How Facebook groups work for #CollegeMedia
Right now, we’re in the golden age of audience engagement. So long are the days of reporters simply sharing information to their readers. Now, we’re having a conversation.
We’ve seen audience engagement take place in various ways on that national scale: ProPublica’s Engagement Reporting Team and its engagement projects, The New York Times’ Reader Center and more.
Lately, I’ve been really interested in how media sites can leverage Facebook Groups.
For those unaware, Facebook Groups are another way the tech giant looks to build community on its site. Defined, Groups are “the place for small group communication and for people to share their common interests and express their opinion” with the goal of allowing people to “come together around a common cause, issue or activity to organize, express objectives, discuss issues, post photos and share related content.”
I’ve joined a few of these groups around interests of my own, including ones that discuss Penn State athletics, journalism and even housing groups in New York City and Washington D.C. I’ve also joined groups that exist to help publications better know their readers. For example, I joined The Economist group “Democracy in America,” which looks to make sense of the American landscape post-2016 Presidential Election.
For a while, I started to wonder, how can we leverage these groups to fit in the college media sphere? Often in college media, we’re looking to learn more about our audiences and what they’re interested in.
Groups are a great way to start.
I had the opportunity to attend this year’s College Media Association Conference in New York City and one of the presentations touched on the need to incorporate more audience engagement in college media.
Titled “How to Win in a Digital-Only Newsroom,” the session featured Mariam Aldhahi, managing editor of Curbed, Sonia Chopra, managing editor of Eater and Milly McGuinness, engagement editor at Eater.
The trio talked about the work that they do at their respective outlets, including the power of the second-day story and the importance of engaging your audience.
The group also touched on how important it is to stand out in the digital media landscape. We’re in an age where brand loyalty is almost dead. So the question remains, what’s your outlet’s competitive edge?
For both Eater and Curbed, a big portion of their editorial strategy is audience engagement. Both use their social platforms for native engagement, whether it be Instagram through stories or Twitter through polls.
With Facebook, however, the strategy is two-fold. The outlets use Facebook pages to share content and interact with readers, but the interaction goes deeper on Facebook groups.
With groups, the trio emphasized that some of the most successful Groups are special interest or service-oriented groups. Those include food recommendations, housing and shopping. Having private groups with a few simple but specific questions to gain entry is a plus, along with a set of guidelines to guide discussion and stay on topic.
After all the knowledge gained, I though I’d try it out.
For the past few years, up until a few weeks ago, I’ve served as the editor in chief and co-founder of The Underground, a student media startup at Penn State. Since we’re online-only, we’ve always looked for unique ways to serve our audience. We launched some newsletters, which I’ll go into on a later post, but up until a few months ago, we hadn’t dived into the world of Facebook Groups.
That all changed with Happy Valley Eats.
I wanted a group that focused on a service that was important to the Penn State community that didn’t already exist. There were already groups for housing and sublets, textbooks and yard sales, but there wasn’t anything that specifically focused on food.
The goal of the group was simple. It was “dedicated to all the foodies out there.” We encouraged our readers to “post reviews, recommendations and more of places to eat around State College.”
We laid out some ground rules in the group, ensuring that everyone would stay on topic, knew who their moderators were and understood the purpose of the page.
The “About” Page of Happy Valley Eats.
Facebook also has a template to create rules, which we also added.
Group Rules for Facebook
To get in, readers have to answer one simple question: “What’s your favorite food stop in State College?”
Here are some insights I’ve gained during the group’s existence so far:
Organic engagement takes time
When we started the group, I wasn’t too sure if people would actually share and ask for recommendations, yet alone join the group. For a bit, it was just the moderators and friends of The Underground posting. However, after getting a few people on staff to share the page, invite their friends and post content, others started to join in.
A post from the page
Not only were people asking for recommendations, but some went on the site just to share a cool dish they ate the night before.
Another post, asking for recommendations
Share your content, but be strategic
It’s tempting to hijack the group and just share your publication’s food articles at any given moment. However, it’s better to do it in bursts. When we do write food content, I looked to share it on the page, but in a more conversational tone, that actually interest our readers.
An example of sharing your content on a Facebook Page
An example of sharing your content on a Facebook Page
If we did share content directly from our Facebook page (in order to get people to “like” our page, I also tried the same approach.
Track engagement. You could monetize this.
I’ve learned a lot these past few months about our readers. Not only do they love food, but they want a place to talk about it and learn about new places. One of our readers shared a coupon he had found online from a local ice cream shop and it made me think about “perks” that sites could offer to its group members through local advertisements.
Maybe local eateries will agree to offer coupons or gift packages to your publication to share with members of the group. Media organizations could also offer sponsored content in the form of restaurant reviews or tours. The possibilities are endless.