On-Air Talent to Influencer:
The need for local news to use a Social Media Consultant
Social media influencers (the real ones, of course) are close to their audiences and know what type of content will strike a chord with their followers. Therefore, partnering with an influencer can be extremely effective if you don’t yet have a strong content strategy. On air talent/hosts already are comfortable in front of the camera and know how to captivate an audience. They just need to be trained in social media best practices in order to be an influencer for their station. Here is all the data to back up why news stations need a social media coach for their on air talent as media reach changes for Millennials and Gen Z.
- Statista report from Feb 2022, online survey over 2,000 people over the age of 18 in the US.
a) 50% of Gen Z use social media for news EVERY DAY, another 18% use it a few times a week for their news source =68%
b) 44% of Millennials use social media EVERY DAY, another 21% use it a few times a week as their news source. = 65%
2) Neiman Lab (at Harvard University) made its predictions in journalism for 2022
a) Gen Z demands personality from journalists — Julia Munslow
b) Journalists who’ve found success with young audiences show their personality outside of the newsroom, revealing what it’s like behind the scenes, and having fun while doing it
c) Even if a 15-second video doesn’t cover every detail of a story, it can be a gateway to reading that 2,000-word article.
d) One video is all it takes to start building trust with a viewer, who will recognize an engaging, personable journalist in future pieces of content. Even if that next post is outside of a viewer’s usual interests, they’ll be more likely to listen.
e) Many young people form parasocial relationships with celebrities and influencers on social media, and they’ll want to feel that same sort of connection with journalists.
f) Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence. Parasocial relationships are most common with celebrities, organizations (such as sports teams) or television stars.
3) When consuming news on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, those under 35 pay the most attention to internet personalities, according to a Reuters Institute for Journalism study.
a) Facebook is far more widely named as a network where people come across news, our data show it is typically not a platform where news consumers intentionally go to access the news. Twitter, in contrast, is often seen much more as a primary destination for news, while YouTube and other networks such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are valued more for entertainment and fun — as well as for some news.
c) The Guardian, for example, produces the ‘Fake or for Real?’ segment on Instagram, where a young journalist goes over the week’s claims using the platform’s quiz feature.
d) The Washington Post’s ‘TikTok guy’ Dave Jorgenson, for example, creates regular amusing spoofs linked to the news.
e) The tone and the formats that young people and others use, does not always come naturally to journalists.
f) the focus on fun and entertainment does not necessarily mean that young people are unwilling to talk about ‘serious’ issues on these platforms. On the contrary, from climate change to Black Lives Matter, many young people use their creativity to raise awareness about the issues that concern them, and celebrities and influencers who mostly focus on entertainment and similar issues sometimes play a key role in these discussions
Before starting journalists must remove fake followers as fake accounts carry many risks:
- Wasting your budget — Just imagine you spend big bucks on an influencer with millions of followers only to discover they were promoting your brand to bots and inactive accounts.
- Decreasing your engagement — Because fake followers are inactive most of the time, they won’t interact with your content. Therefore, your engagement volume will drop and skew your overall results, making it hard to assess the effectiveness of your content.
- Ruining your brand’s reputation — Being exposed as a business who follows shady social media practices by buying fake followers can shatter your brand’s image. Also, people might start to question the trustworthiness of your entire company, which can damage your sales results.
Checking fake followers on your own Instagram and Twitter profiles is something one should do at least once every six months. Even if you’re not buying fake followers, there’s a large chance some fake accounts are following you. That’s because, to make fake accounts appear more real, their owners often program them to follow random users.
https://www.fakecheck.co/ (IG)
https://www.followeraudit.com/ (TW)
It’s time for a social media consultant to help the broadcast news industry reach Millennials and Gen Z. Those born after 1981, are not getting their news from the nightly news at 6PM. They turn to social media.
