the feed escalates. This is why Facebookchanged its algorithm and is no longer showing every post to everyone. The typical usercould see as many as 1,500 stories in a day but Facebook shows them only 300. The visibilityof your posts in other people’s news feed depends on the following criteria:News Feed Visibility = Interest + Post + Creator + Type + Recency Interest of the user in your page Post’s performance amongst other users Performance of your past posts amongst other users Type of post (status, photo, link) user prefers How new is your post 5

How to Campaign with FacebookPick your interfaceBeginner – FacebookThe “Boost” – button let’s you easily boost your posts, which means they appear higher inthe News Feed and therefore get a better chance to be seen by your desired audience.Advanced – Facebook PowerEditor (use Chrome browser)A tool designed for larger advertisers who need to create lots of ads at once and haveprecise control of their campaigns.Pro – Facebook Business ManagerAllows you to manage several ad accounts, pages, apps and the people who work on them.Boost your Post1. Go to a post you've created and then click “Boost Post” in the lower-right corner.2. Choose your audience and budget based on how many people you wantto reach and how long you'd like your boost to run. You can also change your paymentmethod.3. Click Boost Post. 6

If you'd like to send more people to your website, try promoting your website. If you'reinterested in getting more Page likes, you should promote your Page.Create an Ad CampaignFor more targeting options, try boosting a Page post in ad creation. Main structure ofFacebook ad campaign:1. Campaign (fex. NatureAlert)  Objective: f.ex. Page Post Engagement  Buying Type: f.ex. Auction  Budget Type: Lifetime or daily budget (the latter is ideal for testing your content for a short period of time)2. Ad sets: Who do you want to reach? You can set up as many audiences as you want, a good start would be 3-5 different target groups.3. Ads: Clear message & appealing picture(s). You can choose from different layouts: single or multi-ads Single-Ad 7

Multi-AdTip: When using an ad image with a text logo or a written hashtag on it, a common reasonwhy your ad doesn’t get approved is the Facebook’s 20-Percent Text Rule on Ad Images.Save time and nerves with the help of the Grid Tool. Just upload the image you would like touse and Facebook tells you if you within the allowed 20%. Easy!Are you talking to me?Thinking about who want to reach with your ad is crucial. Select your objective: signatures,donation, website traffic…? Know your message and think of emotional triggers youraudience feels recognized by. It’s all about emotional engagement, so instead of pushingyour cause down their throat, you want to make your cause their cause. To create a slightlydifferent context for each audience is time consuming, but it will pay off in better adperformance.Trial and ErrorDon’t assume you know it all. In order to spend your budget effectively, always schedule aday of testing. This is the fun part  because there is ALWAYS a surprise; an audience thatyou thought would be a strong performer ends up doing poorly or vice versa. In practice, youset up 15-20 different ad sets (audiences), put 5€ on each ad set, and let it run for 24 hrs.After one day, you compare reach, engagement and costs. Now turn off the ads with theleast clicks and make sure to cut off the ones that cost you more than 0.30€. In the end, youshould end up with approx. 5 top performing ad sets. Last but not least allocate yourlifetime budget depending on the audience size (more money for bigger audiences).Measure your SuccessIf your goal is to increase conversions (ex: donations, registrations) on your website,Facebook's tracking and optimization tools can help. By placing a conversion pixel on yourwebsite and then adding it to a Facebook ad, you'll know exactly which ads led to yourconversions.Stay on top of thingsYou got your ads online and running – well done! Make sure you monitor them on a dailybasis to intervene as soon as your numbers are dropping or costs are exploding. Facebook is 8

offering excellent insights and reporting. Make use of them to fine-tune your ads as you goalong.If you are interested in running a Facebook ad campaign, get in touch [email protected]. I am happy to share my experience and help you plan andset up your campaign, so you can get the best results for your budget. 9

TWITTERTips for AllBe active At least 3 tweets per day. Schedule them with TweetDeck or Hootsuite Few people follow inactive accounts There are programmes that clean- up Twitter accounts that don’t tweet often enough! Some people are serious about only following truly active accounts.Monitor your ‘mentions’ and hashtags with TweetDeck or HootsuiteTwitter is a community – interact with it! Retweet, answer comments, make it flow!Stay on topic(most of the time) People who follow you expect a certain type of content. If you have aclimate change account, avoid pushing your seabird posts and vice versa. Posting out of topicworks from time to time only. Otherwise it’s confusing!Always include a good photo5x ++ engagement when tweets contain photo, science says ;)Shorten linksWhen you don’t shorten tweets looks messy. There are many options – we use Google URLShortener but Hootsuite works tooInclude relevant hashtags (but not too many)People find your tweet more easily if you put a couple of hashtags but #dont #hashtag#everything (= #unreadable). By adding hashtags you sometimes divert from thenews/petition/anything you are sharing. Make sure you pick a couple relevant ones (if indoubt, check RiteTag)Keep an eye on trending topicsSometimes you can jump on a hashtag bandwagon and become visible. E.g. When we joined#plasticbags with this https://twitter.com/BirdLifeEurope/status/650949658227945472 10

Tips for New AccountsThe fastest way of growing your brand new account: let people know you exist!HOW?Send direct tweets to influencers so they will retweet you1. Find influencers through the free tool Tweepi – go to Follow Tools> By @user’s followers2. Ideally you have a rival you can ‘steal’ followers from (e.g. @WWF) – introduce name in the @user tab3. You will get a list of who follows @WWF. Order by ‘’Followers count’’ and tweet at those people who have the most followers4. What to tweet? Only content relevant to the influencer - otherwise they will not retweetFollow people so they follow you back1. To choose the right people to follow, use Tweepi – go to Follow Tools>By @user’s followers2. Again, pick a rival organization & introduce name3. Now we will order by ‘’Follow ratio’’. This shows you how likely they are to follow you back. Above or around 100%, they don’t follow back. Under 100%, they follow back (most of the time)TwitterAdsTwitterAds are generally more expensive than Facebook AdsThey are not as developed as Facebook Ads either, so in some countries it might not beworth investing inWhy use them at all?They are very useful for driving people into your page (raising awareness) but not necessarilyfor people to take action – this is because of the little space you have to explain thecampaign/issue. Our suggestion is to use them for important campaigns and perhaps bigevents.Minimum budgetA well targeted 1000€ can be useful. For Nature Alert we spent 7800eu in 2 months and had113.000 engagements (=sum of website clicks, retweets and favourites). Half of the websitevisits during Nature Alert came from TwitterAds 11

Targeting the right audienceYou can target in many ways, but we use mainly the following: Location – the first filter you need to apply! Handles – such as @NatGeo, @WWF ,etc. It means your ads will appear in the timeline of those who follow the organizations you pick. Worked the best for us. Keywords and hashtags – it can be useful to target certain groups. For example you can target activists by using #savetheartic or any other environmental campaign. Interests – such as gardening, birding, etc. Usually we would start with a broad choice of interests and then turn them off as we go. Ads will appear in timelines that talk about these topics. Impressions turn out very high, but engagement is low. (TV targeting) – Available for few countries but great potential. E.g. In the UK we could target people who are watching & interacting with nature documentaries.If you are interested in running a TwitterAds campaign, get in touch [email protected] – setting up TwitterAds is tricky. If you set it up wrong, you caneasily spend loads of money with no results! 12

INSTAGRAMInsta 101: Understanding the BasicsProfileYour profile is the hub for all of your photos, videos and settings on Instagram. Here, you can viewthe pictures you've shared, the people you're following and who's following you. You can also browseyour photo map. Your profile shows your bio and Instagram posts. It's also where you can edityour profile info and adjust your Account Settings.Note: Your profile is the only space on Instagram, where you can put up a hyperlink.Search & ExploreUse “Search” to find new and interesting people to follow, search for other Instagrammersand explore hashtags.#HashtagIn order to grow the reach of your post, you should use topic related hashtags.Iconosquare is a very useful online tool to manage your Instagram account, check out your followersand competitors and helps you find the trending hashstags.You can also use hashtags to organize submissions. Hashtags make it easy for you to collect photosfrom your followers around a certain theme. To use hashtags, simply add a hashtag (ex: #car) to yourphoto's caption. Users will then be able to tap on the hashtag and see a page with the most recentphotos shared publicly that were tagged with the same hashtag.How do I tag people in my photo?To tag people in your photo as you're sharing it:1. Tap Tag People from the Share screen.2. Tap on someone in the photo.3. Start entering their name or username and select them from the dropdown menu. If you don't see the person you're looking for, tap Search for a person.To add people to a photo you've already uploaded:1. Go to the photo. (Android) below the photo.2. Tap (Apple iOS) or3. Tap Tag People.How do I mention someone on Instagram?To mention someone, type @ followed immediately by their username (ex: \"great photo,@shayne!\"). Don't include a space between @ and the username. The person you mentionwill get a notification in their Activity letting them know. 13

Grow your CommunityBe positive and reactive towards your (potential) followers. Crowdfire is helpful appthat allows you to schedule your post. A desktop version is available hereCan I advertise on Instagram?The Instagram advertising placement is gradually rolling out but seems to be unavailable forthe majority of accounts. To be continued…Feel free to contact [email protected] for further advice. See you onInstagram  14

LINKEDINCompany PageA Company Page is the opportunity to: Tell your company's story Engage with followers Share career opportunities Drive word of mouth at scaleFor millions of professionals, a Company Page is a place to: Explore companies of interest Get the latest company updates and industry news Learn about job opportunitiesHow do I add a Company Page?Before starting, you must own a personal LinkedIn profile set up with your true first and lastname. Also, make sure that your current organisation doesn't already have one.To add a Company Page1. Move your cursor over Interests at the top of your homepage and select Companies.2. Click Create in the Create a Company Page box on the right.3. Enter your company's official name and your work email address.4. Click Continue and enter your company information.  If the work email address you provide is an unconfirmed email address on your LinkedIn account, a message will be sent to that address. Follow the instructions in the message to confirm your email address, and then use the instructions above to add the Company Page.  A red error message may appear if you have problems adding a Company Page. 15

 A preview of your Company Page is not available. When you publish the page, it is live on our website.Note: To publish your Company Page you must include a company description (250-2000characters including spaces), and company website URL.Make your Company Updates authentic, relevant, and briefThe better your content, the greater the chance it goes viral through likes, shares, andcomments. Posts that feel like spam will not get shared and, in fact, could result in yourbusiness losing followers.Posts can be up to 600 characters, including spaces. Shared link titles and descriptions canbe up to 250 characters each. Keep in mind that company pages that post updatesexcessively are subject to review by LinkedIn and could risk having their page deleted.What is a Sponsored Update?Raise awareness, build relationships, and drive quality leadsThese updates appear within the LinkedIn Feed on the homepage of members who fit thetargeting criteria set up by you. They reach beyond the current followers of a Company Pageand are seen by targeted members across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices.How do I set up a Sponsored Update?Sponsored Updates are Company Page Updates that are promoted through the CampaignManager. You can sponsor a Company Page update any time after you've posted itby creating a campaign to promote your update.CPM or CPCYou pay for Sponsored Updates based on the number of LinkedIn members who see theupdate (CPM) or the number of clicks they receive (CPC).And the sharing goes on and on…Sponsored Updates can be shared further to connections of a member who likes, comments,or shares the Sponsored Update.Note: If the company is listed on your profile as a current employer, you can also sponsor anupdate for that company via your individual ads account.FAQLinkedIn offers a really helpful FAQ section on Sponsored Updates here.Do not hesitate to contact [email protected] or [email protected] get further assistance. 16