Forget about the November sweeps rating period, let's use social media to measure the success of local TV journalists! To find out more about this new media contest between TV reporters, watch the video below ...or, if you'd rather keep reading, I'll explain the contest below the video...
Sweeps can be a frustrating thing for TV reporters. It's that time of the year when Nielsen collects ratings on newscasts, which determines how much money a newscast can demand for advertising ...which pretty much determines how valuable that newscast and its reporters are to a station. It's a system that can make individuals in newsrooms feel helpless since they have little control over the outcome of sweeps. I mean, we're talking about the public's perception of an entire station and a reporter has influence over maybe two minutes of that station's time out of 24 hours a day? That's a tough spot to be in...
Of course, with social media, the ability to interact with the viewers now gives reporters and anchors a new method of swaying public opinion in their favor. So how many reporters are using this medium to their advantage? Below is a simple point system to monitor TV journalists' usage of social media.
Points:
Tweeting about a story: 1 point
Replying to followers who ask about a story: 5 points
Interacting with audience via live Web cam: 10 points
Linking to outside person/organization via blog: 10 points
Story generated by a tip found on social media (tweet, Facebook update) outside the news organization: 5 points
Do you see any of those things taking place on TV news? Are you a reporter who's doing those things? If so, drop me a line and let me know. In a couple weeks, I'll tally up the score and see who comes out on top. AND, we'll see if Jason DeRusha really is as social media savvy as we all think he is... :)
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