How the Star uses social media
Evelyn Kwong posts stories, responds to readers, keeps things civil and much more
This story is part of the Star’s trust initiative, where, every week, we take readers behind the scenes of our journalism. This week, we look at how Evelyn Kwong, the Star’s social media producer, engages audiences online.
As an increasing number of readers get their news from Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, news organizations have had to develop social media strategies — and the Toronto Star is no exception.
It’s social media producer Evelyn Kwong’s job to engage with the public on these platforms. Her role is a busy one. Kwong spends most of her working hours posting Star stories on the main social media platforms used by the Star — Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — promoting our content and encouraging thoughtful debate. She also scans Facebook and Twitter to identify trending topics of interest to Star readers and then flags them to assignment editors for potential story ideas.
Kwong reads every story written by Star reporters to identify which articles would perform best on each platform. Her role includes developing strategies with editors to enhance bigger projects and investigations by adding, for example, videos and online polls.
“Being on social media 24/7 sounds like every millennial’s dream job, and it’s very rewarding when you find the next best meme, or story,” says Kwong, who is, as it happens, a millennial. “I feel that one of my biggest duties is to be mindful of what types of stories work best on the Star’s social media platforms, and to understand how readers connect to social media and how it can help engage thoughtful debate.”
One recent strategy revolved around the Star’s coverage of the MYTORONTO contest. This social project gave 100 people who experienced homelessness or at one point relied on emergency shelters or transitional housing disposable cameras and asked them to document their perspective of the city. The winning photos are featured in a 2018 calendar that is available for sale.
For Facebook, Kwong posted a short documentary about the contest by video producer Anne-Marie Jackson, along with a brief description of the MYTORONTO project and a link to the Star’s online coverage by reporter Emily Mathieu.
“The video was compelling and said everything better than I could put in words. Plus, Facebook is strict about what can be posted without seeming like over-sharing or spam,” Kwong says.
On Twitter, she tweeted the same video and a link to the Star’s story, followed by a string of photos of the winners and their images, along with quotes from the winners. For Instagram, Kwong created an “Instagram Story,” a series of videos and photos shared on the platform for just 24 hours. Users can click through and connect to the story with a simple swipe up over the images.
Kwong’s job includes scheduling posts to go live when articles are either most useful or most likely to be seen by readers. For example, she will post recipes by food writers Karon Liu and Ricardo around dinner time (6:05 p.m.) and Ellie’s advice columns at 5:05 p.m. when people are commuting home.
While generating excitement and engagement is part of her job, Kwong has to be careful not to overdramatize content that touch on sensitive topics, such as investigations.
“With these projects, I carefully craft the words that will best highlight the story without being too flashy. These words are doublechecked and edited by my producer, and then finalized before being sent out,” she says. “For lighter projects, like the Star’s Cookie Calendar, I use a lot of yummy visuals — I mean, they’re cookies! — to engage readers. These projects are important too as they provide some light in the often dark space of news.”
Kwong says being transparent to gain the reader trust is always top of mind. For example, when mistakes are made, she makes a point of tweeting corrections over the Star’s Twitter account, and posting them on Facebook. She makes these posts using her own name, she says, so that audiences know the face behind the posts.
This week, the Star tweeted a video graphic showing projected changes in surface air temperature in North America over the next 70 years relative to 1986 to 2005. In the original graphic, the scale in the legend displaying temperatures was inaccurate. After this was flagged by another Star employee, Kwong fixed the scale and retweeted the graphic with the correct legend. Along with this tweet, she used the #Correction tag and also responded to readers under her own Twitter account.
“It’s important that audiences know there’s a real person behind our social media accounts and that they are not just run by bots,” Kwong says. She encourages readers to send questions or complaints to the Star’s Facebook inbox, which she tries to answer within one hour. “This type of engagement is crucial for reader trust because it shows that we listen to our audiences and care about their concerns, news tips and comments in general.”
While Kwong encourages readers to engage in constructive debate of the stories she posts, she also acts as the gatekeeper of civility and will step in when the odd troll rears their ugly head with rude, offensive remarks.
“When I make a choice to interfere with a user, it’s usually because they’ve responded with a personal attack on another user,” she says. “There will always be conflicting opinions on a single story and it often generates thoughtful debate, but when it turns malicious, I will flag the comment and, sometimes, if it is a repeat incident, message the user and ask them to be more respectful.” Email your questions to trust@thestar.ca.