montanajournalism Best Practices for Journalists on Social Media, J-School

Social Media Best Practices: Q& A with Nate Schoenfelder of the Montana Free Press

By Tyler Johnson

Nate Schoenfelder is the director of audience engagement at the Montana Free Press. Schoenfelder specializes in marketing and communications. Schoenfelder is from Idaho and, prior to serving as the director of audience engagement at the Montana Free Press, was on the leadership team of a software company called Pingman Tools as their marketing communications manager.

Montana Free Press is present on various social media platforms which include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Their largest following is on Twitter where they have about 9,000 followers. They remain active on all of their social media platforms. UM student Tyler Johnson interviewed Schoenfelder via email to get a deeper look into the Montana Free Press social media practices. Below is a transcript of their conversation.

Q: Are there any guidelines that you follow when generating a social media post and if so, what are they?
 
A: So, our post guidelines are not formalized, but our biggest north star is to always strive to provide value to a reader. While we often have audience and fundraising needs that we support through social media posting, we view all our social posts through the lens of our role as a news organization and our responsibility to provide information to the public and to offer a venue (flawed as it may be) for public discourse. Our posting is always done with an explicit goal in mind, be it to drive traffic to a story, generate newsletter signups, or solicit audience feedback.

Q: How many people do you have working on your social media team and what are some of the responsibilities?

We have a team of three who oversee our social accounts. As the Director of Audience Engagement, it is my responsibility to set higher-level goals and guide our social media strategy to achieve our objectives. At this point, I will rarely draft social posts. However, outside of our social posts promoting new reporting, I review and approve the content of our posts.

We have a marketing contractor who provides social media support, which includes drafting social posts and managing the day-to-day maintenance of the accounts.

Our Production Editor is responsible for drafting and scheduling all of our social posts for story promotion. Our publishing tools allow us to schedule posting directly from our content management system, so social post drafting is included in the story publication workflow.

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montanajournalism Best Practices for Journalists on Social Media

Journalists On Social Media: Q&A with the Flathead Beacon’s Hunter D’Antuano

By Ashley Miller

Hunter D’Antuano is a reporter, photographer, & media director for the Flathead Beacon, an independent weekly newspaper located in Kalispell, Montana that covers the Flathead Valley, Glacier National Park, The Flathead Reservation, The Blackfeet Reservation, as well as the more rural areas of Northwestern Montana. D’Antuono is a UM school of journalism alum who joined the Flathead Beacon in 2019. He has produced photographic and written content for numerous publications including the The New York Times, The Washington Post, Montana Outdoors, The Missoulian, The Montana Kaimin, etc.

In a phone interview with UM student Ashley Miller, D’Antuano discussed his own best practices on social media as it relates to his work as a journalist. Below is a transcript of the conversation, edited lightly for clarity and length.

Q: How many people do you have working on your social media team and what are some of their responsibilities?

A: We are a small newsroom, so we don’t have a social media team per se, but we do prepare our content for print and our content for online by dividing up the tasks amongst the staff. For example, since I am the media director and photographer, I run the paper’s Instagram while the other members of the staff share the load and post content to Facebook and/or Twitter. I normally take my best shot or gallery and post that weekly to our Instagram to help expose our audience to what we are doing and remind them that the Beacon has things for them to look at. On a personal front I am not super focused on social media as an individual, but I do see the value of it, and I guess I prefer quality over quantity when it comes to my own strategy for Instagram content.

Q: What is your favorite platform to post on? How do you cater your content to different platforms?

A: I wish I could say that there was a scientific formula to it but it typically depends on the type of content. For example, if there is something breaking news like a forest fire, we will typically throw that up as quickly as possible to all platforms. A lot of times on Instagram because we are a weekly newspaper I have a little more freedom, and it doesn’t always have to be the hardest of hard news. Sometimes we can put prettier photos or things that are a little more lighthearted of content that is local and relevant for people to engage with. For myself though I personally like to go for as much variety as possible.

Q: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced while working as a journalist on social media?

A: I guess I kind of think it mirrors what people can sometimes experience on their own social media accounts. It’s like you post something, people don’t agree with it and they get up and arms about it. People can often be unnecessarily nastier online than they would be in person in my opinion. I think that social media is great because it is condensed, more digestible bits of information, but I think it also enhances opportunities for things to be taken out of context for people to cherry pick things and to make a mountain out of a molehill kind of effect. Personally, I don’t always like social media because I think that it can be kind of a train wreck. However, with that, it is kind of a necessary evil because we are in the business of trying to collect and distribute information in an accurate and compelling way, and social media is a part of that landscape.

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montanajournalism Best Practices for Journalists on Social Media

Journalists On Social Media: Q&A with the Missoulian’s Skylar Rispens

By Caven Wade

Skylar Rispens began her journalism career at the University of Montana. She majored in journalism, and shortly after graduating in May of 2019 got a job offer to work for the Great Falls Tribune where she covered sports, breaking news, and education. In 2021 she moved to the Missoulian where she covers the education beat. Rispens uses Twitter professionally to live-tweet meetings and share other valuable information like her stories and other exciting news. She has 2,306 followers on Twitter and is only looking to grow in the coming years. UM student Caven Wade had a chance to discuss over email the use of social media in journalism with Skylar. What follows is a transcript of the conversation, edited lightly for brevity and clarity.

Rispens while she was a student at the University of Montana School of Journalism. File photo by Jiakai Lou. 

Q: What’s your favorite social media platform to use, and do you cater your posts differently for your different accounts?

A: When I previously worked at the Great Falls Tribune I did a lot more photography work than I do for the Missoulian, so when I was there I used my professional Instagram account more frequently. I have since made that a private account and I haven’t posted to it since December 2020.

For most of my journalism education and career I’ve preferred using Twitter. I enjoy how quick it is to get little bites of information out to people in our community, Montana and beyond. However, I also love a good Twitter thread while I’m covering a particularly juicy public meeting — especially during the pandemic. I noticed that a lot of people in the community were actually reading them and felt it was a great way to keep people connected during fully virtual meetings. I also do like to post a few things that showcase more of my personality and life outside of work so that people know I am a human out in their community.

I am interested in restarting my journalism Instagram account though I’m not exactly sure what that will look like. I used to have a professional Facebook page, but that never got much traction so I deactivated it.

Q: When you originally got into journalism did you expect social media to play as big of a role as it has?

A: I don’t think it was something I had a great grasp on in a professional sense, but all of my professors encouraged us to use Twitter and other social media platforms to share our work. However, it certainly didn’t come as much of a surprise how integral social media is in news media. I started my Twitter account when I was a student at the J-School and grew my audience organically (with particularly large following gains coming after popular meeting threads).

Q: How do you keep a healthy balance between posting strictly news, but then adding your own flair to stories or posts?

A: This is still one I’m struggling with honestly. I have a pretty sarcastic and dry sense of humor, and I do try to show that when appropriate on Twitter. I tend to stray away from offering commentary on polarizing topics, but I do like to call it as I see it every once in a while. I’ve learned that I have a knack for creating library-news related memes, which seem to go over pretty well. https://twitter.com/skylar_rispens/status/1577698419229220864

All in all, I like to show my personality because I think it helps build trust with people while also making my account a little more entertaining. At the end of the day, I’m a person who people should expect to get solid information from, not a stand-up comedian.

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