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| Image: www.freebiesgallery.com |
GUEST BLOG--By Kelsey Lundstrom, Media Industry Newsletter, a sister publication of Folio: Magazine--
For many publishers, social is the new
SEO. It’s become a big source for referral traffic, it drives engagement and
creates a real-time feedback loop. What’s more, it’s helping brands create
advertiser interest, which means more revenue opportunities. But how do you get
the most out of social as the landscape continues to evolve? Here, min catches up with Chris Rackliffe, the
senior social media editor for Entertainment
Weekly to examine that question more.
min: How is the social user evolving?
Can you still get away with any old tricks of the trade or do you need to stay
a step ahead of their consumption and engagement behaviors?
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| Chris Rackliffe |
Chris Rackliffe: Social users are
busier (and more mobile) than ever. In addition, there’s also an
ever-increasing amount of brand content being pumped into the social feeds of
users—all competing for the same eyeballs and real estate. It’s absolutely
critical to stay abreast of how people are interacting on certain platforms and
adapt accordingly. It’s also important to break your own mold of communicating
and find new ways to tell stories through social platforms.
I think a lot of people are tired of
clickbait and the reductive “X did this, and you won’t believe what happened
next…” headline. It’s time for us to move beyond the bait and stay focused on
exemplary editorial, compelling photography, witty social copy and create
content that people truly want. Then, deliver it to them when and where they
want it. That’s the key.
min: In what ways are you measuring
social success – beyond engagement? Where’s the real ROI?
Rackliffe: Engagement comes in a lot
of different forms and has a lot of different meanings, depending on whom you
ask and what kind of brand or publication you are. For us—we’re the pop-culture
and entertainment-obsessed friend in your Facebook News Feed and Twitter
Timeline (and beyond). If we weren’t engaging our fans, we’d be doing a poor
job of being that entertainment-obsessed friend. There’s a level of brand
affinity and recognition that’s critical to what we do. We want our fans and
followers to use and consult us as the definitive companion guide to their
entertainment consumption—whether that’s when a new trailer breaks, big casting
news happens, or everyone’s buzzing about a new book or video game. In that
regard, if we’re not engaging our fans, we’re not succeeding.
I think it all boils down to loyalty.
When we look at our ratio of follower growth versus traffic growth, for
instance, we’re seeing a huge over-index based on our social audience size,
which is really great.
At EW, we also see a lot of loyalty
around specific fandoms, like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. We have a
level of access that few in our industry can boast, and we can see the direct
impact that has when we share content aligned with that. A great example of
this is our most recent cover with Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead, who
wore a distressed “BITE ME” t-shirt for the shoot. Our fans devoured that cover
in social. Notably, the Facebook post announcing it is our most-liked,
most-shared and highest-reaching Facebook post of all time, with over 330,000
likes and 60,000 shares, respectively.
To that end, there’s an absolute
goldmine of social data (based on engagements/interactions), and the industry’s
barely tapped into what any of it means. I think that’s a huge opportunity for
brands out there—and one which we’re definitely exploring this year: How do we
get smarter and more efficient about what we do and how we do it, based on the
historical social data?
min: Have you learned anything from
unsuccessful tactics or campaigns?
Rackliffe: Our major brand moments
tend to center on big pop-culture events or award shows as opposed to
campaigns. One moment that stands out in my mind, though, where we struggled
with social is Katy Perry’s halftime show at this year’s Super Bowl. We were
live-Tweeting all of the big moments from the performance and the tool we use
to capture screengrabs of live TV froze up and went down. We were able to get
up some commentary with photos from our phones, but it definitely wasn’t ideal.
Now, we have backup logins for the same tool, as well as other methods to make
sure we can get screengrabs when we need them. Lesson learned! Thankfully, we
learned it well before Oscar night.
To learn more about this topic and to hear Chris
Rackliffe speak, join us at min’s May 12th min Day conference! Tickets: http://www.minday2015.com/
Interviewer:
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| min's Kelsey Lundstrom |
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