Fort Worth, Texas
Size of Facebook audience: 92,400 followers as of Nov. 13, 2016
Strategies tested (See all):
- Deploy Your Fans: Invite users to help you inform the world.
- Engage Authentically: Interact like a human.
- Engage Authentically: Share yourselves and your process.
- Engage Authentically: Host meaningful conversation.
- Engage Authentically: Invite and value interaction.
Project Lead: Maricar Estrella, Deputy Managing Editor of Digital and Social. Estrella has been with Fort Worth Star-Telegram since 1996 and has been the deputy managing editor of digital and social since 2012. Estrella is responsible for the creation and implementation of Fort Worth’s social media policy, as well as improving and expanding Fort Worth’s social media, community outreach and marketing. You can connect with her via LinkedIn and Twitter.
Hear from Estrella about her newsroom’s experience:
Under the interact like a human strategy, this post had a higher than average reach and engagement. The engagement rate was double the average. Fort Worth simply changed the language of the post to sound a bit more personal. Fort Worth also had the unique idea to post an album of their staff and their fathers for Father’s Day. It was a great post for share yourselves and your process because it gave readers access to the staff’s personal lives. This post had the highest engagement rate of any of Fort Worth’s posts during this project.
Fort Worth tried an especially interesting concept under host meaningful conversation. They created a Crime Time Q&A and had readers ask them questions that they answered in later posts (here and here). The engagement, reach and engagement rate were above average, although not as significantly as with some of the other posts. Fort Worth also experienced great success with another post under the same strategy. Their conversation-starter on the Dixie Chicks was well received by your audience. It was important that they asked not only if their audience had forgiven them for their public disapproval of President Bush, but also asked why or why not.
A couple still image posts under share yourselves and your process didn’t perform as well as expected. This post asked the audience to caption a behind-the-scenes photo. This set of two photos also didn’t perform as well. The photos congratulated two staff members’ 35th year at the Star-Telegram. It’s possible that the format of the photos, ie two photos occupying what would be the space for one, made the aesthetic of the post less pleasurable and thus there was lower engagement.
