Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

Twitter:
Introduction/ Allowances and Constraints
Twitter is a social media outlet that allows its users to publish their thoughts in 140 character
messages to a global or private audience depending on each users preferences. Twitter is self-described
as The best way to connect with people, express yourself and discover what's happening. Twitter
affords users to have a globally heard voice and a connection to 271 million users. Users can post text
and photos to convey their intended message. Twitter lends the opportunity to connect with any user
on the site by following and/or tagging them- including celebrities and important figures. Twitters direct
message feature allows for private communication within the social app, however the messages are still
limited to the 140-character constraint. When you begin to follow users on twitter, the site notices
trends and will recommend others to follow that are similar. Users can also import contacts from their
email account to see if any of those individuals are active on the site and are then given the option to
follow them.
Twitter allows for global movements and awareness through the use of hash tags and re-tweets,
which create trends, which can be tracked on the site. Trending hash tags invite users to tweet and reply
to each other, beginning a mass-scale conversation on a given subject. Twitter can also give the option
for tweets to be geo-located so it shows where you are posting from and allows the user to see trends
on twitter in their area. Tweets can be published from and read on multiple devices including but not
limited to computers, tablets and phones. Since there are apps for Twitter on all mobile devices, users
are able to integrate their tweets into other social media like Facebook and more. The power and
potential of Twitter can be harnessed by media companies and business alike to spread their content,
and/or market their products. These companies typically take advantage of third party sites like
Hootsuite.com where they can schedule content to be posted throughout the day and on multiple
media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Twitters greatest constraint is its 140-character maximum. This places a hold on the amount of
characters a user may tweet, thus challenging the writer to be short and concise with their message.
Unfortunately messages can sometimes be misinterpreted, making it crucial for the writer to
communicate their thoughts clearly and direct within these character limitations. Users have the option
of expressing themselves in multiple tweets or using third party apps like TwitLonger, which allow for
tweets that are longer than 140 characters or URL shorteners like Bitly, which allow for longer links to fit
into the allotted space.
When writing on the Internet, the author usually has a certain audience in mind, but there will
always be an unknown number of second and third party viewers. Some users will opt to have their
account protected which only allows a selected audience to view their content. This places a voluntary
limit on the reach their tweet gets, especially since the content cannot be re-tweeted or seen on hash
tags.

Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

As a social medium, Twitter has multiple allowances and constraints. As a whole, Twitter is an
effective social media that would greatly contribute to the #WhyIWrite narrative.

Planning
With our Twitter account, we will do the standard Twitter strategy and update the status of the
Initiatives profile. Status updates will be posted daily, if not more, depending on the happenings within
the project. Occasionally, we could choose to feature a participating freshman, by re-tweeting their
status and/or sharing their work, recognizing them as new writers. Links to our website would be
regularly included as our presence on Twitter grows, along with related images and videos would be
posted to capture the attention of those on Twitter.
One of the affordances of Twitter includes the prospect of trending hash tags, which appear on
the left-hand side of the screen, as users scroll down their feed. One can start conversations by the
trends that appear, which usually reflect the most popular media, culture, and news. Trending hash tags
also takes into account the users location and picks up what specific tags are trending in that users
area, revealing what is most important to that particular demographic. Examples of potential hash tags
include #WriteRight, #WIW (Why I Write), and #WriteMotivation.
Connecting trending hash tags with spreading the initiative, users may create hash tags that
correlate with whatever audience they are working to reach. This can be utilized internally within Florida
State across departments (in some sort of competition among the majors), statewide with other public
Florida universities, and/or connect with other schools in the ACC conference (much like the Road
Scholars have done this past semester), where the possibilities can reach national levels.
The Twitter account ought to have a personal feel with its own persona and attitude. This can
either be done by a person within the Writing Initiative, or preferably by someone outside of it but still
connected. When this spreads to multiple universities across the state, we would have a celebrity
representative at each institution. For example, at Florida State, we could have Red Lightning run the
account. The account would change hands every year to someone else at a different institution after
National Writing Day has passed. In this way, the voice will continuously change and remain fresh and
engaging, garnering a wider audience interested in the Initiative due to the self-representation of each
respective institution.
In order to create a more diverse audience, we could provide tangible rewards and
incentives. For example, at Florida State we could offer students things such as Spirit points for how
much they participate in and promote the Writing Initiative on Twitter (tracked through their hash tags
and re-tweets), creating an effective way to get people involved and spreading the word quickly across
campus. Other institutions could figure their rewards systems out independently. This would require a
lot of cooperation with the university officials, and may not necessarily be feasible, but even if it were
only manageable at Florida State, it would give the Initiative a good base of support.

Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

Twitter Strategies
In order to run a successful Twitter campaign, we must think of ways to integrate our marketing
into Twitter. In other words, we cannot think of Twitter as a separate entity, but as another way of
conveying our message to the proper people. The best ways to achieve this are listed below.

Follow accounts that are similar and will help convey our message.
o It is important that accounts we follow show the campaigns interests as it serves to show
what we are about as well as offers access to other accounts followers may be interested
in. Additionally, following accounts that are similar may get them to follow us and they may
in turn spread our campaign and raise awareness
Integrate visual content.
o Using visuals can help make tweets standout in a timeline. When someone is scrolling
through their twitter, an image or a video may catch their eye amidst a sea of other tweets.
Additionally, a picture can be more interesting sometimes.
Engage the audience.
o The content of our account should be interesting so that followers will actually want to
follow us. If our tweets do not interest people, then no one will follow, re-tweet or mention
us. Additionally, we should interact with followers in order to build our presence within the
community.
Make twitter important.
o Do not just tweet for the sake of tweeting. The tweets should serve to further our goal and
make people interested in our campaign.
Update at the right times.
o Certain groups of people have certain periods that they are most likely free. For college
students, the best time is probably during the day or at night. Students often have random
periods of down time so steady tweeting through the day will catch students when they are
most likely to be checking twitter.
Use hash tags.
o Using a hash tag makes tweets twice as engaging. A hash tag allows us to reach people that
do not follow us. Additionally, it will allow new people to find the account because they
have a similar interest. Hash tags are perfect raising awareness.
Keep tweets short.
o Research shows 100 characters is the ideal length for a tweet. Shorter tweets are easier to
be digested and also friendlier to being re-tweeted. Additionally, leaving 40 characters
allows followers to add their own comment to the message.
Share the right types of tweet.
o A good thing to do is maintain a ratio of the types of tweets you send, like four links to every
mention, for example. This makes sure you are sending the right types of content.

Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

Instagram:
Introduction:
Instagram can benefit the Writing initiative in a variety of ways. Although it comes with its
constraints and affordances, the social media ultimately provides site viewers with a more interactive
and welcoming way to comprehend information. Instagram is picture-based, rather than text-based,
giving visual media the opportunity to relate to reading and writing and how it can be done in ways
rather than just text on a page. To further understand Intsagrams pros and cons as it relates to the
Writing Initiative site, we must first analyze the aforementioned constraints and affordances. It is
important to note that some constraints and affordances overlap. In addition, we must pinpoint and
analyze the audience for the Writing Initiative to tailor the site to their wants and needs.

Constraints and Affordances:

Constraints: Limited information, picture focused, limited audience, long messages are easily passed by
so its hard to relay a more complicated message, extensive reading only.
Affordances: Extensive reading only, searchable and user friendly, several privacy settings including the
ability to block certain users, no character limits, emoji enabled, biography section available, benefits
visual learners.

Audience and Users:

It is important to distinguish between the audience and users. Although these two entities overlap, they
are not one in the same.
Audience: The audience is not only the students using the site as a resource, but also several
benefactors and members of the English Department community at Florida State. Instagram is beneficial
for the site because it connects a new medium targeted at a younger generation to older faculty
members who would not have direct access to the site otherwise. By older generations of faculty
members connecting with the Writing Initiative through Instagram, they are grasping a better
understanding of a new form of media that is affecting language daily.
Users: Users are just a part of the audience, as mentioned earlier. They include students benefitting
from the sites resources. By giving students an opportunity to connect a fun social media site like
Instagram with an activity not necessarily enjoyed by a majority of students, new writers are getting the
opportunity to explore how writing is not just valuable within the confines of a research paper, but that

Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

multimodal sources such as Instagram can convey an important point of view. Instagram targets a
younger generation of high school and college students because its user-friendly and easy to
manipulate along with the extensive reading culture of the younger generation that it contributes to.

Proven Strategies:
Multiple businesses today use Instagram to appeal to a younger generation. One prime example
of this is Chipotle. Chipotle takes pictures of their tacos and burritos so those on Instagram (15-25) crave
their food. We hope to use picture content via Instagram to make students curious about our opinions
and takes on writing and why its a crucial skill.

Planning:
We plan to add our video to Instagram via still frames to serve a variety of purposes
1) Add curiosity to our video so students will actually want to view it after seeing still frames via
Instagram.
2) Give students an opportunity to see the video in slow motion and better understand the content
by adding captions to the pictures explaining the main point of that small frame.
3) Make students aware that one source of information can be created and recreated into multiple
forms, an extremely important aspect to the writing process.
In addition to the still frames of our video, we plan on using Instagram in other ways to promote writing
and its importance in society. Cool writing themed-pictures like the evolution of the typewriter or the
pen or the word processor can get new students more excited about writing. Pictures of students being
featured for their writing work on Instagram with cool captions and hash tags will give students
motivation to work on their writing and ultimately get featured on the site for their hard work.

Facebook:
Introduction:
Facebook is currently the number one online social hub for over one billion people worldwide,
and the preferred way to stay in touch with old friends and family, according to a Pew Research survey
from December 2013i. Since its advent in 2004, people have utilized Facebook for anything from keeping
up with relatives and playing virtual games to voicing opinions and starting charities, with everything in
between. As Facebook becomes more popular around the globe, it became apparent that it is also an
incredible tool for advertisement and the improvement of content visibility in the business world.

Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

Affordances and Constraints:

Facebook offers a level of interaction with ones audience that can rarely be obtained in more
traditional environments thanks to the forum-like template that the site operates on. Since Facebook
users have one of the highest levels of user engagement across Social Networking Sites (SNS), it is not
only feasible, but also simple and affordable, to attain feedback at any given time about any subject.
Since users are not limited by a preset number of characters per response, interactions can be deep and
meaningful allowing users to send in their thoughts and ideas in full, without having to compromise
content. This affordance in a lack of set form constraint prevents confusion for everyone. Facebook is a
beneficial tool for this endeavor, because it optimizes communication capabilities of First-Year and
Freshman Composition- level students, while imposing few limitations. Facebook also allows for
expansion beyond Florida State, should the WI project surpass this boundary at any point. It would be
simple with this platform to extend membership, if you will, beyond the walls of this campus, and it
could be argued that Facebook is designed to do exactly that. Facebook is multimodal, being able to
upload various forms of media, such as video and images, as well as many other social networking sites,
such as Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Although Facebook does offer many ways to engage with ones audience, it is very limited in its
ability for customization. Despite this being more of an aesthetic conundrum instead of a content issue,
it is still difficult to maintain the attention of ones audience when the content being generated looks
virtually the same as everyone elses. Facebook could also have some potential issues in administration,
as a page like the WI Page would require some amount of commitment on the part of the administrator.
There are also restrictions of the types of interactions afforded to the administrator within the page to
contact their audience through notifications and timeline visibly.

Audience:
Facebook boasts one of the most diverse demographic mixes of any other social networking
site. With the median age of online adult users at 38, it has the unique opportunity to launch this
initiative beyond the context of merely Florida State Universitys younger students to a broader
audience that could include both students and older members of the writing community. Our target
demographic is, of course, college students, that attend Florida State University and who are in First
Year or Freshman Composition classes (FYC students) and who, generally, do not enjoy writing. This age
gap, between FYC students and older members of the writing community, does create a constraint
though. This may be something to consider within its use for the Writing Initiative. For those students
who do not have an account it is likely that they would be easily able to create an account and easily
navigate the site for the purposes of engaging with the material posted for their classes.

Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

Strategies:
When working with social media, as with many online platforms, it is important to engage with
users without being overbearing. The marginal Learning Theory within advertising gives us the idea as
strategists that in order to maintain an audience we must create a happy medium between overly active
and completely stagnant without becoming frustrating for the audience. Some useful ways to keep users
engaged is to avoid posting too often, since viewers can become quickly bored by the constant barrage
being sent to them and subsequently un-follow or hide that pages content from their feed. However, it
is important to keep the page in the mind of the user, so posting too infrequently can potentially have
the same result if the page is viewed as irrelevant or outdated. A good rule of thumb would be to post
no more than once per day and at least once per week.ii Also, utilize multimodal presentations, such as
video and images as well as text. Facebook fosters a sense of community amongst users, according to a
Pew Research Survey from 2011iii, so it would be a simple thing to tap into that sense of community by
promoting a group project focused on writing and literacy, perhaps a pen-pal group or a drive to send
books to impoverished children.
The best way to keep up likes and page views all boils down to click bait. One of the most
successful ways to bring in more readers and ultimately more writers to link content within our page
that entertains and engages to the extent of earning shares and likes. With this project, there is an
opportunity to create a wider audience through the collection and display of the constituents writing
and through thoughtful titles that attract more people.

Visibility:
The Writing Initiative will begin with freshmen in FYC courses and has the potential to spread to
the entire campus and beyond. The first step will be to use Facebook to brand the Writing Initiative and
begin the conversation amongst engaged students who love and appreciate language and writing and
who can enthusiastically converse amongst themselves on the page to generate some baseline content.
The next phase would be to introduce the first round of FYC students to this page at the start of the
semester after this page has been set up and appropriately curated. Ideally, throughout that semester,
conversation would begin to evolve where FYC students articulate their thoughts and emotions towards
writing amongst each other and under the guidance of upper level English majors. The goals would be to
establish a general consensus as to why writing is not a priority for most non-English majors, identify
ways to make writing more enjoyable or rewarding for these students, and begin to implement these
ideas in everyday life. Ideally, by the end of the Initiative, many students would realize that writing is a
fundamentally necessary skill to develop, and that it can be a great way to express oneself in any
capacity. It would be vital to post interactive prompts or topics for discussions, anything that would
engage the users to think and begin a discourse about writing. It would also be a good idea to host
socials outside of the online context, so as to bring the conversation outside of the hypothetical and into
a real setting where each individual could engage with content and with other students or teachers in a
setting that is not the classroom. Of course, these would need to be advertised on the page, and it
would be a good idea to make an event page that could be open to any student at FSU.

Social Media Strategies for the Writing Initiative

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Duggan, Maeve, and Aaron Smith. "Social Media Update 2013." Pew Research Centers Internet American Life
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ii
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