Nieman Foundation at Harvard
Editor’s note: Our friends at NPR Digital Services, Eric Athas and Teresa Gorman, crunched the numbers on how public radio stories were shared on Facebook and found some encouraging results.
We’ve heard this a lot lately: Fun stories, not serious stories, work on social media.
But we’ve found otherwise. You can shape serious stories to make them shareable and more informative for the public. We’re not talking about watering down serious journalism — we’re talking about crafting stories for the digital audience.
This happens every day in the Local Stories Project, which curates the most shareable member station content and distributes it through the NPR Facebook page. We’ve seen that people have an appetite for interacting with important stories that affect their lives. We found similar results in our research into the types of local stories that foster engagement.
Still, we wanted to be sure. Can serious stories actually get as much attention as fun ones on social media? And how can reporters and editors shape serious stories so that the audience will like, share, comment, retweet, etc.?
To help answer these questions, we reviewed 809 stories from the Local Stories Project that we then classified as either fun or serious. These were station stories that were posted to the NPR Facebook page and geotargeted — only people in each station’s local region could see them.
The surprising results offer insight into how serious stories can be shareable.
First, let’s be clear about what we mean by “fun” and “serious” — as you’ll see, we’re not saying one is better than the other — a healthy mixture of all kinds of stories is good for your audience.
These stories probably won’t change policy or dramatically alter the way people go about their lives, but they can still be thought-provoking or offer your audience a lighthearted break in the day. These stories usually highlight something unusual, something quirky, or something funny.
These stories have real-life implications. They can be about something we encounter everyday, like transportation or housing costs. Or they can uncover something the public didn’t already know, like an investigation into natural gas. Serious stories help people stay aware of the news that matters to them.
One-by-one, we examined all 809 stories and labeled them either fun or serious. Then, using Facebook data attached to each story, we measured success using this metric: Of the unique people who see each post, what percentage like it, share it, or comment on it?
Here’s what we found:
— Stations are creating as many fun stories as serious stories: Of the 809 stories, 53 percent were serious and 47 percent were fun.
— Serious stories were just as shareable as fun stories: The percentage of people who liked, shared, or commented was the same for both serious and fun stories – about 1 percent of those who saw the posts interacted with them. In the Local Stories Project, we’ve found that any post over 0.7 percent leads to dozens or hundreds of likes, shares, and comments.
— Top serious stories were shared just as much as top fun stories: You’d think that fun stories would garner far more engagement, but that wasn’t the case. When looking at the top 50 stories, the percentage of people who liked, shared, or commented was 3 percent — the same for both serious and fun stories.
So how exactly can you make serious content shareable? What you don’t want to do is wait until after the story’s already on your site. Consider your approach from the beginning. Here’s how:
Write a headline first — before you begin crafting your story. The headline should be a simple, straightforward, specific promise about what the story’s about. You might discover a different headline through your reporting, but starting with something precise will help focus the story.
What’s the best way to convey the story? Whatever you decide, get to the point right away and make the piece easy to understand. Charts, images, videos or other visuals can be helpful, but only incorporate them if it’s useful to the audience.
Cut through the noise. A lot of media might be covering the story, but how can you differentiate yourself? What can you add to the story? Try creating an explainer, where you take the complex issue and make sense of it for people.
Imagine someone coming across your story online — what will make them take the next step to share it? Will it make them happy, sad, enraged, informed or intrigued? If it leaves your audience with no reason to interact, you’ve missed something.
Don’t ignore the story after it’s published. Compile the metrics, and ask: Did the story’s traffic and engagement fall flat? What would you do differently? Take a look at the comments and shares to learn how people felt about the story. This should inform future coverage.
Want to print the 5 questions? Go here for a printable version.
It wasn’t an accident that so many people liked, shared, and commented on serious stories. The station editors and reporters behind the content were thoughtful in their approach, just as they were with the fun stories. Here’s what they did to make serious stories shareable:
When the CDC released a report on breastfeeding, Boise State Public Radio’s Emilie Ritter Saunders noticed that her home state was at the top of the list. But rather than just publishing the findings, Emilie explained why Idaho’s rate was so high and crafted a headline that promised such an explanation. Idahoans responded with 221 likes and 70 shares on the NPR Facebook page.
Michigan Radio has dedicated a special project to cover “the barriers children of low income families in Michigan face in achieving success.” It’s a heavy topic, but they’ve been able to report on it in a clear way that informs locals. This piece by reporter Jennifer Guerra was shared 125 times and liked 133 times on the NPR Facebook page.
Housing affordability affects almost everyone in the communities that KQED is trying to reach. By consistently covering the topic with digestible stories and great headlines, the station’s reporters have spurred engaging conversations, leading to hundreds of likes, shares, and comments. Now, KQED’s applying that same principle to a series on the housing crisis.
Image by Russ Gossett.
