RTDNA reports a big one-year change in the use of social media by television news departments: 76 percent of responding stations say they integrate social media on their websites and 68 percent incorporate it into their storytelling. Last year, 36 percent said they were doing NOTHING with social media (although, granted, that means 64 percent were doing something); now fewer than 9 percent say that, while 36 percent say their newsrooms are “constantly” active on Twitter.
Interesting if unsurprising fact from a report that says the non-YouTube sites seeing the most success with online video are those of the broadcast TV networks and Web-only media brands, followed by magazine sites and music labels, with newspaper sites lagging in both total video views and growth: Google drives nearly 40 percent of the views, so you need to be sure your videos are tagged with search engines in mind.
Another interesting fact: Although video on newspaper Web sites has the lowest rate of being viewed, the people who do click on those videos are much more likely than viewers on other sites to watch through to the end.
The RTDNA site posts tips for better video storytelling from NBC News Correspondent Bob Dotson, who presented an RTDNA@NAB session called “How Better Storytelling Can Save Your Job.” Among the tips: avoid pack journalism, meaning that when covering a news event that others are also covering, find something different that no one else can see.
This reminds me of a discussion about covering annual events, such as major festivals, during a recent peer review at the Danville Register & Bee. One editor said he won’t send reporters anymore to cover such events. And it’s true that if you tell a reporter to bring you a report on the festival, you’re going to get the same expendable story every year. That’s why it’s better to ask the reporter to come back with a story about someone or something particular that he or she finds at the festival. For instance, a Winston-Salem Journal reporter once went to cover the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, one of the all-time big annual events in the region. Stories about it are almost always interchangeable — scenery, weather, a few happy quotes. But this one reporter came back with something different — he had gone to the area where the competitors in the strength events, the guys who toss around telephone poles and big rocks, were waiting for their event. They were passing the time by showing off, bending nails and smashing things against their heads. Fascinating stuff, and no one else had ever gotten it before.
Among the experiments in Media General newsrooms for using social media to promote upcoming content, Sara Diamond of WJHL has started using a webcam to make 1 1/2-minute promos for Facebook saying what stories the station is working on. Many TV stations — and some newspapers — do these kinds of promos for their websites. Posting them to your Facebook fan page as well just makes sure they are in more places and are more likely to be seen by more people.
If there’s a large event that’s going to attract many people from your market — a big festival, a sporting event, a concert — you have a built-in opportunity to get your live coverage and updates to a motivated audience. Better yet, here’s the outline for how to do it (the link provides a better, fuller explanation than the above slideshow). Here’s why you should print that out and save it:
“These events are ideal because the people involved have a shared interest that you can serve for content. Advertisers from your community and the distant community share interests with this audience. The people are not going to be reading a print edition of your home newspaper (even if you ship to the venue, you won’t reach many of the people) and they won’t be watching a TV station back home. They will be away from their office computers and if they travel with a laptop, they will leave that in the hotel room most of the time, while they are at the arena (or the National Mall) or out enjoying the host city at restaurants, bars and tourist attractions. But more and more, these travelers will have smart phones that will make great vehicles for distributing your content about the event they are attending, for engaging them in conversation about the event and for enlisting their help in covering the event and the related community travel experience.”
Newsroom With A View 