Behind the scenes of The Maine Trust for Local News’ successful social video strategy
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Like many other news organizations, The Maine Trust for Local News (METLN) has a base of core subscribers and many of them are disconnected from the organization’s brand on social media. And in the inverse, there are legions of (younger) potential followers and subscribers who aren’t inclined to engage with METLN’s core product: daily print newspapers and three dot-com homepages.
One of our key tactics to address this challenge is to build a consistent presence where our audiences are, which includes social video platforms. The goal: grow Mainers’ awareness of our reporting and reach more potential subscribers.
We picked two platforms to start. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.
On Instagram, we already had a significant following, and the algorithm allows us to target new, non-followers with experimental content before sharing it to our existing followers. YouTube was already our primary video host for our CMS and a familiar part of the newsrooms’ workflows. Its unmatched power as a search and discovery engine made having at least a base presence there nonnegotiable.
Our publications cover regional and statewide news from newsrooms located in South Portland, Lewiston, Waterville and other towns around the state. Today, our Portland Press Herald Instagram account has more than 53,600 followers. The Press Herald YouTube has more than 5,300 subscribers.
Our early experiments
As much as we rely on research from industry experts and other trends our peers are piloting, we have to calibrate that against our own audience.
Previously, we learned that if we don’t flood the zone on sites like Facebook with our website links, especially in community pages, we’re leaving room for other actors to get that audience’s attention. Now, our work on platforms like Facebook, Nextdoor, and Reddit are as efficient as possible and split responsibilities with community reporters, digital producers and our ad sales team.
I view social video content the same way. Why should we cede all of the mic time to non-journalism creators? We deserve to be in there, too. Our audiences are waiting for us to show up. Research tells us this.
But we don’t know much about our social video audience. So we have been experimenting with different kinds of videos (explainers, interview excerpts and skits) to see what works.
With funding from Google News, we had the opportunity to bring in outside training. We invited a TikTok journalist from Massachusetts to teach us the fundamentals of mobile video production. Our workshop with her also helped us create two weeks’ worth of potential social video content in under an hour.
The highest priority was getting our staff comfortable with experiments and relaxing the high-production value for daily, bitesize views of on-the-ground reporting. This was especially hard for me. (And I’m the boss!)
At the end of last year, before we began ramping up our vertical efforts, we did a few high-production value video shoots with reporters and had photographers providing the lighting. We spent a few weeks ironing out a draft that felt ready. We even bought props! (You can see the playdough and scale in action in this video in particular.)
When we posted the video, our audience only sort of liked it. The indicator there was the number of views, skip rate, and engagement (likes, comments, and shares). A few weeks later, we posted a few-seconds-long video one of our photographers captured in the field. It was a surfer heading into the waves during a blizzard. That video went viral (months later, it’s still gaining traction), and its success suggests we take a different approach.
Tracking success is important
Everything we do is oriented around two areas: growing our audience and finding new audiences. Our social video strategy needed to fit into those pillars, too.
While it’s ok not to have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for a minute when doing something new, we still needed to establish a baseline early on. So, while we got our video chops going, we established a posting cadence.
For Instagram, this meant daily Stories featuring top headlines and one to two grid posts in the form of photo dumps or carousels. If we were lucky, maybe an occasional video. We tracked the performance of certain content types (columns, investigative pieces, spot news) and verticals (food, politics) to see what got the biggest response. Replicating the same cadence week to week and having a clear posting rhythm allowed us to isolate for the right variables: bigger numbers, farther reach and new audiences.
On Instagram Reels, I’m most interested in views, especially from non-followers. I always track engagement (shares, likes, comments) and, because it’s a video, skip rate.
On YouTube, we’re especially curious about the demographics of our audience and which devices they are using to watch (mobile or desktop). The device could be an indicator of preference for content types, as well as whether or not horizontal video is worth our time to produce.
On top of these metrics, we also look for indicators of success in terms of team structure and workflow. Now, every new experiment is also a meta-test, or observation, in how we work.
This is important because, as we make more room for innovation, we want to test pathways to growth inside the organization. Being able to answer these questions helps us stay flexible and ready to continue experimenting:
- How efficiently can we get something new up and running?
- When do we know when a test is over and done?
- How do we fail fast and move on to the next potential idea?
Here’s what we’ve learned so far in our experiments with social video.
Takeaways from our first quarter
1. Start with a smartphone
Everyone has a phone in their pocket. Start there.
Working in a well-lit and quiet environment allows smartphones to capture better quality. If contributors are keen to continue making stuff, a basic microphone is a good piece of gear to add.
Daylight can substitute for fancy lighting. A stack of books or a phone stand can sub in for a more formal tripod. When there is a little budget to spend, a table stand and a small video light can easily up the visual quality.
It’s ok if the production value isn’t what would air on 60 Minutes. In fact, more “everyday” quality might help your work perform better. Social media audiences like when things are rough around the edges. What makes our work as journalists stand out is that the content is air-tight. The production doesn’t have to be — especially if you’re just getting started.
2. Find your video champions
Find early adopters and innovators in the newsroom. One or two people who are willing to try something for 45 minutes, just once. See what the results are. Iterate from there.
Then, mix it up with different people on camera. We’re seeing in our results that different on-camera reporters reach different audiences. Once a few videos are in the can, other editors and reporters can get a visual sense of what you’re looking for. We’ve also found that once staff see their peers trying something new, they’re willing to experiment, too. We want our videos to represent the breadth and depth of our reporting — and the staff behind the scenes.
As a leader, I also make sure to experiment – sharing my own experience, producing in the field, trying short-form content, and working on new formats at a fast clip.
3. Build on internal expertise
One of our not-so-secret weapons at Maine Trust is the collective expertise of our photography teams. Their photos were the centerpieces of our carousels.
We asked them to grab a video if they could. This wasn’t always possible while juggling the needs of print deadlines and digital needs, but even 15-30 seconds makes a huge difference when it comes to social. It isn’t expected that everyone gets on board immediately — one to two contributions a week is a fine baseline.
Our chief photographer also gave the newsroom a best practices training on phone composition. This allowed us to scale up our expertise more quickly — and take advantage of having our team out in the field to capture interviews and breaking news events with their phones.
4. Conduct small iterative experiments
A short clip of a surfer heading into the waves during a recent blizzard performed better than a reporter-led feature that packaged reporting from a field.
We will still publish the reported packages we believe our audience should be keyed in on, but we will continue making room for the shorter stuff, too. We will also keep using Reels to experiment with non-followers and see how new types of videos perform.
5. Camera shy? That’s ok.
There are plenty of ways to make a video without the reporter doing a stand-up. Just because a reporter shoots video doesn’t mean they have to be on camera. Moreover, not all writers want to be on camera.
Some of our best videos have come from print reporters who opened up their phone while on a beat (like these kayakers shredding in a waterfall). If there’s a video story we’re interested in from them, they can capture footage without pointing the camera at their face.
6. Derivative content isn’t bad
Work with existing pitches and story budgets to come up with social video ideas. Some of our best-performing videos were released four to five days after the written companion piece was published on the website.
We can record something with a reporter quickly because the story is already reported, fact-checked and edited. The angle is clear, and editors are already on board. Reporters are responsible for updating any new developments in the story and advising on publication date if timeliness is a concern. Communication about these deadlines is key.
7. It’s ok to publish ‘the same thing’ in multiple places
Anyone who knows social media knows that differentiation is the name of the game. But if you’re just getting started, you may not have capacity (or time) to create a LinkedIn version, a TikTok version, a YouTube version…you get the point. You need to start training the algorithms. Putting something in there is better than nothing, as long as your schedule is consistent. Then, let your metrics help you decide where to prioritize additional work.
I can’t promise what the future of journalism — or vertical video — holds. But experimentation has always been and will continue to be an important step to help newsrooms meet our audiences where they are.
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