Brexit, Trump, General Elections and erm... Pokémon Go. How a large newsroom plans and executes SEO and social media for those events we can predict... and those we really can’t. Telegraph.co.uk is one of the UK’s authoritative domains and is regularly at the top of new boxes for the world’s major events. But how does SEO operate and social operate when you have huge amounts of content and authority? And how can this be applied to smaller teams?

1. Audience Development
How SEO and Social work together at a large publisher
1

2. About me
Head of SEO and Social Media at The Telegraph
Previously worked at Bauer and Factory Media
Writing on Content Strategy - mostly on
Econsultancy: http://tgr.ph/writing
@mrjamescarson / linkedin.com/in/jacarson85

3. Founded in 1855 (161 years)
Over 50,000 editions
Best selling broadsheet newspaper
4.2 million daily browsers to
telegraph.co.uk in April 2017
Famous for scoops including MPs
expenses and football for sale
Digital with a strong brand history

4. What is Audience Development?
The reviewing of multiple data
sources to plan for digital content.
When that content has been
published and distributed,
assessing its performance data to
continuously improve audience
responses.
http://tgr.ph/PlzM3
Plan
Publish
Distribute
Assess

5. A note on SEO and Social Media
Plan
Publish
Distribute
Assess
The data and distribution that search and social
provides are the glue that sticks the process together

6. Planning

7. How the Audience team works
Event planningTrending / breaking
SEO and social spot
trends and stories
Desk creates - social
distributes and/or SEO
tracks Google News
position and makes
recommendations
Evergreen
Review editorial plans
and add to them where
there are significant
audience opportunities
Review what is
currently getting
evergreen search traffic
Keyword analysis on
further opportunities
Monitoring of
positions on Google
web

8. How people search
Known eventsTrending / Breaking
Sudden peak - big
stories will have an
aftermath
Evergreen
Slow buildup week
before, massive peak
during event, low
aftermath
Near constant flat trend,
occasionally trending up
around events
10 simple prosecco
cocktails everyone
should master
The OscarsA famous person
dies

9. Breaking Event
Facebook is more serendipitous…

10. What does
success look like?
1.Breaking news
2.Event planning
3.Evergreen
Base on market, internal and
competitor data
Do you have a list of content you
need to meet success metrics?
Did you have everything you
need last time or do you need
more?

11. Doesn’t end with an emailed report
Have a huddle to discuss key points
and define what you need
*We do not do meetings planking, but you can if you want

12. Publish

13. The Story
The fundamental who, what, where, when and how?
What is the best way of telling this story?
● Text based article
● Listical
● Video
● Gallery
● Infographic
● A mix of these
● etc

14. Headlines
14
“On average, five times as many people
read the headline as read the body copy.
When you have written your headline, you
have spent eighty cents out of your dollar”
These books are well worth you time...

15. Headlines
“Headline text has to stand on its own and
make sense when the rest of the content is
not available” Jakob Nielsen
Does this make sense in
isolation and intrigue you?
Your top image selection is crucial

16. Do you know what these headlines mean?

17. Share vs click matrix
GIVES AWAY TOO MUCH
VIRAL!!!
NOT INTERESTING
YOUR MUM IS ON
FACEBOOK
Will get clicked
Gets shared
Won’t get clicked
Doesn’t get shared

18. Embeddables
Don’t necessarily engender more
social engagement - but they can if
they primarily tell the story, and
they certainly help dwell time

19. Distribution

20. Search and social
The effect of Facebook Likes on sharing and
clickthrough is exponentialGoogle News SEO very different to web

21. Facebook Twitter Instagram
The Telegraph @telegraph @telegraph
News @telegraphnews @telegraphfashion
Science and tech @telegraphworld @Stella_Telegraph
Politics @telegraphbooks @telegraphfood
Entertainment @telegraphtravel @telegraphtravel
Food @telegraphfashion @telegraphluxury
Fashion @telegraphsport
Travel @telefootball
Money +40 other accounts -100k follows
Health Largely automated
History
Sport
Football Network

22. Google News SEO - a different algorithm!
1. Number of articles produced in the 30 days before the
event
2. Breadth of coverage
3. Average length of an article produced
4. Number of original named entities
5. Breaking news

23. More searchMore social
Live blogs
WWWWWH
explainers
Evergreen
News reports
Trending
stories
Opinion &
features
What works where?

24. More searchMore social
General election
results live: Hung
parliament
confirmed as UK
votes for chaos
What is a hung parliament?
What happens when no party
wins a majority?
Tory and Labour
MPs plot secret deal
to ensure soft Brexit
Larry the cat holds fort
outside Number 10 as
country is plunged into
chaos
I’m sick of the Left
pretending that
Jeremy Corbyn won
the election
Conservative manifesto for
General Election 2017: Key
points, policies and
summary

25. More searchMore social
Oregon shooting: Meet
the hero army veteran
who charged at gunman
to save fellow classmates
Saint David's Day 2017:
Everything you need to
know about Wales' patron
saint
10 simple prosecco
cocktails everyone
should master
Great Barrier
Reef is 'almost
dead', say
scientists
What is the 'Dab'
dance and why are
sport stars dabbing
when they celebrate?
The male Pill is coming -
and it's going to change
everything
Some exceptions...

26. ...but why don’t we just post everything anyway?
We post everything on Twitter automatically
We post as much as we can that is suitable on Facebook across the network
Algorithms… limited space in the newsfeed
Not everything will work on social...
You never know 100%, but some things are just very unlikely to work
If it is not very likely, traffic driven by a post will be very, very small…

27. 80 / 20

28. Social has a big ‘short head’...
...but search has a huge one around events and a
MASSIVE long tail
Shorthead

29. Election
Search
Social
LIVE
LIVE
LIVE
LIVE
PLANNED
PLANNED
REACTIVE
LIVE
PLANNED
PLANNED
LIVE
REACTIVE
REACTIVE

30. Assessment

31. ALL THE DATA!
– Onsite audience data
– Social network data
– Search engine rankings report

32. Have a huddle to discuss performance
*Again, planking optional

33. Thanks...
Questions?
@mrjamescarson / linkedin.com/in/jacarson85