JASON SHUEH

STATECOOP

2016-2018

Expanding Reach with Social Media Strategy and Technique

Expanding Reach with Social Media Strategy and Technique

The tech news site StateScoop amplifies its online presence with a boost in targeted social media posts and planning

Case Study Details

CONTENT TYPE: Social Media

COMPANY: StateScoop, a national tech news site covering smart cities and digital innovation in government

ROLE(S): Editor, Writer, Content Strategist

YEAR(S): 2016-2018

Problem

IN 2016 STATESCOOP , a national news outlet for government technology, sought to expand its social media presence. The publication, initially a niche industry blog, had emerged as a budding news site in the govtech space and wanted to embrace an aggressive growth strategy. Leadership looked at StateScoop’s social media channels as an untapped tool to amplify its reach.

Solution

AS AN EDITOR at StateScoop, I was part of the publication’s leadership team tasked to execute a social media strategy, one that assessed high-performing content, analyzed social media behavior and grounded social media management in an agile workflow. The effort encompassed publishing, engagement and social listening all in one strategy.

Process

1. SOCIAL MEDIA AND BLOG CONTENT AUDIT: To jumpstart the process, we conducted a full content audit via Google Analytics and through our suite of social media tools. This surfaced top on-site content — such as articles, special reports, microsites and more. We then looked at commonalities in engaging headlines and the type of social posts that drew the most engagement and traffic. Top social channels for StateScoop’s readership included Twitter and Linkedin.

2. DISPERSED MANAGEMENT: News is constantly in flux, and by its very nature, true journalism often demands a truly fast response for articles and their subsequent social media posts. We streamlined this process by breaking down publication barriers. All journalists had access to the StateScoop social media accounts for quick daily posts of breaking news. Further expediting the process, we created an online social media calendar in Google Sheets to collect Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook posts from writers. Delegating social media duties reduced the time a social media manager might require to read an article, write a post, research hashtags and publish the posts.

3. CREATING A SMOOTH, INTEGRATED WORKFLOW: Our workflow aimed to cut down editing and approval times while also boosting the quantity and quality of posts. After an article was published the writer posted a tweet online and then added three additional posts into the social media calendar to be reviewed and published the following day. For easy scheduling, the editorial calendar contained the written post, its hashtags, the article links, the image links and account tags. The varied posts for each article expanded engagement, article web traffic and follower counts.

4. ANALYSIS AND MONITORING: Closing out the process, we would periodically monitor our website and social media analytics, continue reviewing user behavior, and check relevant trends across social media.

Results

WE WERE HAPPY to see consistent social media growth with ongoing increases followers, that year over year rose by 50 percent. We also were able to doubled engagement metrics such as likes, shares and article click through rates.

Conclusion

THERE WERE A number of factors that supported StateScoop’s social media work, the delegated contributor strategy was a chief component of this approach — increasing bandwidth. Additionally, by creating multiple social media posts for a single article (which included different text, tags and hashtags) we were able to reach a much larger audience through a diverse set of messaging.

Case Study Details

CONTENT TYPE: Social Media

COMPANY: StateScoop, a national tech news site covering smart cities and digital innovation in government

ROLE(S): Editor, Writer, Content Strategist

YEAR(S): 2016-2018

Problem

IN 2016 STATESCOOP , a national news outlet for government technology, sought to expand its social media presence. The publication, initially a niche industry blog, had emerged as a budding news site in the govtech space and wanted to embrace an aggressive growth strategy. Leadership looked at StateScoop’s social media channels as an untapped tool to amplify its reach.

Solution

AS AN EDITOR at StateScoop, I was part of the publication’s leadership team tasked to execute a social media strategy, one that assessed high-performing content, analyzed social media behavior and grounded social media management in an agile workflow. The effort encompassed publishing, engagement and social listening all in one strategy.

Process

1. SOCIAL MEDIA AND BLOG CONTENT AUDIT: To jumpstart the process, we conducted a full content audit via Google Analytics and through our suite of social media tools. This surfaced top on-site content — such as articles, special reports, microsites and more. We then looked at commonalities in engaging headlines and the type of social posts that drew the most engagement and traffic. Top social channels for StateScoop’s readership included Twitter and Linkedin.

2. DISPERSED MANAGEMENT: News is constantly in flux, and by its very nature, true journalism often demands a truly fast response for articles and their subsequent social media posts. We streamlined this process by breaking down publication barriers. All journalists had access to the StateScoop social media accounts for quick daily posts of breaking news. Further expediting the process, we created an online social media calendar in Google Sheets to collect Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook posts from writers. Delegating social media duties reduced the time a social media manager might require to read an article, write a post, research hashtags and publish the posts.

3. CREATING A SMOOTH, INTEGRATED WORKFLOW: Our workflow aimed to cut down editing and approval times while also boosting the quantity and quality of posts. After an article was published the writer posted a tweet online and then added three additional posts into the social media calendar to be reviewed and published the following day. For easy scheduling, the editorial calendar contained the written post, its hashtags, the article links, the image links and account tags. The varied posts for each article expanded engagement, article web traffic and follower counts.

4. ANALYSIS AND MONITORING: Closing out the process, we would periodically monitor our website and social media analytics, continue reviewing user behavior, and check relevant trends across social media.

Results

WE WERE HAPPY to see consistent social media growth with ongoing increases followers, that year over year rose by 50 percent. We also were able to doubled engagement metrics such as likes, shares and article click through rates.

Conclusion

THERE WERE A number of factors that supported StateScoop’s social media work, the delegated contributor strategy was a chief component of this approach — increasing bandwidth. Additionally, by creating multiple social media posts for a single article (which included different text, tags and hashtags) we were able to reach a much larger audience through a diverse set of messaging.