Other spaces:
The audience is an important consideration when creating content. The NNELS social media targets three main target audiences simultaneously:
We want to stay consistent with our brand messaging across all platforms. Key words and concepts help maintain message consistency. Keep these in mind when writing any content.
Use the correct terminology for language describing the different perceptual or print disabilities. Impairments can have negative connotations. This terminology comes from the copyright act, so if you use it there should be a note saying that this is why these terms are used in the website.
The tone for social media can be more casual than on the website. We want to present NNELS as friendly, approachable, and modern on social media. Be enthusiastic, use exclamation marks, and do not be afraid to sound too excited! Feel free to use humor when interacting on Twitter and Facebook. Linkedin should take more of a professional tone, in line with the news articles on the website.
Avoid negativity as much as possible. Try to spin bad news into hope for the future and shut down any attempts to pit NNELS against other accessibility organizations by referring to them as fellow industry professionals.
Important analytic elements are defined differently by each platform. It is difficult to compare performance across platforms, so maintaining a log of analytic performance to compare month-to-month is more useful for analyzing performance.
The quickest way to gather analytics is through Hootsuite, but it is not necessarily the most accurate. However, if you’re just trying to get a sense of performance for comparison, then it is the most efficient tool. Just be sure to always compare Hootsuite data to itself, rather than mixing Hootsuite analytics with other analytic tools to get the most valid comparison.
Hootsuite lets you compare one period of time to another for quick insights. It is most useful to compare generally the same number of days (eg. Compare one month to another).
Analytics are currently being tracked over time via this Google Sheet
There are some analytic elements that are useful but not available on Hootsuite. These will be described for each platform below.
Via Hootsuite:
Number of posts
Via Platform:
Finding analytics on platform
Via Platform
Finding analytics on platform
Via platform
Finding analytics on platform
Analytics on individual tweets
Clicks: Hootsuite monitors traffic in the form of “clicks.” This record only applies to links shorted to the Ow.ly format when posting via Hootsuite. It is very rarely an accurate representation because it does not track traffic when posting via the platform itself. The exception is Linkedin, which tracks all links clicked on the profile regardless of link format or where the link was posted from.
Sentiment: Hootsuite tries to analyze the tone or “sentiment” of incoming messages and replies to posts. This is often very inaccurate and should not be looked at as a sign of performance.
People filter out traditional sales pitches, so try to frame any direct advertising for our services as helpful, informational posts rather than “selling” our services. This means giving followers a reason to click on our links that is relevant to them. For example, advertise specific items we have in our collection in relation to some kind of event or holiday rather than just telling people to look at our collection. As a general rule, 80% of posts should inform, educate, or entertain the audience and 20% can directly promote the brand. Since NNELS services are generally educational, this is more of a general guideline than a hard rule.
Since creating paid advertising spaces on Twitter and Facebook, those platforms have been cracking down on unpaid marketing posts. They search for language that sounds like hard sales pitches and moves them down in user’s feeds, severely reducing reach. Avoid using the following words in posts:
Other ways to increase reach include:
See the Awards workflow page
In general, re-tweet announcements of long-lists, short-lists, and winners. Include mention of, and link to, the accessible collections on the NNELS site. Include links to news releases, if applicable.
#NewInNNELS is the hashtag we use when we talk about new books that have been added to the repository.
They consist of a chain of tweets: an intro tweet, a few tweets on individual books (3-5), and a conclusion tweet (examples below). The tweets are generally written by either Rachel or the production assistants and will be emailed to the social media coordinator.
Tweets include the following:
Intro Tweet examples :
Conclusion Tweet Examples
Distributed braille is a unique element of NNELS services, so we want to highlight that service. Riane/the braille coordinator will send the social media coordinator information about any new braille items to be advertised. Tweets should include:
Eg:NNELS is thrilled to announce the simultaneous #braille and print release of a Dear Black Girls! Special thanks to author Shanice Nicole, illustrator Kenza Dalz, publisher @MetonymyPress and the #GoC for working with us! NNELS listing here: http://ow.ly/F72O50DuVW2
Every week, check the SDDP-d minutes document for updates from the NNELS team. Pull out any interesting information, content, or project to post about. This can include collections information, what is being worked on, upcoming events, stats, etc.
It is important to use images when trying to attract attention on social media. Adding images into social media posts can boost them in user’s algorithms and make them more likely to be seen. However, you need to keep the audience in mind and avoid having crucial information only presented via images.
Add alt text to describe all uploaded images. Alt text should be clear and accurately describe the image in a way that no meaning of the content is lost for people with print disabilities. If using text in graphics, try to be as brief as possible, as all the text has to also go into alt text, which has limited characters. Text based graphics can be useful for posts we want shared, because other users can just share the image. Eg. posting for audiobook narrators. Any graphics created should have a visual link to NNELS by using the NNELS colours, red (Hex: #EA2127), white, and grey (Hex: #59595c).
On Twitter, only retweet images that have alt text. It will say ALT in the right corner if alt text is available. If there is no alt text, use quote tweet and type the alt text into the tweet. Another option is to save the image and tweet it yourself, tagging the original poster, but this could affect their analytics and is not the preferred method.
Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter all allow for alt-text to be added via Hoosuite or on the individual platforms.
If using Hoosuite:
On platforms:
Facebook (500 characters)
Twitter (420 characters)
Linkedin (120 characters)
Linkedin currently has a very short alt text allowance, so I avoid adding any images that are more than decorative.
If a quick translation is needed in the short term, using DeepL translate is preferred to using Google translate. If using DeepL, include "automatic translation by DeepL" at the end of the post so French-speakers know it was not a human-translated text.
Youtube
Here is a calendar of important dates for NNELS, Canadian holidays, and special days, weeks, and months (eg. White Cane Week) that are relevant to NNELS, libraries, and NNELS users.
Use this website to find Canadian holidays, as well as fun special days (eg. Talk like a pirate day) to center content around.
Articles pages are used for news articles and updates. Topics include:
This is the content most likely seen by non-users. It is important to pay extra attention to your tone and voice when writing articles. Generally, try to be informative and enthusiastic about sharing information in these posts.
For this content type, you have the option to upload a file, add a location, a date, and a summary. Generally, a document is only uploaded for grant announcements. The story is always also presented directly in the body of the article.
The date is auto-filled, so unless you want to back date an article, leave the date as filled.
The summary is the text users read, before they decide to open the full news article. Edit this summary to a one-sentence description of the story. Make sure it is concise, as the summary is only about 200 characters.
There are three featured news items on the front page of NNELS. Try to change at least one news item every month. Avoid using single-item collection news for the front page, so it does not appear we are advertising for a specific author. Instead, post news about new collections (eg. Awards), announcements, and updates.
Newsletters are sent out via Campaigner. See https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cY61Y2KyYR for formatting guidelines of newsletters (password: campaigner).
Currently, our newsletters are used to announce certain awards, funding information, and major organizational changes. See Gaps for more ways to use newsletters.
Newsletters: We have a list of subscribers that we are not actively engaging. To maintain interest and engagement, newsletters should be sent out monthly to the subscribers. Ideally there should be 3-5 news items in each newsletter, and they should be a combination of NNELS advertising (eg. New items), organization news, industry news, and special interest stories.
When writing newsletter with these types of stories, they should have a blurb of 200-400 words, and then link out to read the full story. If you include the full story in the newsletter, it becomes very long and people are generally unlikely to actually scroll down to the bottom. If you include short blurbs, they are more likely to click links they are interested in and be exposed to all stories in the newsletter.
Youtube and podcasting: Youtube is currently only used for tutorials. We can leverage our Youtube account to create more content to show our users, libraries, and publishers what NNELS offers. For example, we could create a video that shows the steps that go into the production of a braille or audiobook.
Youtube can also be used as a vlog to discuss industry issues and accessibility tips. There was discussion of a podcast which could be used the same way.
Website Articles/What is happening in NNELS: We want to get the word out about what NNELS has to offer. This means we should be sharing more of what people are up to, where funding is going, and how users, libraries and publishers benefit from NNELS. We can “pull back the curtain” more on things NNESL is doing. I believe this is also important to do now, with funding instability, since it reinforces to people how important NNELS is to the industry.