newsleader blogs

During this recent bout of snow in the UK, my news team in Newcastle has created its most successful hashtag yet. The journalists have encouraged listeners to tweet their own snow reports using #metrosnow Its resulted in hundreds of pieces of information and pictures each day.

Using the hashtag pulls together all these tweets, some of which are sent to presenters, the station, the news team and sometimes to no one in particular. The listener herself is also able to search #metrosnow for herself and get an instant snapshot of the current weather in the region.

There have been some questions tweeted and the team strives to respond or re-tweet hoping someone else has an answer. This element of using social media is vital, for it is truly social. Journalists, presenters or producers must take time to read the tweets, or Facebook comments, and respond as best they can. This will be limited by the numbers of comments and time but the intent should remain the same.

I tweeted a radio station to ask how the weather was in a particular city. I didn’t get a reply and I am discouraged from tweeting again.

For me, there are three simple steps to a successful social media connection and they are:

• POST
• READ
• RESPOND

A short acknowledgement, a thank you for example, will make many listeners happy or even an endorsed re-tweet.

Bad weather makes social media invaluable to journalists and programme makers but it also means we have to work even harder to respond to our audience’s needs.

As tweeted by @newsleader earlier today:

• Understand why you’re using social media. What’s your strategy? Crucial.
• Don’t broadcast. Interact. If you start a conversation, follow it through.
• Realise the main social networks fulfil different functions. Facebook = conversation and content sharing.
• Twitter = a huge information network.
• Understand FB and Twitter are very different, avoid linking updates.
• You Tube can expose your video content to a wide, world audience not currently watching your stuff!
• Be aware of the copyright/rights issues around re-using audio visual content from social media.
• Tip offs from social media make the fundamentals of verification and accuracy more important than ever.
• Encourage on air talent to use social media to interact with the audience at any time.
• But realise negative feedback means social media isn’t suitable for every presenter.
• Presenters - be ‘real’ in your tweets but manage the balance between personal and professional.
• Embrace social media content on air. Push listeners to social media and SM users to the radio.
• Curate the best social media content on-line and provide clear links to follow and like.
• Include social media in your production meetings and whenever possible in conversations.
• Celebrate your successes on social media with your team including mile stone statistics.
• Use the cover picture on Facebook to showcase personalities or the essence of your brand. Avoid logos.
• Focus on content with high social value i.e. content which gets a reaction - anger, amazement, laughter, shock or tears.
• Use hash tags on Twitter to organise conversations around shows, stars and stories.
• Blogs enable an expert to show off their expertise or explain the story behind a story.
• We’re at the start of the social media journey – be creative, experiment and learn!