Social media is a storytelling tool. Be sure to think about how best to use it for every story you are telling. Before posting to any platform, you MUST check in on the #socialmedia Slack channel and say what you are doing. ALWAYS check previous posts to make sure you are not duplicating work. For more on social media guidelines, see our Universal Style Guide.
- Facebook posts should be thoughtfully written to get the reader to engage right away by liking, commenting or sharing based on the Facebook text. Pull out the best nuggets of the story, but keep the post to about three lines of text
- Space out Facebook posts and always check the schedule before posting or scheduling a post. Non-breaking news posts should be spaced out by a minimum of 1.5 hours
- When issuing a correction on Facebook, edit the post, write the correct information, then put “Correction:” explaining what you did in parentheses below the above information
- When posting opinion pieces, always label as opinion or otherwise indicate it’s an opinion piece or a review
- Do not use colons before the link in your Facebook text
- If you are leaving the text of a link in your Facebook text, it must be a shortened bit.ly link
- Consider location or interest targeting and tagging when posting. Also look at the “Trending” list and see if there are any relevant hashtags to use
For breaking news:
- Post ASAP once the news is confirmed and we have tweeted. Consider using a photo if one is available that we have the rights to
- Check the schedule to see when the next post is due to be published. If it is within 1.5 hours, reschedule it for later and adjust the rest of the schedule accordingly. Depending on the nature of the breaking news, consider moving all scheduled posts to the next day for the sake of sensitivity