THE BIGGEST PAGEVIEW DRIVING SOCIAL NETWORKS AND HOW THEY WORK
Here’s a quick overview of the social networks that drive the most traffic (how they work / are different from each other):
Facebook – gives you most consistent growth over time. Your core audience. Don’t spam them! I tend to put only the stuff I like the best on Facebook – I use some of the other networks to be more experimental and test out what is popular.
Twitter – Twitter bring us the most repeat visitors – and gets people who like to share. So what we’ve found is that even though Twitter itself doesn’t drive drive as much traffic directly, people come in through Twitter and then share those stories elsewhere.
StumbleUpon and Reddit — Gives you the most chance of getting a high, immediate spike. StubleUpon went from 500 million pageviews per month in Feb to 1 billion pageviews per month in April. Reddit has been steadier upward growth — has 1.2 billion per month as of June. People see your posts based on algorithims of how much other people are sharing — and how much you’re sharing other peoples.
Tumblr — There are 20 million people who have Tumblr blogs — and many of them are what I call “thoughtful activists”. What we’ve found is that Tumblr people connect by topic – so we’ve found a lot of people interested specifically in gender and equality, and a lot of young activists on Tumblr. As Nathaniel pointed out on the call, there are also a lot of media companies on Tumblr who you can get the attention of, that you might not elsewhere. We’ve gotten re-blogged by NPR Tumblr, among others.
Google+ — I believe Google+ will actually be a great way to share content, because you can sort who you connect with by what they want to see. So, for example, you can make a “circle” of “sports fans” and only share sports stuff with them. More on this as we roll out a Good Men Project profile and learn more how it works. (It’s only a miniscule 10 million users right now).
If you only have 5 minutes a day to spend on social media, what should you do?
1) Grow your networks in a way that give you the most value — by connecting with people who value what you value. (I try to connect with one new person on Facebook, one on LinkedIn, 10 on Twitter and 5 on Tumblr every day.) 2 minutes.
2) Post your best piece in 2 places. Put it in one network where all your friends are, and one that has a billion strangers (like SU or Reddit) 1 minute
3) Promote other people (this may be the single biggest thing you can do to help the platform grow and ultimately help you grow. 2 minutes
If you have one extra minute
4) Comment publically somewhere 1 minute. Don’t try to link back, just say something insightful about what the author said that relates back to the issues you believe are important.
If you had an hour to spend – Spend that hour writing some thoughtful commentary and sending it in to be published.
Good, thoughtful, will help everyone grow. And look, you’ve just spent 6 minuties, connecting with people, going onto the networks, seeing what people are talking about – you know know what they find interesting. So add your own personal POV to that and write a post about what you learned.
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What are the qualities of a sharable story?
— It’s about one simple thing
— It is specific, not abstract.
A lesson I’ve learned from taking Improv comedy classes: You don’t go on stage and “try to be funny.” You try to be specific, and then that specificity plays off other people’s ideas.
Writing is the same — don’t try to be a “great” writer, try to be a specific one. Be concrete. Be honest. Don’t worry about perception, worry about reality. Get us there in the moment with you by letting us see what you see. “Show, don’t tell”.
— Another thing that makes a story shareable – and it’s kind of as a result of having done the above two things – you want the person reading it to think “OMG, this is how I felt, but I didn’t think anyone else felt that way.”
— “Nothing draws a crowd like a whole big group of people.” If it’s something a friend has posted, you are more likely to share it. If you see that a lot of other people have shared something you are more likely to share it. At the same time, there’s something people like about being the first one to find something. So don’t take any rule too literally.
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RANDOM SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS
If you want a lot of quick hit pageviews, join Reddit and StumbleUpon, and post your work (and others!) there. If you want deep relationships with a core group – a group that is continually looking for ways to help you — Facebook is the place. If you want quick conversations and random new people coming in to connect with you, Twitter it is. If you want a cool, eclectic mix of activists and slackers, try Tumblr.
Connecting every day with just a few people who share your values — across any networks — helps.
Follow people on Twitter who are connected to the same values and talk about the same ideas as you to. When someone mentions us or talks abut us, we always not only follow that person back — but follow their followers. The idea is to connect with increasingly large groups of people who care about the things you write about.
Form your own tribe: Here’s a lesson people learn very quickly in social media: Nobody likes the person who promotes themself all the time. Don’t be “that guy”. So one thing some of us do is connect with 3 or 4 or 5 people within the Good Men Project that keep an eye on each others content and promote it for them. For example, the DadsGood crowd is very active on Twitter – and you’ll see them always retweeting each others stuff. They even have their own hashtag: #DadsTalking along with ours #DadsGood. Find your own small group within Good Men Project and count on them to help.
Ask your network to become a fan of us on Facebook Why? Because a “like” on FB is a easy, your friends are likely to do so when we post your content on GMP facebook, and that will increase the odds that more people will see it.
Have you tried submitting to Buzzfeed.com or BoingBoing? Great “news aggregators” — Easy to set up an account and submit links.
On Twitter? Tweet and share right from your post. It’s easy! And if you Tweet about your own article and put @goodmenproject in the post, we will Retweet it.
StumbleUpon is becoming a bigger traffic driver to content sites than Facebook (Read full article here.) Theory as to why — When you post something on Facebook, it disappears out of people’s newsfeeds after a day or so. But with StumbleUpon, they keep “bubbling up” old content so other people can “stumble” upon it. Often, old articles appear and start “running away” on StumbleUpon – months after they were first posted.
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SOCIAL NETWORK HOW TO OF THE WEEK — REDDIT
1) Sign up for a personal account.
2) Submit links — but the key is a really-funny, really-casual headline. Don’t always use the Headline — try using the subhead, or talking casually about the post. Make it seem like you are having a personal conversation with one person in that group.
3) The other key is finding a sub-group that is engaged in the issues.
Here are the sub-groups that seem to like us:
— WTF – “all things that make you say WTF” – counterinutive, funny, anti-mass media stuff
— Psychology
— Equality (gender based, race, age issues)
— Funny (slapstick), humor (slightly more sophisticated) offbeat (if it doesn’t work in WTF or Funny, try here).
— TrueReddit – thoughtful, intellectual, first person accounts
— health
— feminisms
— Daddit
4) On Reddit, you can’t post links quicker than one every 8 minutes. You also can’t submit the same link twice to the same category.
5) You get “karma points” when what you submit is “upvoted” You can vote UP any column you like just by clicking the up arrow next to it. You can also UP any comment. The more upvotes your links and your comments get, the more “karma” Reddit gives you. That just means that in Reddits algorithim of what rises to the top, yours will be favored if you have more karma points.
6) Don’t only submit your own posts or you will get “ghost blocked”
TIPS ON CONTENT
Make the idea of what you are writing about “Counterintuitive and Simple”: Those are the two qualities Malcolm Gladwell of “The Tipping Point” suggests as most important in getting content to be shared and spread. You want people to feel as if they are discovering something new, and have it be a simple enough idea that they can articulate your core idea in a way that is true to them. Create your posts with that in mind.
How to write a great headline:
1) Clearly state what the story is “about” – If a person knows what the story is about – and it’s a topic of importance to them — then there is a built-in reason to share.
2) Make the headline clear, simple, and have the idea of it around the most provocative part of the story.
3) Convey a sense of urgency. Why should you read this right now? What’s current or timely about the piece?
4) Be provocative; appeal to readers’ curiosity or take a stand on a polarizing topic — get people emotionally riled up one way or another.
5) Be clear and concise. Avoid vague, what-the-hell-is-this-about titles Use the fewest and shortest words possible. Go easy on puns and alliteration; avoid being cute or clever.
Be relevant. There’s a huge difference between “Man to Man With Rob Delaney” and “Comic Rob Delaney on Porn, Sobriety, Twitter, and Feminism.”
What is left unclear by the headline should be resolved by the subhead. The subhead should be as accurate as possible.
More Quick Tips: Avoid excessive punctuation, Convey the contents of the piece accurately. If you use names in your headline, they should be instantly recognizable.
Three Reliable Headline Forms:
Imperatives: Marriage: Just Don’t (imperative: urgent, necessary, essential)
Questions: Can Attractive Men Stay Faithful? or Am I a Bad Person if I Don’t Love My Son?
Problem Solvers: The Solution to MRA Problems? More Feminism
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Questions? email [email protected] and we’ll answer them in the next email.