BERKELEY COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE | June 13, 2013

Using Social Media for Event Coverage

Adelyn Baxter ’13The Daily CalifornianSocial Media Manager

BERKELEY COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE | June 13, 2013

Our social media approach

• Established the social media manager position last fall in order to regulate our approach– Over 8,000 Facebook likes, 11,600 Twitter followers

• Social media allows us to increase readership, encourages online mentality– Applications like bit.ly, Google and Facebook

Analytics allow tracking + feedback for what works• Knowing audience’s social media habits is key

– Helps that we’re the same generation as our readers, but still trial & error process

BERKELEY COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE | June 13, 2013

Experimentation with Social Media • Constantly experimenting w/ ways

to engage• Other methods of engaging

readers: – Instagram contests– Crowdsourcing via Twitter

and Facebook• Do our best to live blog, tweet and

sometimes Storify major events– Nov. 9th, Election 2012, Cal

Football games and recently

ASUC Divestment

BERKELEY COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE | June 13, 2013

Election Night 2012

•Live blog saw nearly 5,000 pageviews throughout the night• About 300 viewers at its

peak

•Crowd sourced on Twitter• #berkvote to incorporate

readers

•Awarded 2013 CCMA for Best Use of Social Media

BERKELEY COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE | June 13, 2013

Lessons learned from election night

• Have plan, but be flexible– Should have been prepared to fill, large gaps

in election results

• Maintaining focus Facebook and Twitter is great, but there’s so much more we could do– Instagram, SoundCloud, even Tumblr

• Crowd sourcing– Something we really should explore more,

excellent way to engage– Don’t overuse hashtags, keep it simple