The good news: there are many other options to drive (and track!) traffic from social media. We’ll explore all of those in this Social News Desk blog series.

Traffic Driver #2: Twitter

Don’t forget about Twitter – it is an extremely effective way to get traffic to your website. And Social News Desk’s publishing-automation technology – Autopilot – leverages AI to make it easy to post all your best content, automatically, on a schedule you choose. That means less work, and more clicks!

Whether you want to publish your latest stories, republish your best content, or even re-share content across other accounts, there are many different ways to automate your Twitter content and optimize it as a source of traffic to your website.

Get Your Newest Content Out When It Matters

Twitter is a great outlet to showcase your latest stories. Why spend time crafting tweet after tweet when you can set up automation in minutes? As long as you have an RSS feed, you’re good to go! 

Many newsrooms set up several feeds for different topics: top stories, sports, entertainment, and so on. You can use one at a time, or several. This makes it easy to diversify the types of content followers see. From here, it’s a matter of choosing how you’d like the content to go out and when. And if you need to adjust content on the fly with breaking news — you can do that, too. We understand the need to be flexible and Autopilot accounts for that.

Republish Your Best Content – Over and Over

The quickest way to get more traffic from Twitter is simply to post more often. Unlike Facebook, there’s no penalty for re-posting the same link more than once or for posting “too often.” SND’s Autopilot makes is super easy to get your very best content out there – again and again. For example, you can choose to republish tweets that surpassed 2x, 4x, or 10x the average engagement. There’s no calculating, no configuring. Autopilot knows which tweets did well and will likely do well again. Let it do the work for you and have your best-performing content get even more clicks.

Re-share Content Across Other Accounts

Twitter is a large network, and it’s a great opportunity for newsrooms to share updates from other brand accounts. But that can get tedious! Social News Desk can do the heavy lifting by automatically re-sharing updates from any account you choose.

Whether it’s re-sharing a reporter’s tweets from an event or showcasing your weather account’s latest updates, it’s all possible with Autopilot. Just select which account you’d like to share from And, hey: it never hurts to cross-promote your newsroom talent!

Check Your Performance

SND offers several ways to track your performance on Twitter  – and it’s now more robust than ever. With many newsrooms soon to lose access to Facebook data within CrowdTangle, more data is now available right inside SND. In addition to Twitter metrics like favorites and retweets, you can now see video views, impressions and link clicks (among other stats).

If you want a quick look into what tweets are doing well — and even those that aren’t — Post Manager is a good place to start. You can sort by link clicks to see what people are clicking on, or even replies to see what tweets are generating conversations. Want to know just how far your Tweets have gone? We’ve got you covered there, too: sort by impressions to look at your brand presence.

If you want to track your Tweet metrics on an ongoing basis, you can build several different SND Reports. View them within its own Twitter Scorecard report (below), or alongside other social platforms within a Stats Roll-up Report or Enterprise Growth Report. Within each, you can view link clicks, video views, and impressions for your own accounts:

Tracking your Tweets within SND just got a whole lot easier! There’s now even more reason to dive into Twitter with these additional stats right inside SND. Need help? Ask us anytime.

The post Traffic Drivers: Get More Clicks from Twitter with SND’s Autopilot first appeared on Social News Desk.

We’re humbly bragging that ‘we knew it would’ for this reason alone – our clients are the best storytellers in the biz. Now, they have a new avenue to tap into their endless creativity. 

Here are the best examples posted within hours of SND’s launch of Twitter Carousels for organic Tweets:

7. Bears Head Coach, Scroll through Finalists

SND is part of Twitter’s pilot program for its new ‘Carousels’ feature so this is just the beginning-which is pretty exciting! Wondering what’s next for ‘Carousels’?… Two things; we’re working on analytics so you can get the data you need. And more of your good ideas. Keep them coming and tag @socialnewsdesk in the comments. 

If you don’t have SND Dashboard yet, but you want to test this feature and others, email us.

The post Twitter ‘Carousels’ Takes Off (Because SND Clients Know What To Do With Great New Features) first appeared on Social News Desk.

To create a Twitter Carousel, create a new post and select a Twitter account. Click the “Add Twitter Carousel” option under the Post Text box.

Add your first link in the Website URL field. SND will automatically scrape the metadata from the URL. You can customize the headline for the Twitter Carousel item. If you wish to upload a custom thumbnail or a video, click the Upload button. You may need to crop the thumbnail image to conform to Twitter’s guidelines. Keep in mind that you can use all photos or all videos, but you cannot mix media types in a Twitter Carousel.

To add additional items to your Twitter Carousel, click the Add More button. If you have multiple Twitter Carousel items, you can reorder them by dragging and dropping using the 6-dot handle on the left side.

The post How to use Twitter’s new ‘Carousels’ feature for organic Tweets first appeared on Social News Desk.

Breaking News

When a news story is fresh, you may only have a couple of photos from the scene. Add each photo to a Twitter Carousel and link each to the story on your website. Consider adding a Twitter Carousel item linking to your main website, and another to your news app to encourage followers to download and stay on top of updates.

Severe Weather Coverage

Add multiple carousel items to highlight links directly to the latest radar images, severe weather watches and warnings, and updates on storm damage. You can also include videos to showcase the storm’s path and a brief update from your meteorologists. Add a Twitter Carousel item to link directly to your app download page, so followers can stay ahead of the storm.

COVID-19 Updates

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, make sure you’re giving followers the complete story. A single Twitter Carousel can contain updates on case counts, the latest information on where to get tested, and reminders about quarantine procedures in case of positive test results.

Ongoing Investigative Coverage

Major news investigations often have several facets – as new details are uncovered, additional stories may be published. Adding multiple Twitter Carousel items gives your followers the background they need to understand all aspects of a complicated story.

Sports Roundups

Use Twitter Carousels to produce a mini-sportscast. Share highlight videos with links to individual stories from the wide world of sports, or add score updates from multiple games to a single Tweet. Sports columnists can share their latest column, and add additional links to related stories.

User-Generated Content

From sunset photos to Halloween costumes to first day of school photos, sharing user-generated content is still a fun way to make social media a two-way conversation. Feature up to 6 photos at once, and link to the full gallery on your website for additional traffic.

Looking for more? Reach out to us anytime.

The post 6 creative ways newsrooms can use Twitter’s NEW ‘Carousels’ feature in SND first appeared on Social News Desk.

It’s called ‘Carousels’ and even though Twitter is still testing it… Social News Desk is part of the Pilot Program so that means it’s live right now in SND Dashboard. And you can be first to get in on it by logging in now.

If your news org’s Twitter account has long been on Autopilot (that’s SND’s version of intelligent automation) – you’re in the majority. It’s an easy way to consistently get content posted regularly.

Enter ‘Carousels’ – ready-to-use organic carousel formats for organic tweets that enable to you change the way you push out news on Twitter. Here’s how:

1. Customize the Format
2. Deliver Better Stories
3. Drive Calls to Action (note: Calls, plural)

If you’re already using SND Dashboard, it’s yours to try right now. Here’s why you should…

• Improve Storytelling – deliver richer content that grabs attention on Twitter.
• Multiple Media Types – Carousels allows image, video and article carousels. You can use all of it.
• Interactive, Swipeable Cards – horizontal media swipes provide a format change.
• Customized Destinations – add single or multiple destinations to diversify your message and URLs.

^^^ Pattern interrupt! That’s killer. It means you can send traffic more than one direction and tell a story with multiple elements.

Can you do all this through SND? YES! That’s why we’re doubly excited. Here’s a quick video to show you how it works…

Why Use Carousels?  

1. To Drive Engagement (stand out in the crowd, get attention, drive engagement)
2. To Foster Immediate Action (the multiple calls-to-action has our head spinning in every direction)
3. To Have More Flexibility (creative, customizable, but easy)

Coming Soon: The Data Will Be All Yours:

• More Data Available to You: Analytics are a mix of Ads and Public API data.
• More Granularity: You’ll get engagement metrics for each slide.
• General Metrics: Track RTs and other engagement metrics just like regular, organic Tweets

We’ll keep you posted as ‘Twitter Carousels’ data becomes more available!

Newsrooms we’ve talked to see this as a huge opportunity to get content noticed, increase engagement and drive extra traffic. And by the way, if you’re having trouble figuring out how to post a Carousel natively on Twitter… that’s because it isn’t available there. So you can stop looking.

We can’t wait to start showing off creative Carousels courtesy of our clients. Tag @socialnewsdesk in the comments of yours and we’ll feature it!

Need inspiration? Here are 6 ways to use Twitter’s New ‘Carousels’ for organic tweets.

Want to chat about it? We’re here for you – support@socialnewsdesk.com

The post Twitter just launched ‘Carousels’ for organic Tweets – and it’s live in SND first appeared on Social News Desk.

Twitter announced that starting today (Oct. 27), they are discontinuing support for Google AMP, and will no longer automatically direct users to the AMP versions of publishers’ pages. Instead, Twitter will direct users to the mobile or desktop version of the site.

What does this mean for publishers? If you’re using AMP, you don’t necessarily need to take any action – your links will still work. However, it’s now more important than ever to make sure that your “normal” pages are loading quickly – because social media users will no longer be sent to the AMP version when the click your link. Plus, don’t forget that Page Load Speed is a signal that Facebook takes into consideration in their News Feed algorithm as well, so it’s a crucial measure to pay attention to.

Google’s Test My Site tool allows you to get a score for your page’s mobile load time and will make recommendations to help improve your site’s loading speed. Sites that take more than 4 seconds to begin loading on a 4G connection are considered to have a Poor score.

Some of Google’s high-impact recommendations include using efficient image encoding protocols to reduce image size, having an efficient cache policy to speed up repeat visits, and reducing the overall size of network requests to reduce the total amount of payload attached to a page. Review your results with your CMS provider to make sure your load times aren’t impacting your traffic.

The post Why relying on Google AMP could hurt your traffic first appeared on Social News Desk.

Confirm Your Information

Make sure both the phone number and email address on your accounts are up to date. If they are wrong, correct them now.

Enable Password Reset Protection

Password Reset Protection is a unique feature for Twitter that helps prevent unauthorized password changes. Twitter will require an account to confirm its email address or phone number to initiate a password reset. If you’ve made sure your phone number and email address are correct, this will be an important step in making sure unauthorized password changes don’t happen.

Turn on Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication (2FA) gives you an additional layer of protection by making sure you approve each attempted login to your Twitter account. This helps prevent unauthorized logins.

More Tips to Help

Don’t click the link: If you have any doubt that an email is coming from Twitter, delete it right away. Twitter will only send emails from @twitter.com or @e.twitter.com.

Check the site URL: Make sure you’re on twitter.com before entering your password. SND will always open a window from twitter.com in order for you to authenticate your account.

Don’t send your password to anyone: If anyone asks for your Twitter password, don’t send via email (better yet, don’t send it at all). SND will never ask for your password, and we don’t store your password either.

Use a strong password: The best password is one you don’t even know. Use a password keeper in order to save your password and have it automatically entered for you. Most password keepers can also alert you if your password has been compromised.

Questions? Need Help? Reach out to your friendly SND Client Success Team anytime.

The post Journalists: 3 Steps to Secure Your Twitter Account first appeared on Social News Desk.

I’ve never been pleased with the results of fully automating social media posts, but this (SND Planner) is the best of both worlds.

Doug Rogers, Digital Manager for Lilly Broadcasting

Feeding a 24/7 news machine in a small market (or virtually anywhere) isn’t an easy feat, but Social News Desk recently introduced us to a new tool that’s already making it easier.

As a member of the Test Drive Team, we got an early chance to try SND’s new autopilot and post planner at Lilly Broadcasting’s Erie News Now (WICU/WSEE). After getting a late start with social media and having a somewhat dormant Facebook page since its inception, our station turned the situation around and quickly rose to the top of the market. We knew we couldn’t stop or slow down, so scheduling content around the clock became important.

We tried automating the workflow, but it lacked the authenticity and intelligence needed to create content that resonates with our fans and followers. Finding and manually posting content worked, but it was time consuming. We were excited to learn SND wanted to solve the problem and invited us to help.

It started as an early prototype and wasn’t exactly a post planner like it is now, but it was the beginning of something that’s revolutionizing our workflow.

We experimented with posting some web-ready content from an affiliate news service once an hour in the evening. It worked; we were able to the feed for the content from our website to the new autopilot tool and prioritize the order of the content. On the Twitter side, which is much more heavily automated than Facebook, we were able to prioritize the content feeds – like posting a local story over national content first – and set it to autopost headlines and links every 5-10 minutes.

On the weekends when local content is much more limited, we go into the post manager, sort content by engagement and add tags to the content we want to use again. By creating a keyword feed, we can capitalize on those popular stories, scheduling them manually or via autopilot for reuse once per hour.

The post planner even makes manually scheduling content easier. The grid allows us to see when other content was posted, what’s scheduled next and where autopilot wants to help. It makes it easy to spot the gaps and fill them in with content to keep the social media pages fresh. To schedule a post, we can just click on a slot; there’s no need to enter the time, eliminating one more step. If we need to move any posts, it’s just a drag-and-drop; there’s no need to edit or open the post to change the time.

Like anything new, we helped squash some bugs along the way. Team SND even added features from our feedback, like the drag-and-drop for changing the scheduling of posts and manually scheduling content on the Planner where Autopilot is scheduled to kick in.

We’re now looking forward to seeing how we can use our Google Analytics data to rank when content automatically posts and experimenting with curated lists to prepare content that can be used with Autopilot.

It’s hard to imagine managing social media without SND. Unlike anything I’ve used before, they certainly understand news, and their team keeps us ahead of the curve with innovation. I’ve never been pleased with the results of fully automating social media posts, but this is the best of both worlds; we can leverage the power of automation while manually curating content at the same time.

SND Planner is now live! And we’re making a big deal about it. Watch our Launch Party here!

The post SND Planner: A Digital Manager’s Experience first appeared on Social News Desk.

Read more feedback!

Where to find SND Planner!

Sign up for a live training webinar!

SND Planner is comprehensive, new technology to assist with a hybrid approach to posting on Social Media. We didn’t want to completely automate the process of posting – instead, we have enough automation to make you incredibly efficient while still putting an emphasis on the importance of manual posting and making editorial-decisions on the fly.

Want to learn more? Reach out to info@socialnewsdesk.com.

The post SND Planner: Release the Compliments! first appeared on Social News Desk.

Here’s what your newsroom needs to know:

Twitter recently released what it’s calling a draft of the company’s new verification policy. Changes aren’t monumental – but the consequences are. To avoid interruptions to your newsroom or journalist account verification status, stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW and make sure the account is complete in the following areas:

• Has a confirmed email address and/or phone number
• Has a profile image
• Has a display name
• Is active (has logged in to Twitter within the past 6 months)

Twitter’s News Partnerships team tells us that any verified account which doesn’t meet the above criteria will receive an automated email and in-app notification on December 21, 2020 with a reminder to complete the account per the new guidelines. On January 20, 2021 – if those updates still have not been made – then the account may lose it’s blue check.

Questions? Reach out to our Client Success team anytime.

The post Twitter’s New Verification Policy – What Newsrooms Need to Know first appeared on Social News Desk.