Social Media Guidelines

These are general guidelines for those posting to GNOME's social media channels. They cover both the specifics of writing and posting, as well as how to plan for events.

General Guidelines

• Posts should be written in US English.
• Only send posts on week days - more people tend to be online then.
• Try not to let a lot of time elapse between posts, to ensure that the social media channels look active.
• Try to make the channels interactive: reply to questions and comments where possible, share and retweet (for Google+ and Facebook it is better to do this with your own personal account rather than the GNOME one).
• It is good practice to reuse the same material for multiple posts at different times of the day, in order to reach different time zones. When doing this, it is a good idea to rephrase the material.

• Use tools like TweetDeck to create saved searches and schedule posts for the future.

• Always check what has been posted recently before posting yourself - to make avoid duplicate posts.

Topics

Good ways to find topics to post about include:

• Following Planet GNOME, and sharing interesting posts.
• Reading the main GNOME mailing lists, in order to find out about events.
• Checking the release schedule for the current release.
• Staying informed about which GNOME events are happening.
• Being aware of the main programmes that GNOME is involved in, and announcing key dates associated with them (examples: Outreachy, Google Summer of Code).
• Use social media to find out what GNOME contributors are talking about.

Hashtags

To do: add notes on how to use hashtags effectively.

• #GNOME - whenever we post anything
• #IAMGNOME - used when you refer to volunteers, or yourself

Guidelines for Events

Events can include conferences, like GUADEC, and major announcements, such as new GNOME releases.

• Advance planning is necessary to effectively publicise events on social media: think ahead about when posts need to be made, and think about ways to generate material to post about.
• Stay on topic - if there is a major GNOME event happening, avoid posts on other subjects at the same time - this sends the message the event isn't important.

  • AllanDay: This requires some kind of gatekeeping process that we've never really managed to nail down.

• Steadily build up the frequency of posts in the run up to the event. (Make sure that posts are useful and interesting though: don't just post for the sake of it.)
• Don't go quiet after the event - keep talking about it after it has happened. When making release announcements, don't just use a single post, for example: keep sending messages in the hours and days after the announcement. (It would help to have some prepared follow up posts here.)
• Announce key milestones:
  • For GUADEC, this includes announcement of the conference dates, calls for papers, and registration opening.
  • For releases, it includes alpha, beta, and release candidate releases. It is a good idea to review the release schedule in advance to get an idea of when milestones are scheduled, and to watch announce-list and desktop-devel-list to see the announcements from the release team as they happen.
• Other ideas for posts:
  • Write interviews or articles for gnome.org, that can be shared on social media.
  • GUADEC: post galleries of photos on gnome.org at the end of each day, then share on social media (this has been very successful in the past).
  • Share blog posts from planet.gnome.org, or write up digests of posts (more applicable to Facebook and G+ than Twitter).
  • Share positive reviews and comments about new releases.
  • Share information about distribution releases that will include the next GNOME version.