These 7 sins aren’t just deadly on social media: Attention, news websites
The Seven Deadly Sins by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Steph Parker posted “The 7 new deadly sins of social media” on Socialmedia Today this month. A lot of good advice packed into a relatively short post:
Misappropriation
Just because something happens doesn’t mean you have to take advantage of it for your brand. There’s a difference between being clever and being annoying, and forcing the royal baby into your content schedule for the sake of a post is spammy, not clever. An example? The summer’s weirdest trend: Hot Dogs, or Legs? Brands that sell hot dogs jumped in, and that made sense because, well, they sell hot dogs. Brands selling outdoor gear, on the other hand? A less clear connection that looks like a desperate plea for engagement. The saying that any content is good content is false. Keep it grounded in your brand’s footprint.
Her six other sins: Abandonment, Manipulation, Ignorance, Monotony, Narcissism and Uniformity. Please, read her original post for the details.
As you can tell from the sample, the list is aimed largely at marketers. The lessons apply to newsrooms, too, and not just in regard to social media. More and more, the line between social media and news media is thinning, and what works or doesn’t on one side does the same on the other.
Take her point about misappropriation. I wonder if the same argument wouldn’t apply to local news sites that try for cheap clicks by chasing after celebrity stories. It’s one thing to aggregate a roundup of the day’s gossip, so users can feel they’re in the know. But what about instapolls on some actor’s arrest? At what point do you start to weaken your position as a local news source?
And, of course, Abandonment (“when a post has been made … but then the brand drops re-engagement completely”) touches on one of my grievances, the lack of engagement by newsrooms with their readers. That abandonment becomes even more egregious when a site specifically calls for engagement — asking for photos, soliciting questions — and then doesn’t follow up. Only slightly better is when something like a request for questions about a news story is followed up not by the reporters and editors who know the topic, but by a specially designated engagement apparatchik.
Monotony means “identifying a passion point for your audience … but beating it to death.” Listen up, newsroom sports editors. Yes, fans will probably read any old thing you post — for awhile. But in the long run, is it a successful strategy to churn 18 stories out of, say, a trade that isn’t made — when you don’t have anything to say but you say it anyway, and then poll about it?