I’ve been told that in the olden days, reporters would write articles on these things called “typewriters.” And get this: These machines weren’t even connected to the Internet!
The tools have since changed. We have blogs, smartphones, digital cameras and Wi-Fi. The job of a reporter has changed, too.
Now, rather than file a story to an editor and call it a day, I need to promote my writing efforts on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and other social Web sites. To report, write, edit and publish, we can add a new fundamental task: share.
As these social sites have matured, so has my understanding of how best to use them. Some of these tricks are useful for anyone who wants the links they share on social sites to have more impact.
When it comes to sharing on Twitter, I have found that timing is paramount. A story shared at 9 a.m. on the East Coast will barely reach anyone on the West Coast, where it’s 6 a.m. and all the nerds are fast asleep and dreaming of robots. If you’re sharing a link on Twitter, it’s best to share it between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. East Coast time. More mundane updates, like those about hamburgers and the movie you’re watching, get better traction after hours.
And just because you have 140 characters on Twitter doesn’t mean you should use them all. I often leave at least 20 characters, which allows people to add a short bit of commentary when they reshare. Although Twitter automatically shortens URLs, I still use Bit.ly, because it looks cleaner. (Twitter expands the Web site address in your tweet.)
On Facebook, the Timeline is now optimized for images. I’ve found that just sharing a link is not that effective. Instead, I often post a large, alluring photo from the article and then attach a link to the image. This can generate four or five times as many clicks on an article.
On Google Plus, although photos work well, videos get a lot of interaction, especially YouTube clips that are playable within the feed.
Weather plays an important role, too. On a weekend, I will actually go to weather sites before sharing an article. If it’s raining, most people are cooped up inside, so I can post away. If it’s sunny, people are enjoying the day at the beach or park — and not looking at their smartphones in the glaring sun, or at least we can hope so — and I will wait until later in the evening to share.
Getting on the home page of Reddit is like winning the links lottery. But you can’t game the system. If you’re caught adding just your own links to Reddit, you’ll be banned. And rightly so — the relatively corruption-free system is what makes Reddit so wonderful. So it’s best to check if another Redditor has added your link to the site, then vote it up, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.
Lately I’ve started adding a new ingredient to my sharing recipe: dead cats.
In the investment world there is something called a “dead cat bounce.” This strange idiom refers to a temporary upswing of a stock that has fallen rapidly. It comes from the idea that even a dead cat, when falling from a great height, will bounce. In stock market investing, a dead cat bounce is often the last fleeting bump when suckers buy, before a stock hits bottom for good.
But a dead cat bounce doesn’t always have to be negative — unless you’re the cat, of course. When sharing articles on Twitter, this concept can actually be a positive.
Let me use one of my columns to illustrate this point: one of the first pieces I wrote about the F.A.A. and its outdated ban on electronics on airplanes during takeoff and landing.
I first shared the column on Twitter on a Sunday at around 10 a.m. West Coast time. The column was subsequently shared 2,216 times on Twitter, generating tens of thousands of clicks from Twitter alone. On Facebook the article was shared 2,756 times, also generating tens of thousands of clicks.
By Monday morning, when the sharing began to slow on Twitter, I shared it again there. That acted as a trampoline for the story and sent it back into the Twittersphere. It was temporarily visible for people who had not seen it on Sunday.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with other ways to reshare stories without subjecting followers to the same tweet twice. For example, two weeks ago, I retweeted a post by Piers Morgan, the CNN host, on Monday afternoon after he shared a link to my column with his own commentary. I’ve also tried tweeting a link to the comments section of a column on a Monday or Tuesday.
Now that you’ve finished reading this, please feel free to share it on Twitter, Facebook and anywhere else you’d like.
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