Hundreds of representatives from TV stations across the country gathered in Las Vegas this week for the first-ever Promax Station Summit. I held a social media session showing many success stories we’ve covered on Lost Remote, and Facebook’s Andy Mitchell followed in a session offering tips and tools for TV stations to step up their Facebook presence. Both had a good crowd, and here’s a quick, slightly rough summary:
Earlier this week, top media execs predicted that 75% of all TV shows will be on the web in two years. And since the web is seamlessly migrating to TV (via Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, connected TV sets, Xbox, etc.), that leaves TV stations with a new challenge: everything TV stations produce and distribute now goes head-to-head with everything else. That means there are three big priorities for local TV:
1. Produce differentiated content that people will watch on-demand. Newscasts aren’t it.
2. Double down on mobile and tablets.
3. Invest more in social media so local content can be discovered and shared.
In fact, I said they should expect to invest more than ever in these three priorities, more than they’ve invested in HDTV, with no expectations in two to three years of breaking even.
So why is social so important? Facebook is now the web’s content discovery portal. Mitchell showed a few of the unbelievable stats: the average user spends 6 hours and 36 minutes a month on Facebook, and 50% of Facebook users return daily. That means Facebook is a must for any local TV station, and not just building fans, but building engagement — which requires a human touch and can’t be automated. I encouraged the crowd to let station talent create their own pages — in their own names, not co-branded with the TV station — and put “like” buttons on just about everything (local TV sites are among the most conservative with Facebook plugins.)
Among the Facebook examples, we talked about KOMU’s tornado coverage, KMOV’s airport tornado and Amy Wood’s live feed on Facebook. For building fans, I underlined the importance of contests, showing examples from Fox 8 in Cleveland, KUTV, KBAK and AZFamily in Phoenix.
For Twitter, even through it reaches 13% of Americans, it’s still a critical platform because it reaches social influencers, engages audiences around shared experience events and is a terrific real-time newsgathering tool. Like Facebook, a TV station’s Twitter primary account shouldn’t be automated, and execs should encourage station staffers to create their own account. Social media guidelines for staff? The NY Times’ says it best: “Don’t be stupid.” And if you’re running a Twitter account, make sure you’re using it as a communications stream (responding to people), not just as a headline service.
Among the Twitter examples I showed were NBC Local’s “The 20,” WSB’s #2at4 campaign, James Spann’s #WeAreAlabama and WESH’s JudgePerrySays. I also talked a bit about YouTube, encouraging marketing departments to create custom, viral videos, embed them on Facebook and share them on Twitter. One great example is WTMJ’s NewsBurst, which we wrote about last week.
I urged execs to create a culture of experimentation, celebrate social media successes, only hire people with some social media savvy and search out an evangelist who can lead the social charge at the station across all departments. The example is used is KING TV social media manager Evonne Benedict, who is quoted in our earlier story: “in my job I’m a journalist, a community engager, a customer service rep, a brand advocate, a path builder, and a team coach.”
I also talked about a new feature on @breakingnews and BreakingNews.com that allows local media organizations to “tip” our editors via Twitter, which I’ll post a little later.
And by the way, here’s the list of local PromaxBDA award winners for the most outstanding promotion, marketing and design work in local broadcast, just announced here in Vegas.
