#LIFTSocial

How to Recognize and Surface Your

Best ContentMatthew Knell – VP of Social Media for About.com

#LIFTSocial

What is About.com? • Founded in 1996.

• 85 million people visit about.com

every month.

• 13th largest site on the Internet.

• 1,000 Experts on topics from parenting

to technology, healthcare and cooking.

• Each month more people check out

About.com than Pandora, Twitter,

Buzzfeed, Linkedin or Netflix.

#LIFTSocial

About.com was built to help people find answers and inspiration

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This would typically happen through search

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And we’d deliver an answer for you

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Doing social media must be easy, right?

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It’s actually more like a game of Clue

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The Challenge…

Finding content

we already had

that was good for

social audiences.

Creating content for social

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Which one would you share?

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1.5 million pieces of content created over 19+ years

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<1% Of our content are solid social candidates

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4 Steps To A Social Discovery Workflow

Understand how your content is created and structured.

1

Define your KPI and tools you need to measure

them.

Operationalize the learnings.

2

3

4

Embrace the anomalies.

#LIFTSocial

Step #1: Understand how your content is created and structured

#LIFTSocial

Why is content created?

Breaking News

0-60 min

Reaction

60 min-24 hrs 24 hrs-7 days

Analysis Evergreen

7 days-until stale

Stale

Stale until updated

Time since subject of content happened

#LIFTSocial

How long is content useful?

Real-Time

Good for 48 hours after event

Good for 30-60 days a year Good any day of the year

EvergreenSeasonal

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Where will it be consumed?

On site Off site

• Website• Mobile site• Apps

• Social networks• Facebook Instant Articles• Google AMP• Native content• Email

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Which platform is content likely to be consumed on most often?

Desktop Tablet Mobile iOT

• Desktop• Laptop• Netbook

• iPad• Android Tablet

• iPhone• Android Phone

• Apple Watch• Amazon Echo• VR

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Step #2: Define your KPI and tools you need to measure them.

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What matters most for us?

• Total sessions (all sources)

• Total page views (all sources)

• Page views per visit (all sources)

• Total sessions from social (all sources)

• Total PV from social networks

• PPV from social networks

• % of total page views from social

• Share rate (% of times people

clicked share / total PV)

• Total Facebook Shares (lifetime)

• Total Pinterest Pins (lifetime)

• Total engagement on our O&O social pages

• Total PV from our O&O social pages

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Real-Time EvergreenSeasonal

On site:• Google Real-Time

Off site:• CrowdTangle• Buffer Analytics• Tailwind Analytics

On site:• Google Analytics

Off site:• Simply Measured• Tailwind Analytics

On site• Tableau• Hue

Off site• Simply Measured• Tailwind Analytics

Line up dashboards against these

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Simply Measured custom report merges on-site/off-site data

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Find duplicity / margin of error

• How “wrong” is the data compared to other sources?

• What data sets can be unified? Which others are duplicative?

• Is the data you’re making decisions on reliable?

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Step #3: Embrace the anomalies

#LIFTSocial

The Sugar Glider Effect

Sugar Gliders are marsupials; that is their young start life off in a pouch (like a kangaroo). They originally hail from Australia, Indonesia and New Guinea, and live in forests. Their name is derived from their diet (in part they feed on nectar and the sap of eucalyptus), and from the flap of skin they have between their wrists and ankles that allows them to glide between trees. They are omnivorous, meaning they will eat plant material and meat - food in the wild include nectar, fruit, insects and even small birds or rodents. They live in social family units in the wild, a trait which makes them inclined to bond well with their human family. However, if they are deprived of social interaction they will not thrive (in fact they can become depressed to the point where they may die).

From: http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/sugargliders/a/sgaspets.htm

“

”

#LIFTSocial

Wait, what?

Sugar Gliders are marsupials; that is their young start life off in a pouch (like a kangaroo). They originally hail from Australia, Indonesia and New Guinea, and live in forests. Their name is derived from their diet (in part they feed on nectar and the sap of eucalyptus), and from the flap of skin they have between their wrists and ankles that allows them to glide between trees. They are omnivorous, meaning they will eat plant material and meat - food in the wild include nectar, fruit, insects and even small birds or rodents. They live in social family units in the wild, a trait which makes them inclined to bond well with their human family. However, if they are deprived of social interaction they will not thrive (in fact they can become depressed to the point where they may die).

From: http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/sugargliders/a/sgaspets.htm

“

”

#LIFTSocial

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned

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Will this ever happen again?

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Will this happen again next winter?

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Whenever we post it = gold!

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Every piece of content develops a patternTake a look at their history to see what it looks like.

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Step #4: Operationalize the learnings

#LIFTSocial

Breaking News

0-60 min

Reaction

60 min-24 hrs 24 hrs-7 days

Analysis Evergreen

7 days-until stale

Stale

Stale until updated

Time since subject of content happened

The content lifecycle

#LIFTSocial

Where About.com content lives

Breaking News

0-60 min

Reaction

60 min-24 hrs 24 hrs-7 days

Analysis Evergreen

7 days-until stale

Stale

Stale until updated

Time since subject of content happened

#LIFTSocial

Which social networks are relevant when

Breaking News

0-60 min

Reaction

60 min-24 hrs 24 hrs-7 days

Analysis Evergreen

7 days-until stale

Stale

Stale until updated

Time since subject of content happened

#LIFTSocial

About.com social traffic by network

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Double down on what works best

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#LIFTSocial

Daily stand up meeting

• Contains representatives from email, social, site programming and data science teams.

Typical agenda:

• Review Trending topics in the news.

• Review Seasonal / Today in History possibilities.

• Review yesterday’s greatest hits on social, email, site programming.

• Recommendations on what content to share today.

THANK YOU

#LIFTSocial