I asked Register Digital Editor Julia Thompson to reflect on how some of those tools worked out on caucus night.

1. Storify

Storify is a curation/aggregation tool that lets you bring together content from various social networks and websites into one edited feed – and then embed it on your website (the photo shows the Register’s Storify on its Caucus site).

The Register used storify to aggregate mostly tweets from voters and reporters throughout the night. Here’s the result.

My take: I guess it just never dawned on my that you could create a storify and keep updating it through the day and night. The tool just keeps impressing me.

Julia’s take: We had nearly 4,000 views on our Storify. We haven’t used Storify a ton to know if that’s a decent number, but I do know that some other Gannett properties embedded the story, so that helped its reach.

2. Twitter feed

The Register pulled in a feed of Iowa caucus related tweets on the right side of the home page. At any given time, you’d see 3-4 tweets on the home page.

This is nothing hugely new, but certainly not something we were seeing last caucus cycle.

My take: Not a lot of value here to me. The Register just pulled in every tweet that mentioned the caucus, so the odds of getting one that actually had meaning were slim (see the first and third tweet in the photo – what value does that bring to the home page?). An improvement might be to just show tweets from a pre-selected list of reporters and citizens.

Julia’s take: With the Twitter feed incorporated with the rest of our home-page coverage, I think that gave the topper a feeling of constantly being updated and also that our coverage was more participatory. However, it was one more moving piece to keep an eye on that, in hindsight, might not have been worth it. The curated approach of Storify, in general, seems to be a more valuable addition to coverage for our readers.

Mobile app

The Register created an iPhone app that included articles, event listings, candidate info and live results on caucus night.

My take: I used the app while out and about on caucus night, and I used it to read about candidates and decide which I would vote for. It did seem like the app stopped getting new article updates on caucus night (Update: The Register’s Matt Heeren tells me this was due to some server issues on Caucus night). And I do wish they would have made some money from the app – either by charging for it or through sponsorship.

Julia’s take: We got great reviews of the app and doubled our downloads on caucus day. With live results enabled and push notifications, we were able to get news and results out to people quickly, which in this late-called race was imperative.

Partnerships

In this day of smaller staffs, it only makes sense to partner where you can. The Register pulled in live video from a local TV station as results were coming in.

My take: Smart. My only wish was that the video feed did not auto-play on the home page. Or at least didn’t play the sound automatically.

Julia’s take: We partnered where it made sense. We looked to WHO-HD for live video of candidate speeches, which were incorporated in the TV station’s live broadcast. Since we didn’t duplicate efforts there, it allowed us to focus on better photos and edited video elsewhere.

I’m tracking 17 different indicators of how popular candidates are on social media and how effectively they are using social media in their campaigns. This is the third time I’ve looked at the numbers. See the numbers from Nov. 13 and from Dec. 7.

Here are the current (Dec. 27) results. The average rank is how high the candidate ranked, on average, in each of the 17 different indicators (an average of 1 would mean they were first in every category; an average of 7 would mean they were last).

My previous numbers mirrored what was happening in national polls, and these ones appear to as well. Polls show Ron Paul gaining momentum heading into Iowa. In my numbers, he has jumped from fifth (Nov. 13 – ignoring Herman Cain, who is now out of the race) to fourth (Dec. 7) and now to third. More importantly, he’s neck-and-neck with the frontrunners.

Gingrich was first and Romney second in the previous two polls.

Here are rankings for each category:

 
Here are the indicators I am tracking (read more on my original post):

• Twitter followers in last month
• Facebook likes
• Facebook likes in last month
• Twitter lists
• Twitter followers/lists ratio
• # of last 20 tweets with @ in them
• Klout.com score
• Tweetgrader.com rank
• tweetlevel.edelman.com score
• retweetrank.com score
• Shares of last 12 FB posts
• Comments on last 12 FB posts
• Likes on last 12 FB posts
• Facebook “Talking about this” number
• Topsy.com tweets in last 7 days mentioning username or Real Name
• SocialMention.com Strength

If you are interested in interviewing me about these numbers, contact me at chris.snider@drake.edu.

This makes it perfect for college and high school newspapers looking to dive head first into creating or redesigning a website. Or for community newspapers that want to finally go digital.

With that in mind, here are some of my favorite WordPress themes for newspapers or magazines. (Unsure about how WordPress works? Check out this beginner’s guide.)

Need web hosting? I recommend MDD Hosting.

Telegraph

Telegraph Demo

Cadabra Press

CadabraPress Theme

Daily Headlines

Daily Headlines Theme

Tribune

Tribune Demo

Newsley

Newsley Theme

Yamidoo PRO Magazine

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Yamidoo Magazine

Yamidoo Magazine Theme

Newstock – Premium Magazine

Newstock magazine theme

MagNews – WordPress Magazine Theme

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Exciter Magazine WordPress Theme

Exciter Magazine WordPress Theme

WP-Ellie

WP-Ellie Premium WordPress Theme

WP MediaMag

WP-MediaMag Demo Site

eNews

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PureType

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Global Press

Global Press WordPress Theme

Deadline

Deadline WordPress Theme

Newscast

Newscast 4 in 1 – WordPress Magazine and Blog

Avenue

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London Live

London Live 3 In 1 – News, Magazine And Blog

Periodic

Periodic – A Premium WordPress Magazine Theme

Repro

Repro – Premium WordPress News / Magazine Theme

Boulevard

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Duplex

Duplex – Magazine / Community / Blog Theme

YEN

YEN – Magazine, News and Blog WordPress Template

Broadcast

Broadcast – News/Magazine WordPress Theme

News

StudioPress News Theme

Magazine

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Massive Press

Massive Press WordPress theme

WordPress Newspaper

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Advanced Newspaper

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Newspro Magazine

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My results were fairly close to the most recent national polls.

Now, four weeks before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, I decided to run the numbers again (I will run them again on caucus day) to see if anything had changed.

Here are the current results

Below are the current results, including Herman Cain for consistency. Paul and Huntsman each moved up a spot. Perry and Santorum each dropped a spot.

Here are the results without Herman Cain. The rankings don’t change.

These results don’t perfectly match recent polls that show it’s a three-person race in Iowa between Gingrich, Romney and Paul.

My numbers are spot-on for Gingrich and Romney at 1 and 2. But I have Paul running behind Bachmann. It is worth noting that Paul is gaining in my polls. So perhaps things will be right by the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Stay tuned…

Here’s the current top 10:

Here are the stations with the biggest growth in the past four months:

See the complete list of top TV stations on Facebook.

I proposed that the more popular a candidate is on social media, and the more a candidate is able to engage others on social media, the more successful the candidate will be in caucuses, primaries and the election.

To test this, I looked at 17 different measures of social media success – both in terms of popularity (the amount of reach for each candidate) and engagement (how well candidates used the tools). The results mirrored recent national polls, meaning there may be some value to this data.

Here’s a look at how the candidates rank in each area (all data was from Nov. 13, 2011).

1. Total followers on Twitter

It’s worth noting that Gingrich had 1.3 million followers as far back as March, so his huge following is not necessarily tied to the election.

2. New Twitter followers in the past 30 days

3. Facebook Likes

The top three candidates here all started with a solid base. Romney had 800,000-plus as far back as March.

4. New Facebook Likes in past 30 days

5. Twitter lists

How often each candidate has been added to a list on Twitter. This is an indication that followers find value in their content.

6. Twitter Lists/Followers

The frequency with which followers add candidates to Twitter lists. For example, Bachmann is added to a list once for every 22.6 followers that she has. The lower the number the better; a high number may be an indication you are followed by accounts that aren’t really engaged with your content.

7. Number of last 20 Tweets with @

This shows that the candidates are actually being “social” on Twitter and not just pushing their message.

8. Klout score

Klout measures influence online on a scale of 1 to 100.

9. Tweetgrader Rank

Tweetgrader measures the “power, reach and authority of a Twitter account.”

10. Tweetlevel Score

Tweetlevel.edelman.com – Measures your influence on Twitter.

11. Retweetrank.com Rank

Measures how likely your tweets are to be retweeted, an indication that people value what you say.

12. Shares on Last 12 FB Posts

The number of people who clicked “share” on each candidates’ last 12 posts to Facebook.

13. Likes on Last 12 FB Posts

The number of people who clicked “Like” on each candidates’ last 12 posts to Facebook.

14. Comments on Last 12 FB Posts

The number of people who commented on each candidates’ last 12 posts to Facebook.

15. Facebook “Talking About This”

Number of people who have interacted with candidate’s page in the past seven days.

16. Mentions on Twitter Past 7 Days

Source: Topsy.com (Searching a candidate’s Twitter username and real Name)

17. Socialmention.com strength

Strength is the likelihood that your brand is being discussed in social media.

Overall results

Each candidate is assigned a value from 1 to 8 based on how they ranked for each area I tracked. The lower the candidate’s average score, the higher they are regarded in social media circles. You can see that Herman Cain is leading the pack with an average rating of 2.29. Newt Gingrich (3.47) and Mitt Romney (3.53) are second and third.

Engagement results

Below is what the results look like when I only look at engagement and not popularity. Rick Perry jumps up two spots in these results. So while he doesn’t have as large of a following as others (he ranks fifth on both Twitter and Facebook), he is engaging well with that audience.

Comparing to national polls

I decided to compare my results to two national polls released at the same time (Nov. 14) – one from CNN and one from Public Policy Polling. Those two polls had Gingrich, Cain and Romney in the lead. My results had the same three in the lead (although Perry did jump into third place when only looking at engagement).

Discussion

Early results indicate that measuring social media popularity and engagement is a good indication of how a candidate is performing nationally. I plan to look at these numbers again in early December and on the date (Jan. 3) of the Iowa Caucuses.

If we see a change in the national polls reflected in the social media numbers, that may help validate my research.

It’s also hard to say at this point whether a candidate’s success in social media propels them to success in the polls, or whether a candidate’s success in the polls propels them to social media success (the chicken and the egg debate). But clearly social media is an area that no candidate can afford to ignore.

But is that the way the social media world sees the candidates? Let’s see how the top candidates are tracking on Twitter and Facebook (numbers updated as of Oct. 30, 2011).

Twitter

Facebook

The social media numbers seem to support the Iowa Poll numbers. Herman Cain is seeing large growth both on Twitter and Facebook.

Mitt Romney is seeing a large growth on Twitter. Romney has not seen huge recent growth on Facebook, but he already had a strong following there (with more than 800,000 followers as far back as March).

Michele Bachman hasn’t seen much growth recently, which may indicate (as the Iowa Poll results show) that her campaign is losing steam. The same thing goes for Rick Perry.

UPDATED! This info is updated to reflect Facebook removing App Profile Pages on Feb. 1, 2012 (The updated part is in Step 4).

Here are a couple examples of effective page tabs.

Because Facebook now uses iFrames to display custom tabs, you will need to have a web host (and one that offers secure hosting). I use Fatcow to host my Facebook tabs. They’re not the fastest host, but they are very affordable and have done a nice job for me over the years.

Step 1: Design your page

Your page should be 520 pixels wide or fewer to fit into the tab area. Here is some code to get you started:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" />
<style type="text/css">
body {
	width:520px;
	margin:0; padding:0; border:0;
	}
</style>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
</head>
<body>
<p>Put your page content here.</p>
</body>
</html>

Just change what goes between the body tags to create your page.

Step 2: Upload your page

Upload your page and all of the supporting image files to your web host. I find it easiest to just treat each tab as if it were it’s own web site with a root folder, an index page and an images folder.

Step 3: Create a Facebook App

Go to developers.facebook.com, and create an account if necessary.

Click on “Apps” at the top.

Click on “Create new app” at the top right.

Give your app a display name, and a namespace (unique ID). Check the box that you agree to the Platform Policies. Click continue.

On the next screen, scroll to the bottom and fill out the App on Facebook tab and the Page Tab tab.

App on Facebook:

• The Canvas URL is the root folder where you saved the page you designed in Step 1, and it should end with “/”.
• The Secure Canvas URL is the same folder on a secure folder. To find your secure server URL using Fatcow, click on Secure Server in the Fatcow control panel.

Page Tab

• Page Tab Name is the name that will display in the left column on your actual Facebook page. If this is a welcome page, call it “Welcome.”
• Page Tab URL is the full URL to the page you created in Step 1 – in this case you see that I named it index.html.
• Secure Page Tab URL is the full URL to the secure version of the page you created.

You also can edit the small icon that appears next to the name of your tab on your Facebook page (in this case just a red box to the left of the Welcome link):

Click on “edit icon” near the top of the page to change the icon. The icon is 16×16 pixels, but you can make it a larger and let Facebook size it down.

Click “Save changes” at the bottom of the page.

Step 4: Adding the app/tab to your page

To add this new tab to a Facebook page, go to the following web address:

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL

Replace YOUR_APP_ID with the App ID Facebook created when you made your app. And replace YOUR_URL with the “Canvas URL” you entered into your app in Step 3.

You will get a page that looks like this:

Select the page you want the tab to be on, and then click “Add Page Tab.”

To make your page default to this new tab, go to your Facebook page. Click “edit page” in the upper right (you need to be on the “wall” tab to see this).

Click on “manage permissions” on the left and change the “default landing tab” to the page you just created.

This will only apply to users who have not “liked” your page. Anyone who likes your page will see the wall by default.

Note: If you see scrollbars on your page, here’s how to get rid of them.

Looking for someone to design a tab for you?

If you’re not quite ready to design your own Facebook tab, I am available to do so for you. Please contact me at csnider(at)gmail.com for pricing info.

Here are a couple examples:

Chris Snider Design welcome page

Drake School of Journalism welcome page

Welcome page for my son’s page, which includes a “fan gate” – click “like” to see the message change. You can use this to display content only to fans who have liked your page.

1. 10 Facts About Consumer Behavior on Facebook – This research by Constant Contact includes the top 5 reasons a user likes a brand on Facebook.

2. 8 Guaranteed Ways to Increase Social Media Reach – Hubspot’s suggestions include interacting with followers and creating a custom welcome page.

3. 5 Reasons People Share News & How You Can Get Them to Share Yours – Poynter tells us about what motivates people to share content on social networks.

4. Navigating The News Online – Pew Research Center finds that Facebook has become a critical player in news.

5. Social Media Quickstarter has this complete guide to Facebook pages.

6. Socialfresh created an online “book” from the best online Facebook resources.

7. Facebook’s guide to Facebook page insights is a PDF that explains all of the analytics available on your Facebook page, including the new “friends of fans” and “people talking about this” numbers.

8. Resources on the Official Facebook Pages page includes tools for advertising on Facebook, building your business and best practices for marketing on Facebook.

9. The Facebook + Public Figures page includes guides for celebrities, musicians, journalists, politicians and non-profits.

10. You tell me! What resources have I missed? Please share links in the comments area below.

There are 25 new shows starting soon on the five big networks. Here’s a look at how many likes each one has on Facebook.

According to this info, we’ll be hearing about the cancellation of Kevin Dillon’s CBS show “How to Be a Gentleman” any day now.

1. The X Factor – 3,343,443
2. Once Upon a Time – 188,018
3. Revenge – 122,476
4. Charlie’s Angels – 118,676
5. The Playboy Club – 98,399
6. Pan Am – 88,222
7. Up All Night – 79,325
8. Whitney – 60,458
9. Ringer – 55,130
10. New Girl – 53,126
11. The Secret Code – 46,388
12. Suburgatory – 40,342
13. The Hart of Dixie – 19,603
14. Prime Suspect – 17,150
15. Terra Nova – 13,728
16. 2 Broke Girls – 9,198
17. Grimm – 9,146
18. Person of Interest – 7,641
19. Free Agents – 7,100
20. H8R – 4,306
21. A Gifted Man – 3,965
22. Last Man Standing – 3,307
23. Unforgettable – 2,626
24. Man Up – 1,825
25. How to Be a Gentleman – 987

I’ll update this list as shows are canceled to see how well Facebook predicts such things.

UPDATE: Shows canceled so far: The Playboy Club, How to Be a Gentleman, Free Agents, H8R

It’s like a photo hunt: See if you can find all four chickens on the home page today.

But don’t let that cute chicken mascot fool you. The first deal is for alcohol!

Before I get to the yearly stats, here are a couple notes from the past month.

• We welcomed six papers to the 10,000-like club, which now has 41 members (it had 9 at this time last year). The new members are: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Orlando Sentinel, Baltimore Sun, San Antonio Express-News, Knoxville News Sentinel and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
• Perhaps the biggest news is that the Los Angeles Daily News became our final paper to reach 1,000+ likes. It jumped from 951 likes to 1,077.

Year-over-year comparisons

Here are some comparisons from Aug. 1, 2010, to Aug. 1, 2011.

Overall Top 20 – then and now

Biggest gainers

Biggest gainers in the past year by percentage of fans (note: not all papers on the list were tracked from the first month).

Biggest gainers in the past year by number of fans (note: not all papers on the list were tracked from the first month).

See data on all 100+ newspapers.

July marked the 12th month I have been tracking this data (for most papers on the list). Next month, I will take a look at which papers had the greatest growth from August 2010 to August 2011.

Some notes from July:

• The Contra Costa Times grew 138.8%, although nothing stands out as to why they had such growth. If you know, please share in the comments area.
• The Charleston Post and Courier was the second-biggest gainer, growing likes by 33.4%. The San Jose Mercury News was third with 27.8% growth.
• The top 10 papers remained the same, although the Honolulu Star-Advertiser is closing in fast on the top 10.

The top 10

The top 10 newspapers on Facebook at the beginning of July 2011.

1. New York Times – 1,438,637
2. Wall Street Journal – 316,203
3. Washington Post – 196,043
4. Los Angeles Times – 86,102
5. Denver Post – 66,115
6. USA Today – 62,809
7. Boston Globe – 49,337
8. Chicago Tribune – 34,707
9. Arizona Republic – 32,197
10. El Paso Times – 29,098

Biggest gainers

The biggest gainers in the month of June by number of Likes.

1. New York Times – 59,632
2. Wall Street Journal – 20,692
3. Los Angeles Times – 10,991
4. Washington Post – 6,543
5. Denver Post – 5,373
6. Honolulu Star-Advertiser – 4,884
7. USA Today – 4,404
8. San Jose Mercury News – 3,430
9. Contra Costa Times – 3,112
10. Boston Globe – 3,053

The biggest gainers in the month of June by percentage of Likes.

1. Contra Costa Times – 138.8%
2. Post and Courier (Charleston) – 33.4%
3. San Jose Mercury News – 27.8%
4. Honolulu Star-Advertiser – 24.6%
5. York Daily Record – 20.9%
6. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette – 19.6%
7. Albuquerque Journal – 19.4%
8. Advocate (Baton Rouge) – 18.7%
9. Orlando Sentinel – 18.0%
10. Arizona Daily Star – 17.2%

See the full list of newspapers on Facebook. To get your paper added to the list, post a link to your Facebook page in the comments area below.

The top 10 papers did not change, but there was some movement just outside the top 10. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser grew by 26.3% and jumped from No. 14 to No. 12. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch grew by 45.9% and jumped from No. 28 to No. 17 (possibly because of a Katy Perry ticket giveaway because of a $500 gas card giveaway).

Top 10

The Top 10 newspapers on Facebook at the beginning of June 2011.

1. New York Times – 1,379,005
2. Wall Street Journal – 295,511
3. Washington Post – 189,500
4. Los Angeles Times – 75,111
5. Denver Post – 60,742
6. USA Today – 58,405
7. Boston Globe – 46,284
8. Chicago Tribune – 32,759
9. Arizona Republic – 29,886
10. El Paso Times – 28,623

Biggest gainers

The biggest gainers during the month of May by percentage of fans:

1. St. Louis Post-Dispatch- 45.9%
2. Cedar Rapids Gazette – 36.6%
3. Orange County Register – 31.3%
4. Honolulu Star-Advertiser- 26.3%
5. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette- 25.9%
6. Lexington Herald-Leader- 20.8%
7. Twin Falls Times-News – 20.5%
8. Los Angeles Times- 20.2%
9. New York Post- 15.9%
10. Salt Lake Tribune – 15.8%

The biggest gainers during the month of May by number of fans:

1. New York Times – 103,758
2. Wall Street Journal – 30,431
3. Los Angeles Times- 12,613
4. Washington Post – 10,157
5. USA Today – 4,975
6. St. Louis Post-Dispatch – 4,742
7. Honolulu Star-Advertiser- 4,132
8. Denver Post – 3,673
9. New York Post- 3,074
10. Cedar Rapids Gazette – 2,759

Fox 8 News in Cleveland grew by more than 100,000 fans in that time. Fox 8 in High Point, N.C. nearly tripled its fans. WCNC in Charlotte did triple its fans.

I added four more markets to my full list of TV stations on Facebook this month (Raleigh-Durham, Baltimore, Indianapolis and San Diego). I’ll keep expanding the list, but if there is a station you want added right away just leave a comment below.

The Top 25

The numbers are not overly impressive. Most of the schools I track have tens of thousands of students and hundreds of thousands of alums, yet they struggle to have more than 2,000 fans of their pages on Facebook.

But there have been some schools getting results:

• The North Carolina Daily Tar Heel has 6,998 fans and grew by 1,070 fans in the past six months.
• The Michigan Daily grew by 3,664 fans.
• The Alabama Crimson White grew by 1,364.
• The Iowa State Daily grew by 1,152 fans in six months.
• The Ohio State Lantern grew by 1,076.
• The Central Michigan Life grew by 2,591 fans in the past five months (I wasn’t tracking them the first month).

If your paper is missing from the list, please share a link in the comments area and I will add you to the list.

The Top 25

The top 10 papers are mostly unchanged. Central Michigan jumped past Michigan to No. 2. Alabama passed Ohio State for No. 6. Also, I just added the Lee Clarion to the list, and they came in at No. 17.

All the schools

Ninety-nine of the 100 biggest newspapers in the United States now have more than 1,000 likes on Facebook. Two papers reached the 1,000 milestone within the past month, the Albuquerque Journal and the The Record and Herald News of New Jersey.

That leaves the Los Angeles Daily News (765 Facebook fans) as the only paper with less than 1,000 Facebook likes. Which is odd considering the Daily News has a good following on Twitter.

Some other notes:

• A total of 31 papers now have more than 10,000 likes. That’s four more than last month.
• The Los Angeles Times saw its biggest jump yet, increasing by 26% from 49,590 to 62,498 likes. The Times is using a Facebook social widget at the top-right of article pages. I’m not sure if this is new, but it might explain the increase.
• The Honolulu Star-Advertiser is giving away an iPad2 on Facebook, which might explain its 37% increase in likes.

Top 10

The Top 10 newspapers on Facebook at the beginning of May 2011.

1. New York Times – 1,275,247
2. Wall Street Journal – 265,080
3. Washington Post – 179,343
4. Los Angeles Times- 62,498
5. Denver Post – 57,069
6. USA Today – 53,430
7. Boston Globe – 43,711
8. Chicago Tribune- 31,015
9. Arizona Republic – 29,384
10. El Paso Times – 28,243

Biggest gainers

The biggest gainers during the month of April by percentage of fans:

1. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette – 40.8%
2. Honolulu Star-Advertiser – 37.4%
3. Chattanooga Times Free Press – 33.4%
4. Los Angeles Times – 26.0%
5. Lexington Herald-Leader – 20.6%
6. Salt Lake Tribune – 19.9%
7. Orange County Register – 19.4%
8. Chicago Sun-Times – 14.6%
9. Twin Falls Times-News – 14.2%
10. Amarillo Globe-News – 12.7%

The biggest gainers during the month of April by number of fans:

1. New York Times – 66,795
2. Wall Street Journal – 23,277
3. Los Angeles Times – 12,908
4. Washington Post – 8,868
5. Denver Post – 4,694
6. Honolulu Star-Advertiser – 4,277
7. USA Today – 4,086
8. Chattanooga Times Free Press – 3,388
9. Boston Globe – 2,355
10. New York Post – 1,985

Twenty days later, the NBC affiliate is about to pass the 30,000 fan threshold (29,536 as I type this). The graph below shows the station leave the local newspaper in its dust and gain considerably on another local TV station, KCCI, leading into the May sweeps.

How did WHO do it?

The station gave away a prize each of those 20 days, including four iPad 2s. And it promoted those prizes every half hour on air.

“When we ran that (promo) during The Biggest Loser, they came flooding in,” said Tim Gardner, director of creative services for the station. “Definitely on-air drove this.”

WHO has run 20-day contests before, requiring viewers to see a special code on a newscast and enter that code online for a chance to win.

This was the first time the station ran a contest entirely through Facebook and didn’t require a special code (it’s part of a corporate initiative to grow Facebook fans across all stations, so expect to see this happening in many more markets).

Facebook has some fairly strict rules for contests, and WHO used Woobox to make sure everything was within the rules. Woobox builds in incentives for users to share a link to the contest with friends, which allows the viral nature of Facebook to take over.

A few takeaways I got talking to Gardner:

• The better/cooler the prize, the more entries you will receive. iPads were getting about 50% more entries than $250 gas cards.
• WHO’s goal was to double fans, and that goal was reached 13 days into the contest.
• The contest was a little slow to take off (in terms of entries and new likes) and it slowed down toward the end (in terms of new fans, not contest entries), so perhaps a similar effect could have been achieved in fewer than 20 days. Here’s a breakdown of how many new likes WHO gained each day, according to Wildfire Monitor:
• April 1-2: 234
  April 2-3: 253
  April 3-4: 344
  April 4-5: 537
  April 5-6: 3,600
  April 6-7: 1,559
  April 7-8: 890
  April 8-9: 2,161
  April 9-10: 432
  April 10-11: 366
  April 11-12: 1,599
  April 12-13: 844
  April 13-14: 739
  April 14-15: 474
  April 15-16: 310
  April 16-17: 191
  April 17-18: 146
  April 18-19: 444
  April 19-20: 906 (the final iPad giveaway)

The challenge now is to take advantage of the growing following on Facebook. Gardner said the station will be much more attentive to Facebook, with more staffers now serving as admins on the station’s Facebook page.

What’s all this worth?

By my calculations, WHO spend less than $6,000 on prizes, plus $250 for Woobox. So let’s say the station spent $6,250, plus whatever man hours went into this project.

Using this article that estimates the average Facebook fan value at $136.38, WHO gets a return of $2.2 million for that $6,250 investment. Not bad for 20 days.

The Central Michigan Daily Life was the biggest gainer during the past month, increasing its like total by 1,361. That’s four times the increase of the second-biggest gainer, the Daily Illini (+304). A total of 11 papers saw a jump in likes of 100 or more.

See the results from March.

The top 10 papers were unchanged, although the Central Michigan Daily Life moved up two spots to No. 3.

As usual, if you want your college newspaper added to the list, just share a link to your Facebook page in the comments area below.

The top 25

All the schools