Brutal, but not clever - Here's why you don't need to be afraid of the IS media machine

MUCH has been made recently of the way social media and the web have changed the face of global terrorism.

The narrative says the barbaric Islamic fundamentalists IS have become incredibly web savvy - as seen in their horrific beheading videos - and now threaten a whole new type of terror, which we in the west will have no idea how to deal with.

I'm not so sure.

IS video of the brutal murder of US journalist James Foley

IS do, of course, have a better understanding of technology and the internet than their predecessors in Al Qaeda (probably helped by the brainwashed idiots flying over from countries like the UK). 

But being better than other Middle Eastern terrorist organisations at using the web isn't really a very big ask. It's a difference of scale rather than type, and not one that makes them necessarily any more dangerous.

The most obvious way they've employed their internet marketing skills is in the promotion of the infamous beheading videos.

IS recruitment video

There has been a lot of talk online about how the clips look incredibly professional - but I'm not overawed. 

Yes, they are put together better than the camcorder-in-a-dark-room terrorist vids we're used to seeing. They have more than one angle, employ some effects, and switch between different shots with linking sequences like fade-outs. 

But these are the kind of techniques any A-Level media student would be able to put together with ease. It's hardly The Matrix.

The savagery of the acts committed on screen is what gives them their power, not the production process.

Another worry for us in the west is the way the clips have been distributed and received online - the seemingly massive reach of the super-tekkie militants.

But, again, I think the truth is less worrying.

The now-infamous IS flag

IS were synchronised in launching the clips online, but the mainstream video sharing sites removed them almost immediately. And IS's own servers were clearly not well enough equipped to deal with all the traffic, as the video download on their channels was very slow and crashed constantly.

Even when the clip was available, something very interesting happened on social media - people CHOSE not to watch it. 

I refuse to see the video of #StevenSotloff. Sharing the video of his execution in social network only gives ISIS what they want.
— Imma Casanovas (@immacb) September 2, 2014

They enforced a sort of self-censorship, believing that by refusing to watch the video they were taking the power away from IS. 

As with James Foley, I refuse to watch the Steven Sotloff video. You should too. If you do, you should not put it in front of others' eyes.
— Jack Moore (@JFXM) September 2, 2014

But they didn't just quietly shuffle off - most took the opportunity to post tributes to Steven Sotloff, remembering his life, rather than leering over his grisly demise.

I hope, and have faith that, the people I follow will not give IS the propaganda they want be tweeting the video of Steven Sotloff's murder.
— Alex Halpern (@HalpernAlex) September 2, 2014

ISIS Black Out. Refuse to share video or images and remember #stevenSotloff for the journalist that he was.
— Laura Wilkens (@Laura_Wilkens) September 2, 2014

IS have no way to combat this kind of smart, rational response, so they will never be able to win the information war (because, make no mistake, we are at war).

This point is even more salient when you compare the IS tech machine with the capabilities they're up against in the west.

Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter - all of the platforms they use are owned and operated by American companies. The foundations of their castle are built on western sand.

We have rightly been debating the extent to which the secret services should be allowed to watch our own digital movements - but I don't think any of us have any complaints about MI6 or GCHQ using their considerable expertise to monitor and shut down terrorist communications. And their methods and capabilities are far in advance of anything IS will be able to cook up.

These maniacs are a threat - a very real one. But we should be realistic about the capacity of their much-feared media machine, and also be confident in its eventual defeat.

NewsFed: How Facebook is closing our minds, and what we can do to stop it

YOU may not realise it, but Facebook records every single thing you do while you're logged in.

Liking a friend's status or looking at your mum's holiday snaps might seem inconsequential - but it all translates into incredibly valuable data.

The world's most popular social network uses what's called a filtered feed. It's a complex algorithm that works out what you want to see when you log on by using the things you've engaged with - or, liked, clicked and commented on - in the past. 

When you look at your news feed, you never see everything that everyone you know has posted. You couldn't - it would take all day. According to Facebook's own blog, the average user could potentially see about 1,500 new stories every time they log on. Those with lots of friends could see as many as 15,000.

So instead of simply showing us all these in order - like Twitter does - Facebook works out the posts we are most likely to want to see.

It does this by ranking every possible post we could see according to a number of different factors. These include:

- Interest: How much the user (YOU) is interested in the post creator (this could be a friend, a news site, or a brand - anything or anyone that posts to Facebook)
- Post performance: How popular the post has been with other users
- Creator popularity: How popular other posts by the same creator have been
- Type of post: If it's a photo, video etc
- 'Recency': How new the post is

These factors are also weighed against a whole host of other, more personal details. For example, it might be that someone very close to you - like your wife or brother - has commented on a photo. That would give a high likelihood that you will like it too. 

This great TechCrunch article explains it all in greater detail.

The system works incredibly well, and it's one of the main reasons Facebook is so successful. It allows us to see plenty of the things we like, and less of the things we don't.

The problem, though, is that it gradually blocks out the other things people are talking about that don't fit the general trend. Over time, this causes a long, drawn out confirmation bias. You will tend to look at posts that confirm beliefs you already have, rather than ones that challenge them. 

This is all well and good when it comes to mundane news stories or gossip from friends, but what happens if the things you tend to click on are racist? Or homophobic? Or just idiotic? 

You can see my point. Facebook's algorithm would then effectively be encouraging slightly bigoted users to become more and more so through a system of positive reinforcement.

I've given an extreme example, but all of us will tend to find that we get the same old stuff coming up in our news feeds. If we haven't heard from someone in ages, we're very unlikely to see what they've been up to, precisely because we haven't heard from them in ages. This is surely the opposite of what Facebook is supposed to be all about.

On top of all this, the friends we do have left are increasingly getting crowded out by brands who've paid for space on our news feeds. If we then engage with the brands who have paid for the space, we'll never get rid of them.

This ecosystem is all part of what social media marketing is all about, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. People do actually like to engage with brands, and are often happy to see more and more of them in their feeds. But I suspect that is not always the case. In fact, I doubt whether many people even realise it's happening at all.

So what can you do to take control of your feed?

Well, you could just switch your news feed from 'Top Stories' to 'Most Recent'. Then you'll get everything in the order it was posted. 

But, of course, that will mean you become much more familiar with that girl you went to school with, who now has three kids and posts hundreds of pictures of them all day... every. single. day.

Like I said, the algorithm isn't necessarily a bad thing.

- Alternatively, you can begin un-liking. Remember when you thought the pages you 'liked' were just there to show the people who looked at your profile all the cool things you're interested in? Umm, yeah... that's not what that's for. 

Every time you like a page you make yourself a better target for advertisers. To be fair, since they know more about you, you're probably more likely to actually want the things you see in the ads - but that's not what Facebook is for! Obviously, if you really do like something and want to see more of it in your feed, then like away - just ditch the ones you're bored of. 

- Second, go through your friends list and look for people you haven't seen in your feed for a long time. It may be that they haven't been posting - but it's far more likely they're being crowded out by everyone else. Go to their page and like a few status updates or pictures - you'll start to see more of them when you log on. 

- Third, stop clicking on shit you don't want to read. We all do it - the "You'll never believe what happened next" posts get me every time. You click the link and, surprise surprise, you absolutely CAN believe what happened next. And guess what happens next?? That's right, you get a load more rubbish posts from the "You'll never guess what happened next" brigade next time you log on.

- Lastly, try to engage with things that challenge your beliefs. The more you stay in your comfort zone, the tighter the circle will close around you. Some of the most interesting things you'll see on Facebook will come from people or pages you completely disagree with, because they'll challenge you to figure out why they are wrong. Sometimes they might even change your mind. 

Either way, you will keep your horizons open and avoid the confirmation bias. 


I'd love to hear what you think - so get in touch on here, or tweet me @TheTommyEdwards.

Don't be a tweet: Six top tips for Twitter success

EVERYONE has their own way of doing things on social media, and we all use it for different reasons. 

Up until a couple of months ago, I only really used Twitter for newsgathering (I used to be an online journalist) and never really said very much. I wasn't concerned about getting followers and didn't really engage with people on there. I'd often look, but rarely talk back.

Then I realised that, in the media industry, you are judged on how many followers you have (it's a shallow world, I know) and I had some catching up to do. Now I'm by no means a celebrity on Twitter - I only have about 1,200 followers at the time of writing - but I have got there from only a couple of hundred when I started working in social in February.

Fortunately for me, I'd been posting in a professional capacity to Twitter for quite some time, so I had a pretty decent idea of what works and what doesn't. And since starting as a full-time social guy I've picked up a few more. So I thought I'd share with you what meagre knowledge I have...

DO use pictures. Pictures are far FAR more engaging than words alone. There is a reason why sites like Instagram and Imgur are so successful. We are all generally very lazy, and pictures are much easier to take in than words. This means your audience is instantly much bigger when you use them. And if the content is good, it means there are more people to share it. 

If you need help getting the best out of your pics on social, here's a blog that can help by Buffer, a company who did a study into tweeting pictures. They found tweets with pics got 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets than tweets with just text.

DO talk to people. You get what you give on Twitter. I've lost count of the amount of real-life conversations I've had with people who say they signed up to Twitter but then got bored and went back to Facebook, or just didn't bother at all. 

It will be boring if you're not doing anything. It's all about conversation. People won't know you're there if you don't tell them, and they won't want to follow you unless they think you've got something interesting to say.

DO work out why you're there. Twitter is a fantastic place for niche interests. Of course, some people will get away with being very broad and talking about all sorts of things. But they tend to be people who are already in the public sphere. The best Twitter accounts are the ones that have a specific purpose - a news site, or celebrity gossip feed, or a football expert, or whatever. 

So if you love Carp Fishing, for example, then put that in your profile and talk to other people who share your hobby. They are much more likely to want to talk to you than a bunch of strangers. And you'll find you get much more enjoyment out of using Twitter if you're talking about something you enjoy.

DON'T troll people you don't know. Everyone loves a bit of banter. And if you have a mate in the office who supports a rival football team, then it can be great fun winding them up online. But remember, Twitter is a public forum. Don't say anything you wouldn't want a potential employer to read. 

Streams of angry bile and replies full of derogatory remarks just don't look nice. If you saw a pub where everyone was shouting filth at each other, would you go in for a pint? Of course you wouldn't. So don't be that angry drunk at the bar.

DON'T give up. Rome wasn't built in a day, and a million followers won't just turn up overnight. It takes time to build up a following on Twitter and there are no shortcuts. 

DON'T buy followers. I'm sure you will have seen or heard of websites where you can just pay for as many followers as you like. But as with most things in life, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

Those sites will get you lots of followers, but all of them will be dead accounts. The sites create the accounts (some make them look real with pictures and posts, some don't even bother with that) and then follow you. Then repeat as many times as you've paid them to. 

These fakes won't help you to enjoy using Twitter, as you still won't get anybody talking to you. You'll be like the king of an empty country. Plus, anyone can audit your account to see how many fake followers you have. Imagine how embarrassing it would be if someone you know checked out yours, only to find that you've just gone out and bought thousands of fake friends.

Gaza, Twitter, and the worst picture I've ever seen

CONFLICT around the world is not new - and conflict in the Gaza Strip certainly isn't. But the way it is being recorded and broadcast is changing.

PrayForGaza: A hashtag many have used to share information about the conflict

The most recent bouts of fighting in Gaza have been documented in shockingly graphic detail by the people who live there, and the pictures can now be seen on Twitter and elsewhere by anyone.

This hasn't happened before, mostly because there are some things the mainstream media simply cannot, or will not, show. 

A young boy says good bay for his father in Gaza this morning... #GazaUnderAttack #PrayForGaza pic.twitter.com/wHqcWatn7i
— فلسطين i (@iFalasteen) July 19, 2014

Images and words can be deemed too shocking, and editorial standards simply won't allow for the publication of pictures thought to be too graphic or distressing. 

This image, for example, has not to my knowledge been distributed by any mainstream media outlet. 

Israel kills most dangerous terrorist #PrayForGaza #Palestine #IsraelUnderFire #GazaUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/QQaiB70JjI
— ماجد القشعمي#GAZA (@_majed_q) July 11, 2014

It is, I think, the most disturbing I've ever seen. I really can't imagine anything worse. It is a brutal encapsulation of everything that is horrific about war, and I challenge anyone to look at it and not have an intensely emotional reaction.

Now, I can understand why editors would decide not show this picture to their viewers or readers. But I believe they are wrong to withhold it, and others like it.

Pregnant Palestinian woman gets shot, gives birth to child who was also shot. #PrayForGaza #PrayForPalestine pic.twitter.com/dYoBJpTQOJ
— كاشف Kash (@_wizkid_) July 11, 2014

I think it's important the world sees these awful things so they can better understand what really happens when an army drops bombs on civilian populations. Censored pictures and expert analysis simply do not have the same impact.

I should be clear here that I'm not trying to make any kind of political statement about who is right and who is wrong in this conflict. I'm not qualified to do that, and you can all make your own minds up.

His dead little brother in his arms. #PrayForGaza pic.twitter.com/btI9omlSuV
— Mina (@mina_ysf) July 19, 2014

But the politics is beside the point. All I want to highlight here is the fact that uncensored social networks have given us a new window into the true horrors of this war. And I hope that this increased global awareness will help to stop it.

this makes me want to be physically sick so so cruel cannot process the complete inhumanity wow #PrayForGaza pic.twitter.com/eb3mK1ja3j
— icks (@cadburyhxrry) July 13, 2014

I should also point out that the pictures featured here haven't been verified by mainstream media outlets, so their origin and authenticity are undoubtedly less certain than others. But the sheer number of them would indicate that at least some will be genuine, if not all.

don't cry, baby. don't cry. #PrayForGaza pic.twitter.com/OUuenKXizW
— Lucaspeebo. (@Lucaspeebo) July 13, 2014

Either way, the impact remains the same.

We all now have the resources to educate ourselves far beyond what we see on BBC News at Ten - and we all have a responsibility to use them.

✨ Surely with hardship comes ease. QUR'AN 95:5 ✨ #PrayForGaza #FreePalestineOrDieTrying pic.twitter.com/xLsLnqkg5c
— Linda لو لو (@falasteenager) July 12, 2014

For more info, search: #PrayForGaza, #GazaUnderAttack, #IsraelUnderFire 

War of the World Cup - How UK news sites are making the most of sport social

THE World Cup is the biggest event Twitter has ever seen. More than 35.6 million Tweets were sent during Brazil's 7-1 defeat against Germany, making it the most tweeted-about sports game ever.

A Brazil fan enjoys the most tweeted-about World Cup ever

The match also set a new record for the number of tweets per minute, when it peaked at 580,166 after Germany scored their fourth goal.

This huge number of online users means there is a massive audience waiting for tweeters looking to drive traffic back to their own sites.

News sites are among the biggest of these, and this blog will focus on them. Another huge area is online gambling, which I'll talk about in my next one.

Germany players pose for an incredibly shareable on-pitch selfie

If you've read my previous blog, you'll know that news sites have a big advantage on social, because they've always got new, engaging content to talk about.

But this advantage is diminished during matches, because everyone is watching them and everyone is throwing content straight out there. There is no first-look or behind-the-scenes access to rely on.

This being said, the main players - including our team at The Sun - still do a pretty good job. 

The Mirror

The Mirror relies on written humour a lot of the time, and their writers are very funny. Which is a good job, because their graphical content is not great.

They often post images like the one below, which looks nice, but is really not very shareable. It gives you no new information, doesn't make you laugh, and is certainly not something you just have to show your mates...

*30 MORE MINUTES KLAXON* http://t.co/0wbn6fcKXJ pic.twitter.com/1t5MSnlou0
— Mirror Football (@MirrorFootball) July 9, 2014

They also have some sort of gambling tie-up, which sees them posting lots of little cards like this one:

Forecast Frenzy longest streak standings here as it hots up - http://t.co/SLbAOrkpvW pic.twitter.com/bYCftZjLvL
— Mirror Football (@MirrorFootball) July 10, 2014

Engagement isn't great on this either. I assume that's because most people can't work out exactly how the competition works. It seems to give entrants a chance of winning £100,000 by correctly predicting who will win. But that is either not interesting, or confusing, because the tweet only had one reply - the word 'Argentina' - which is obviously not stated in the correct format. It wasn't retweeted or favourited at all.

The Telegraph

Almost all sport stories on The Telegraph's football account are accompanied by pictures - which is always a good start. They rarely miss a big story, and their copy is usually short, sharp and to the point. 

The stand-out feature of their sport social for me, though, is the way they use diagrams and data visualisation. These things are shareable in their own right, and also make you want to click to see more.

How Brazil were dismantled by Germany, featuring fancy diagrams: http://t.co/wYa56u83OS #babb pic.twitter.com/AV0KRCpPWp
— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) July 10, 2014

They all tend to link back to their 'Project Babb' site - an experimental digital offerring which is obviously optimised for multi-platform access. It's snappy, picture-heavy and encourages users to scroll in a wide Buzzfeed-y sort of way. 

The Anatomy of a Drubbing: analysing Brazil 1-7 Germany. http://t.co/wYa56u83OS #babb pic.twitter.com/8Pojoewdry
— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) July 10, 2014

The content they have seems to translate well onto social, and they get a good response.

The Anatomy of a Drubbing: Brazil 1-7 Germany http://t.co/wYa56u83OS #babb pic.twitter.com/KUGcaSiZRs
— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) July 10, 2014

The Times

The Times' football coverage on social is so woeful it's almost non-existent. 

The @TimesFootball account appears to have been abandoned in March, when its last tweet was posted. It has just 391 followers and has only ever posted two pictures.

The @TimesSport account is obviously the one used for all football content. But even here the quality isn't much better. 

Almost all tweets are picture-less and struggle to get any engagement at all. And RTs like this one from their archive are as baffling as they are dull.

G. Bernard Shaw says making schoolboys do athletics won't stop them masturbating #SexEducation #100yearsago pic.twitter.com/ndm6UuyiCw
— Rose Wild (@TimesArchive) July 11, 2014

Time to move on...


The Mail

The Mail use their sport account to post plenty of pictures and get good engagement. They also tend to use vines of footage, like this:

FULL TIME: #ARG 0-0 #NED The chess continued in the second half too. This vine summarizes it! http://t.co/ZcDr8Ox68R https://t.co/JVsLe23kgJ
— MailOnline Sport (@MailSport) July 9, 2014

The problem with these though, is that they almost certainly don't own the rights to show the clips. Many people I've spoken to in the industry think this is going to have to catch up with them at some point.  

It's one thing for a guy with 500 followers to post six-seconds of in-game footage - it's quite another for a large media organisation to do so, particularly if they have no deal in place. And we can tell they have no deal in place, because no one does. And if they did, they would be using far more vines of much better quality.

One of their vines was actually removed in the time it's taken me to write this blog.

The Sun

These restrictions have meant we at The Sun have had to get quite creative with our ideas. Images and vines are good, but they have to be funny or entertaining, and come without legal copyright issues.

So here's a couple of things we tried during Argentina's semi-final victory over Holland.

First is this venn diagram. It was cooked up quickly in photoshop (which explains it's somewhat amateurish appearance), but our followers seemed to love it.

The Dutch have REALLY kept Lionel Messi quiet in this match. Here's a diagram to demonstrate... #NEDvsARG pic.twitter.com/Tf4xZCb2ur
— The Sun (@TheSunNewspaper) July 9, 2014

Next was this one, which I did when it became clear the game would go to penalties. It took less than two minutes to do, but was really effective at playing on the fact that everyone knows Messi is Argentina's best player by far.

LEAKED: Sabella's preferred list of Argentina penalty takers... pic.twitter.com/SCDW3eNfx2
— The Sun (@TheSunNewspaper) July 9, 2014

Our football account also uses creative graphics to deliver stats, team news and stories.

It also posts out some cool custom-made videos like the one below, which features the Premier League footage The Sun bought the rights to. 

Is Luis Suarez leaving a bad thing? Hmmm. Well here's NINE reasons why he'll be missed http://t.co/YVtnVjFk0v
— The Sun - Football (@TheSunFootball) July 11, 2014

Seen something you think I should be writing about? Get in touch on Twitter @TheTommyEdwards.

What would Jesus do? Twitter users to decide what team Christ The Redeemer supports

TWITTER users are set to decide which World Cup finalist Christ the Redeemer supports - by choosing the colours he's lit up in.

Users can tweet to vote on whether the world famous statue will be illuminated in the black, red and amber of Germany, or Argentine sky blue and white. 

To vote, all you have to do is tweet the hashtag #ArmsWideOpen, then the 'hashflag' of your favourite finalist - either #GER or #ARG.

The colours of the winning team will be projected onto the statue on Saturday night between 7 & 9pm local time, any they will change in real-time as votes continue flooding in.

Great - now all you have to do is decide who the hell you're going to support!

Chewy Luis in the news: Why the soap opera is more important than the sport

SPORT is big business on social media, and big events get loads of coverage - but it's not always the matches themselves that people want to talk about.

Bit off more than he could chew: Luis Suarez after chomping on Chiellini

Three of the biggest stories we've ever had on social at The Sun revolved around football stars Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo - and boxing champion Carl Froch. None of them really had very much to do with sport.

The first was a story about Froch proposing to his girlfriend in the ring in front of thousands of people, immediately after knocking out rival George Groves. 

What a champ! Carl Froch won the bout of his life - then went down on one knee in the ring: http://t.co/4xaZD8JJy5 pic.twitter.com/9M9qNWNlVj
— The Sun (@TheSunNewspaper) June 1, 2014

We posted some amazing pictures of a battle-weary Froch getting down on one knee, which our followers on Facebook loved. The tweet about the same story (above) also did very well.

Second is a story about Cristiano Ronaldo getting a zig zag haircut during the World Cup. The star got his new look in tribute to a boy whose £50,000 brain surgery he paid for. It's a real feel-good tale that was incredibly popular with readers. 

Cristiano the redeemer: Ronaldo's hair was a tribute to ill fan

The story had a magic combination of three things: the most popular sportsman on social media (Ronaldo has over 27 million followers on Twitter), the most popular sporting event in the world and, crucially, a brilliant human interest angle.

The third of our big hitters is a story that has dominated the news agenda ever since it happened - Luis Suarez biting opponent Giorgio Chiellini on the shoulder. You'd have to have been living under a rock to have missed this one. 

So what do these three stories have in common?

They are all very famous sportsmen at the top of their game, on a global stage, doing something which is NOT sport. The stories show us that it is often what the big stars do outside of the game that people are interested in.

There is a kind of public fascination with the fact that these revered, almost god-like, sporting heroes are just real people with real emotions that do real, everyday things. Like giving to the needy, proposing to their partners - or stupidly lashing out when they are angry.

The moment of madness: Suarez gets his teeth into rival Chiellini

The sport itself is just a platform for a much broader dramatic narrative about fearless heroes, pantomime villains and ancient, unappeasable rivalries.

The games and the goals are just a part of that. A very important part, of course, but not the full package. The press conferences, interviews and ad campaigns all have their roles to play. And so does social media. 

Suarez's bite on Chiellini was generating a staggering 107,000 tweets per minute during the game - including this gem from former boxer Evander Holyfield...

I guess any part of the body is up for eating.
— Evander Holyfield (@holyfield) June 24, 2014

Mentions of Suarez (@Luis16Suarez) on the day also went up from 100k before the bite, to about TWO MILLION after. 

A few days later, when he apologised on Twitter, the post was re-tweeted over 70,000 times and will have been seen by millions of people.

My apologies to Chiellini: pic.twitter.com/CvfkkjxzlM
— Luis Suarez (@luis16suarez) June 30, 2014

I should mention here that there are hundreds of millions of tweets posted about the matches themselves, which are incredibly exciting in their own right.

But the point I'm trying to make is that social messages achieve huge success when there is that potent mix of both a massive sporting occasion AND some other kind of drama, which combine to create a bigger picture.

And, of course, social media managers like me are happy, because it means we get a chance to hop on photoshop and have some fun.

Once Suarez had been handed a four-month ban for the bite, we came up with this idea: 

How many months, Luis? pic.twitter.com/KUeAdtCKwc
— The Sun (@TheSunNewspaper) June 26, 2014

As you can see, I've given Luis an extra finger. Or, rather, extended his ring finger out. His celebration usually has just his thumb and two fingers raised, which most fans will know. The third finger was added for comic effect, so Luis could gleefully demonstrate how many months he'll be banned from football for.

To create the extra digit, I had to cut out his middle finger and move it across. I then blended it in using the clone stamp and blur tool.

To finish up, here's some other Suarez-related funnies that caught my eye...

Hey @luis16suarez, if you're that hungry, why not get your teeth stuck into something really tasty? pic.twitter.com/TPrPoC6ljt
— Nando's (@NandosUK) June 24, 2014

Finally, a picture from the Luis Suarez bite that isn't photoshopped! pic.twitter.com/5x0J01GXTG
— Sunday League Footy (@SundayChants) June 25, 2014

Update from Luis Suarez' house.. pic.twitter.com/oeFJBm0DTP
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) June 28, 2014

Suarez has sent in his response after his 4 month ban pic.twitter.com/KZjDA8ADHK
— Troll Football (@Troll__Football) June 26, 2014

Chat's Life - inspiring conversation with graphics on social

CONVERSATION is the spice of online life, and we social media managers are always looking for ways to get people talking.

I'm luckier than most - because I work at a national newspaper. That means there is usually plenty of interesting, provocative content to get our followers going. 

Original graphic: Simple, but effective

But a simple question written into a tweet with no image and no context is likely to get ignored by most people, regardless of how great the story is. 

On our team, we decided that wouldn't do - we needed to make the question itself more engaging.

So here's what we did.

The Sun's website had been running "Have Your Say" articles for some time, and we thought it would be a good idea to try to translate this concept onto social media. 

Roxanne: This was my first go at making a graphic. Unfortunately, I saved it as a jpeg (rather than png)
file so the text looks a bit wobbly. But it still had a great response from followers

The first - and most obvious - thing to do was create a hashtag from the title. This would give continuity to our feed and mean regular readers would come to expect the #HaveYourSay tweets.

Baby steps: The drop shadow is improved on this one and the hashtag reads better

We then started to work on some ideas for graphics. The hashtag itself on a Sun red background in a Sun font was the first idea, which worked OK - but I thought we could have a bit more fun with it. 

Big head Barlow: If you've read my previous blogs, you'll know I find over-sized heads hilarious.
This is no exception.

So the next idea I had was to use a graphic (600x300 pix) which had the hashtag, a question and an picture from the story we were referring to. This would show the question and the context in one concise, eye-catching, shareable image.

Translucent juice: I had to cut out the beer from the middle of the glass on this one, then increase
the transparency so you can read the words through it. I think it works well.

We now try to do these as often as possible, and move the words and pictures around to keep it interesting. But, of course, the style (ie. colour and font) remain the same to give consistency to the concept, and to make it more recognisable.

Food for thought: I experimented with a larger picture on this with an added outer glow. The words
also have a black stroke, which I hadn't done on any of the others. I'm still undecided on whether
I like it or not. But it is certainly striking. 

What do you think? #HaveYourSay!