A Journal Register Co. editor mentioned a common challenge in a newsroom trying to master social media. How do you build an engaged audience on Twitter? My answer to the editor (expanded some as I’ve thought more about it):
Engaging followers is largely a result of two factors: following people who care about your community and conversing with them.
How many people follow you (and how many you follow) are not as important as identifying the people who share your interests and engaging meaningfully with them. So don’t get hung up on numbers, though you do want your engaged community to grow steadily.
I know of three tools that would be useful for building an engaged Twitter following. Enter your community(ies) in Twellow or Nearby Tweets and they will show you Twitter users in the community. Twellow shows you users (largely businesses) who have registered with Twellow, using that location. NearbyTweets shows people who are tweeting right now near you.
You can also use Advanced Twitter search to look for tweets by location (here’s the tweets within 15 miles of Yardley, Pa., where JRC is headquartered).
I would not make these sites a one-time visit either. Advanced Twitter Search and Nearby Tweets especially are places to visit occasionally, because different people will be tweeting each time. When a breaking news story or community event might be generating Twitter discussion, those are excellent places to connect with that discussion.
In any of these cases, if you follow people in your community (or people who show their interest in your community by tweeting about it), you will get quite a few who will follow you back. And if you retweet, reply, mention or direct message, you will be more likely to get deeper, lasting engagement.
However you find people tweeting about your community, the key to engaging them is conversation. If your Twitter feed is a one-way stream of self-promoting headlines and links, people are not likely to engage with it. But if you answer their questions, ask them how they know newsworthy information that they tweet, retweet their observations about community life, they will engage with you.
If you’re listening to the community conversation on Twitter, you will find people to engage with. Search occasionally for the name of your community or for keywords relating to community news and events. If someone is tweeting about local events or issues, click on the usernames of tweeps they are conversing with. See if they are local, too, and follow them or reply (retweet, etc.) to them, if you have something to say about the topic. (Mandy Jenkins, my former TBD colleague, has some excellent advice on channeling the news brand on Twitter and Facebook.)
You can also find local people to engage with by checking the followers of local tweeps and checking whom they are following. You can check lists they have made to see if they have lists of local people (or you can check your community on Listorious).
You also can set up Tweetbeep alerts for mentions of people who tweet about communities in your coverage area or about events or other keywords of local significance. Don’t reply or contact people as an autobot (automatically following or replying to anyone who mentions your community in a tweet, for instance; or automatically sending the same message to everyone who follows you). But when you see people tweeting about local news, follow them. If you are congenially joining the local conversation on Twitter, you will find people want to converse with you and follow you.
Trendsmap is another tool for finding people tweeting in your community, but it doesn’t let you pick any location, only major cities. The editor who asked isn’t from a community you can choose for localized tweets on Trendsmap.
And you shouldn’t forget simple things: prominent display of social media buttons on your home page and sharing buttons on your story pages and blog posts. Curate social media content in your news coverage, and people will tweet links to your stories and their followers will start following you.
These are some tips that have worked for me. What works for you? How have you engaged followers on Twitter? How do you engage your community using Facebook?
Steve,
Very helpful article. Thanks. I often use the location search on my iphone’s TweetDeck to find out what is happening if I am out in London and there is some sort of incident going on. Real-time info that might help you avoid congestion or any trouble!
Adam
LikeLike
Hey Steve, great post. Two additional tips about following Tweets in a geographic area. If you use an app like HootSuite or Tweetdeck to manage your Twitter account, see if it will allow you to save a search by location. For example, HootSuite allows you to add a geocode to a search based on your location. So here in San Francisco I have a saved stream in HootSuite that searches within:50mi -RT. It shows all Tweets (not incl. RTs) in the Bay Area, allowing me to see what’s going on here without having to continually go to search.twitter.com. I also have saved searches based on location names, such as San Francisco OR #SanFrancisco OR San Fran.
If you don’t use an app, you can save a search in an RSS reader. Look for the RSS link at the top right of search.twitter.com after you’ve searched for a term.
LikeLike
[…] Steve Buttry nails it with this post in building community engagement on Twitter. The meat of it is this: However you find people tweeting about your community, the key to engaging them is conversation. If your Twitter feed is a one-way stream of self-promoting headlines and links, people are not likely to engage with it. But if you answer their questions, ask them how they know newsworthy information that they tweet, retweet their observations about community life, they will engage with you. […]
LikeLike
Fantastic post and my heartfelt thanks — the tools you linked to are very helpful. I plan to share this with some friends who I am certain will get a lot from this meaty piece.
LikeLike
You can also use HooSaid.com to find people in your community.
Here’s Washington DC’s best tweeters:
http://hoosaid.com/washington%20dc/1/social-search-washington%20dc.html
LikeLike
Great tips and suggestions, our business is just starting twitter and we want to connect with our local community and customers so we engage & respond with what they are looking for in a financial advisor. cheers from Melbourne Australia.
LikeLike
[…] Steve Buttry comparte en su blog algunas ideas para construir una audiencia local comprometida con un medio de comunicación en Twitter. […]
LikeLike
[…] Steve Buttry comparte en su blog algunas ideas para construir una audiencia local comprometida con un medio de comunicación en Twitter. […]
LikeLike
[…] Steve Buttry-k (Director of Community Engagement&Social Media, Journal Register Co.) hainbat ideia idatzi ditu bere blogean, Twitterren audientzia lokala eta euren hedabidearekin konprometitua lortu nahi dutenentzat. […]
LikeLike
[…] — Two pieces with some great tips on engagement: Mallary Jean Tenore of Poynter with some doable steps for journalists, and the Journal Register Co.’s Steve Buttry with advice on local engagement on Twitter. […]
LikeLike
[…] How Do You Build Local Engagement on Twitter?: “How many people follow you (and how many you follow) are not as important as identifying the people who share your interests and engaging meaningfully with them. So don’t get hung up on numbers, though you do want your engaged community to grow steadily. I know of three tools that would be useful for building an engaged Twitter following.” […]
LikeLike
[…] response to a crowdsourcing request if you tweet only headlines. As I blogged recently, you need to build engagement. Be conversational on Twitter, in your blog, in your newspaper column, and people will feel more […]
LikeLike
[…] How do you build local engagement on Twitter? (stevebuttry.wordpress.com) div.rax_subscribe { width:60%; float:left; border:8px solid #EBEBEB; text-align:center; background-color:#D0E4F5; } div.rax-email-subscribe { background-color:#4086C7; padding:5px 8px; height:60px; } div.rax-email-subscribe span { color:#FFF; font-size:12px; } div.rax-email-subscribe input.rax-button { font-size:14px !important; padding:2px !important; *padding:0px; } div.rax-other-subscribe { margin:10px 5px; } div.rax-other-subscribe img { display:inline; } .clear { padding:0; margin:0; clear:both; } .rax-credit { width:60%; text-align:right; font-size:9px; color:#CCC; } .rax-credit a { text-decoration:none; font-size:9px; color:#CCC; } .rax-credit a:hover { text-decoration:none; } Subscribe to GannettLocal’s Blog via Email […]
LikeLike
[…] Check out my earlier post on building engagement on Twitter. […]
LikeLike
[…] more advice on this topic, check out my earlier post, How do you build local engagement on Twitter. Other recent posts that might help addressed why editors should be active on Twitter and best […]
LikeLike
[…] How do you build local engagement on Twitter? […]
LikeLike
You can also use http://www.LocalByUs.com for location-tagged posts and community sharing.
LikeLike
[…] Update: I answered questions for the webinar in a separate post. In the Jan. 5 webinar, someone asked about building a local following on Twitter. […]
LikeLike
[…] ‘How do you build local engagement on Twitter?’: Written by Steve Buttry, Director of Community Engagement and Social Media at Journal Register Co., this opinion article discusses how to build local engagement on Twitter, but more importantly lists a notable constraint of Trendsmap. Buttry states that Trendsmap is a good tool for finding people tweeting locally; however, only searches tweets made in major cities. This is of considerable disadvantage reporting, coverage and tracking wise if a major event occurs outside of a major city. […]
LikeLike