When a tornado tore through St. Louis’ airport and leveled a neighborhood Saturday night, KMOV-TV and KMOV.com went wall-to-wall with live coverage. At the same time, the station’s Facebook page kicked into high gear.
KMOV posted frequent updates (more frequently than Twitter) as viewers submitted damage reports and questions, sometimes several per minute. Poised at a computer, meteorologist Kristen Cornett passed along the best Facebook photos, videos and updates on air.
“In the midst of this crazy tornado outbreak, the Facebook input from our fans was critical,” KMOV.com site manager Bryce Moore told Lost Remote. “When everything was popping it was dark, and tough to get a handle on where all the damage had happened, through our FB viewers we quickly pinpointed damage scenes, especially in the more rural areas.”
But unlike most TV stations during a big breaking story — frantically updating information on-air and on their websites — KMOV.com also responded to its Facebook fans in real-time. And not just to thank them for posting photos and videos, but answering many questions and concerns as well.
“We try to respond to as many questions, suggestions and criticisms as possible,” says Moore. “As a result we get better engagement from our fans, they are more likely to share our content, more likely to respond to our requests for help and stick up for us when the ‘haters’ rip on us.”
Moore says they often respond with the name of the anchor or reporter who responded — using the “@” symbol to link their respective page — “a personal touch and an opportunity for the user to ‘like’ our anchor’s Facebook pages,” Moore says.
Last week, we posted a similar example with ABC 33/40′s James Spann, whose Facebook and Twitter accounts lit up as tornadoes tore through Alabama. But with Spann on the air, updating was difficult. At KMOV, the weather and web teams kept its Facebook page humming along, posting dozens of updates in the midst of hundreds of user reports.
During the story, KMOV picked up over 2,000 fans on its main Facebook page, now totaling over 40,000. For TV stations with a large Facebook presence, the “open wall” style of gathering and responding to user posts may be more effective than most user-generated content tools on local TV sites. In the months to come, I’m sure we’ll see many more examples of local media Facebook pages turning into real-time, UGC publishing platforms during breaking stories. Stay tuned!
