You’re sitting around with the general manager and news director talking news topicals, everybody’s favorite topic. The GM asked you point-blank, which platform do you think works best to promote our late news, Facebook or our own on-air? You take a sip of your coffee to buy time and ponder. You have about a million […]
You’re sitting around with the general manager and news director talking news topicals, everybody’s favorite topic.
The GM asked you point-blank, which platform do you think works best to promote our late news, Facebook or our own on-air?
You take a sip of your coffee to buy time and ponder.
You have about a million TV households in your market.
Your closest broadcast topical for the 10 o’clock news (you’re a Fox affiliate) airs about a half-hour before the news, in some of the priciest programming on the station.
Let’s assume every one of those TV households is tuned into your station, almost a million of them. But who are they?
We can assume some are fans of your station. We can also assume some are loyal viewers of your competitors. We can assume some are not news viewers at all.
Your Facebook page has about a half million users. But these are people who have elected to like you enough to follow your station. These are news viewers, they probably watch your late news two to three times a week. But you want them to watch just one more night, tonight.
In military terms, your Facebook followers are a target-rich environment. You’re fishing where the fish are. These are people predisposed to watch your news.
You can place the Facebook promo just before the newscast, as you believe the closer to the newscast the topical airs, the better chance it will be effective.
A Facebook promo cost you nothing, and the golden hour for Facebook users — the time of extremely high usage by Facebook users — is between 9 and 10 at night.
You take another sip of coffee and say, “here’s what I think.”
I follow WHNS, the Fox affiliate in Greenville, S.C., on Facebook. I saw this promo on its Facebook page. It aired 13 minutes before the newscast.
It’s short, a mere 10 seconds or so, with just a few shots of video.
But over the video are big bold words on the screen that capture the essence of the story, because 85% of Facebook users scroll with the audio off. Editing a spot like this is fairly simple and quick.
Go get yourselves a cup of coffee and tell me what you think … so when your GM asks you this question, Facebook or on-air, you’ll have a well-thought out, rational, explanation for the benefits of both.
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