Geotargeting Content on Facebook NPR's Experiment in Local EngagementKeith HopperDirector of Product Strategy and Development

@khopper

2

NPR has 271 independent member stations providing national and local news to individual communities

About 93 percent of the U.S. population is within the broadcast listening area of one or more member stations

NPR Programming reaches 26.4 million listeners every week

Stations

Geotargeting: What we did

4

Geotargeting content on Facebook

5

Geotargeting content on Facebook

npr.org

kplu.org

6

Experiment around what drives local engagement and clicks on Facebook

Encourage digital behavior change at a local level Explore ways to deepen our digital partnership with

stations

Core Objectives

7

What makes a good geotargeted NPR Facebook story?

NPR’ssweetspot

Localflavorgeotargeted

Editorial Strategy

8

Measure campaign traffic Determine method for engagement performance

between Global NPR Facebook posts and geotargeted posts

Engagement Rates =• Likes/impressions• Shares/impressions• Comments/impressions

Measurement

Geotargeting: Results

10

Engagement Measurement – First PassG

LOBA

LG

EOTA

RGET

ED

11

Used Facebook Insights data, focused on three metrics:

Engagement: The number of Shares, Likes and Comments on a post

Reach: The number of unique people exposed to a post

Engagement Rate = Engagement total / Reach total

Engagement measurement – 2nd Pass

12

Engagement performance measurementG

loba

lG

eota

rget

ed

Total Engagement Rate (Oct – Dec 2011)

0.02

0.003

13

First 50 posts drove 50k+ visits More than doubled social media traffic in first month Geotargeted posts responsible for site’s largest traffic day

and three highest traffic months Seattle now largest growth region for overall NPR account

“likers” NPR National desk is now promoting local pieces globally Engagement success is driving editorial changes in local

newsrooms

Other highlights

14

Community-driven conversations

15

Community-driven conversations

16

Community-driven conversations

17

Community-driven conversations

18

Is this repeatable? Will it fade over time? Does it scale? How much can this drive global NPR follower growth? How valuable is this to stations and users? What other ways can this be done? What’s next?

Some Outstanding Questions

Geotargeting: Takeaways

20

Experiments! Start small and stealthy Know what you need to measure, set up early Be prepared to learn and pivot

Geotargeting! Select content that works on Facebook Encourage content that engages your local market Use your large potential audience as a carrot Can you scale?

Takeaways