Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Calling it in DeRusha's Favor

Barring some unforeseen act of a deity, it appears Jason DeRusha will take first place in the November Social Media Sweeps. I'll still check in at the end of this week, but as of now, it's...

DeRusha: 137 points
Kim Insley: 38 points
(A handful of others scored in the single digits)

Great effort by @KAREmorninggal, but as expected, it appears DeRusha's ironclad grasp on Twin Cities social media is too strong. I've been told that KARE's meteorologist Sven Sundgaard has a huge following on Facebook, however his profile is private and he has yet to accept my friend request, making it a little tough to monitor how well he's interacting.

Which leads me to wonder more about Facebook and how news orgs are using the social platform. At the University of Minnesota (my employer and alma mater) we've been able to develop a strong Facebook presence with the U's official fan page. For that page, we (the U's News Service) make an effort to update as frequently as possible (usually daily updates Monday-Friday) with videos, pictures and links about the University and its students, faculty and staff. And we have more than 20,000 people watching those updates as fans. One would think a well-run page for KARE or 'CCO could be just as, if not more popular (the stations already have tons of video content to upload and discuss). So, news orgs, what have ya got on Facebook?

2 comments:

  1. I couldn't be more honored!

    WCCO has a facebook fan page (http://facebook.com/wcco) and a sports page (http://facebook.com/wccosports) -- both do well, I think.

    Sven has nearly 5000 facebook followers, and a Twitter as well -- but he doesn't do a lot of @ replying.

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  2. Congrats, Jason! And you nailed it on the head when you mentioned the aspect of Sven's lack of replies. Social media works both ways ...which is, in my humble opinion, why you've done so well with it.

    Keep up the good work!

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