General Social Media Protocols

This page needs revision to be brought up to date with our 2018 Relaunch

Overview

"Social Media protocols" are the various tasks that a Social Media Manager performs regularly. Briefly, the Social Media Manager takes care of our Social Media presence on a weekly basis. We encourage rotation in Social Media Management to keep it as fresh and exciting as possible.

These protocols interrelate with other areas of the collective, in particular with the web-magazine, as we heavily promote every new translation that we publish. We also continue promoting translations long after the original date of publication (one of the benefits of featuring long-narrative content!). We also promote other non-translation content from the web-magazine on social media, such as articles about GT/GMC (featured in the blog), author bios, etc.

Like any other company or collective, we also use Social Media to reflect the things we do apart from the web-magazine, such as interviews, events, and personal appearances. Without fail, we feature any republished translation featured elsewhere (other webpages, etc.) through our own Social Media channels.

Finally, we mainly feature our own material, but if any friends or sister collectives need a hand, we're certainly there to help, although that isn't the main focus of our Social Media Strategy.

Read on to find out more about our recommended Social Media Protocols and the responsibilities of all Social Media Managers.

Language Specific Managers

As some people in the collective are not totally fluent in both languages, we've split social media management tasks by target language. As of now, all social-media pages are multilingual, so you'd be sharing the same space. This may be subject to change in the future.

What social media channels are we speaking of?

Mostly Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Eventually we'd like to branch out into non-netarchical Social Media, but most of the content posted will be on these four platforms. You can use practically the same format and content for both Fb and LinkedIn. While Instagram is mainly focused on images to attract readers' attention, Twitter follows a different structure.

You'll also occasionally be using Youtube and Vimeo (depending on the context), and Flipboard, which is its own story. To see a full list of our current and projected Social Media channels, please read our general entry on Social Media

Yearly Timeframe

Much like the web-magazine, we actively feature content on our social media channels on a weekly basis, over most of the year. However, we have planned for certain periods of time off from social media posting (as well as publishing), in order to follow our national holiday calendars and get some time off and synch with everyone else (mostly). There's plenty of time to work, but it's best to plan for the down time so that we maintain a flow and enjoy our vacations and holidays together.

We're a leisure-minded collective founded in world-famous siesta'n'fiesta loving Spain, so we actually keep to the Spanish holiday calendar. (We want this to be the 1st step on the world holiday calendar, to be furthered by further holidays!)

Our logic is, if everyone is on holiday, why would they (or we) bother being in front of a computer?

If something unusually urgent needs posting at any time, we can certainly do so. Everyone is welcome to post content during the "OFF" periods but it isn't planned for, and it won't fall within what we consider to be the Social Media Manager's role.

These are the times of year when we are OFF from social media and web-magazine posting:

• August
• Two weeks at the winter holidays/Xmas/choose your own pagan equivalent
• A week at the spring holidays/Easter
• Spanish national holidays (all 22 of them)
• US/UK national holidays (all, um, two of them?)

Become a Social Media Ninja

Although most of us use Social Media on a regular basis, that doesn't mean that we know how to use it in the best way possible. The Social Media Manager has the opportunity to become a true SM ninja over time, so the educational part of this role is very important. There are two excellent resources within this wiki to help you achieve that goal.

• How to post on Facebook (Most of what's written here is also applicable to Diaspora)
• External Social Medial Resources (Lots of great links)
• Social Media Handbook for Culture Professionals

Apart from that, we recommend that you just browse through to get a feel for the language we use, how we post etc. Have them open as you read this entry, or check out the example links listed below

Weekly Schedule

With those holiday exceptions now out of the way, here is the nitty gritty of weekly Social Media scheduling. We want there to be one or, at most two, pieces of content per target language, per day on weekdays.

Weekends are more easy going by nature, and we shouldn't publish more than one piece of content per target language on Saturday and Sunday, and what we publish should be "bottom of the pile" stuff. (For more on what "bottom of the pile" means, see the section on "SM hierarchy" below (no "kink" jokes, please).

There are two main ways to determine when a new post is due.

• Our Calendar Boards The language specific calendar boards hold both Translations and GT Blog posts.
• The post Menu at Wordpress Depending on the target language you're managing, the schedules in the Calendar boards should coincide with that of the Scheduled posts in Wordpress.

General Scheduling Considerations

If the schedules are out of whack, this is not your responsibility, whomever is scheduling the posts should be taking care of this but hey, if you see anyone mess up, tell them so kindly and let them sort it out. If the same person messes up time after time, well, then it's "Darling we have to talk" time.

Another consideration is a lack of buffer, this is too say if, as you start the week, there are no posts on the calendar board because, although they are due for publication within your assigned week, they haven't been formatted or even edited! In this case, it's up to the admin team for that translation or post to let you know that you're intending to schedule a post within the week. In these cases, it's ok to make a dummy card in the Calendar board so you can still see everything at a glance and you can plan accordingly.

SM hierarchy

Within the week, you will choose and schedule Social Media posts based on the hierarchy listed below. It's very simple:

• Stuff at the top of the hierarchy (new translations) gets priority, and the "juicy days and times" (Tues, Wed, Thurs, from 12:30 to 3:00 PM, but check out the link to see for yourself) to the exclusion of everything else, barring important events.
• A close second to new translations are event announcements and blog posts
• If there's no new translations or blog posts that week (oh noes!) or on days when we're not launching new translations or promoting events, you can pick and choose from what's listed below. Ideally we'd try to mix it up and give more prominence to the stuff at the top of the list.

Promoting new translations

New translations are the most important items we can promote. Social Media promotion for new translations published on our web-magazine gets the "top spots" in the week (see link above) and, like TV dinners, are already pre-prepared by the pro-bono translation's project admin, and ready for you to launch..

Your responsibilities here include (in this order):

• Visiting the Publishing Schedule Trello Calendar Boards to see what's due this week. (Read the link on Trello Calendar boards if you're not familiar with them).
• Retrieving the excerpts for the translations you're promoting. You'll find the links to this in the translation's project card, which will reside on the Calendar board.
• Either scheduling the post for the date and hour set in the Calendar board, or launching it live at that moment on our Facebook Fan Page.
• If the translation team hasn't prepared some excerpts, chase them down and tell them to get it done. Your job depends on their fulfilling of their tasks, so don't be shy about this.

With the extracts in hand, you'll want to promote the content that's labelled there in the following places:

• Guerrilla Translation's FB page.
• Guerrilla Translation's Instagram page
• Guerrilla Translation's Twitter page
• Guerrilla Translation's LinkedIn page

• Whatever target-language Facebook or LinkedIN groups coincide with the subject matter of the translation. You can find some lists in the following wiki pages (please add to them!)

• • List of subject-specific English Facebook Groups
  • List of subject-specific Spanish Facebook Groups
  • List of subject-specific LinkedIN Groups (We don't have a list of LinkedIn groups yet)

Remember to use the recommendations linked above about when to use images, tag people who have lots of followers, etc. When you post in groups, if the spirit moves you, try to customise whatever is in the Trello card to give it some life.

As a general rule, new translations are not posted as images, but with our direct bitly link. (We can share the posts as images when reposting extracts, see below).

Other dirty tricks! If you see anyone who you think will enjoy the translation on chat, send them the link, tell them to spread the word! Be shameless, be young, be naked in suburbia! (etc,).

Promoting new translation examples

• On Facebook
• On Twitter

Promoting events

Second in the hierarchy after publishing new translations is promoting any live events or talks any all or Guerrilla Translators may be involved in. Here's an example from Facebook of how this looks. It's a good idea to use an image here and tag a lot of people so they can share the event.

If its a big event you'll want to promote it as soon as the event is confirmed, two weeks before, a week before, three days before and on the day itself. Try to vary the text a little, regardless of whether you've written it yourself or you're picking the baton from another SM manage.

Obviously, be sure to get the dates right and to pay attention to any comments or questions. This follow through with feedback is more important than answering comments or translations etc, which we don't encourage (we prefer to let the texts speak for themselves).

Promoting events examples

• On Facebook
• On Twitter

Promoting New "GT Blog" posts

Once you've allotted some times in the week for new translations and/or event, you also have to promote any new blog post, if there are any. If you're not sure what the different between a Translation and a blog post is, please read this entry

You can either use an image post or a linked post here. Whomever is working on the blog post should always try to schedule it with the same criteria described in this entry. If you see a disaster coming on the Calendar board where a blog post is taking up the same slot as a new translation, inform everyone and make sure nothing overlaps.

While blog posts have their own Trello boards completed, formatted blog posts are scheduled on the Calendar Boards so, between that and the scheduled posts menu in Wordpress, you'll be able to easily identify any oncoming scheduling disasters.

If something does overlap, well it's not the end of the world, but use it as a valuable lesson on the charming inevitability of human failure and all that jazz.

Promoting GT Blog posts examples

• On Facebook
• On Twitter

Promoting any mention of GT in the press

By "press" we mean any webpage or outlets that mentions or promotes us. This may be an interview with one of us, or a mention in an article that not solely about us. This is distinct from "Promoting republished material" (see below) although both categories involve "outside" media.

Mentions of GT in the press examples

• On Facebook

Promoting republished material

We always promote whenever any of our translations get republished in another webpage. This is strictly "second post of the day" material and can always wait if we're promoting something more important in the more visible time slots. For these we always link to the republished article, rather than using an image. (Unless the republished article has no image, then we'll insert one). Always mention what the article was and where it's been republished.

Promoting republished material examples

• On Facebook
• On Twitter