Shorthand Social is an easy way to create and publish media-rich stories online, and then share those stories more effectively with your Twitter followers.
In this guide we run through the main features within the application, and cover how you can create a fully-responsive, media-rich story from scratch, as well as how to use the app's intelligent tweet creation to promote your story on social.
GETTING STARTED
Log in with your Twitter account, and click 'START YOUR FIRST STORY'
The top section of your story is your Title section. This is one of the first opportunities to hook your reader, so use your media and text effectively to engage, and encourage your audience to scroll down – and note the media will get cropped to the centre for mobile readers.
You can add an image or YouTube video to the background – background video autoplays, loops and is muted as default (although your reader can choose to turn the sound back on, on the live story).
See how to edit a Title section in the video below:
ADDING NEW SECTIONS
Underneath the Title section you can start adding in additional sections to build up the structure and narrative of your story.
There are three section types available, Text, Text Over Media and Image or Video. You can delete a section if you change your mind, and insert new ones above and below.
SECTION TYPES
in more detail
1. This is a Text Section.
The Text section is designed for the more text-focused parts of your narrative. Highlight text to see the formatting options available. Options include bold, italics....
HEADER ONE STYLING
Header Two styling
"Pull-quote styling"
And the ability to add hyperlinks.
Between paragraphs of text you can also insert media. Hover your cursor between two paragraphs and click on the '+' icon: From here you can insert an image, YouTube video or embed code, as shown below with a tweet...
You can add captions underneath the embedded media, and resize using the icons in the corner of the media.
2. This is a Text Over Media section
You can choose header/pull-quote formatting, and move the text around the screen
Apply background media that remains full-screen across viewports, and will be cropped accordingly
Like the Title section, choose a background image or YouTube video.
On platforms that don't support autoplay, a still image is shown.
See how to add layers or depth to an image with the reveal effect at this link, achieved between two or more images in Text Over Media sections.
3. THE 'IMAGE OR VIDEO' SECTION
The third section type (shown below) is the 'Image or Video' section, which lets you add standalone images or video to your story. This media won't get cropped, and the video won't autoplay or be muted as default.
This section type is particularly useful if you want to include full-width portrait images, or other unusual aspect ratio images, without them getting cropped.
For example, below is an image added using the 'Image or Video' section:
And below is a YouTube video added with that same section type:
Promoting your story
When you're ready to publish your story (you can click Preview to get a taste first), click Review & Publish. Here you can see the tweets we have auto-generated from your story, and select which you wish to send, and schedule the timing between each.
You can unpublish a story if necessary, which will cancel any unsent tweets, and delete those already posted.
And once published, you can also grab an embed code for a story launchpad you can place within your own website, which will point to your Shorthand Social story. There's more detail on that here, and an example below:
If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
