Can existing newsrooms build a digital exclusive brand using social media?

My mornings usually start with, “Facebook traffic has gone down…”, “Facebook traffic is showing a surge…”, “How to bring more followers on Facebook…”

The educated guess says, if you are currently working in a newsroom (irrespective of your position) functioning digital operations in India, this is your staple conversation as well. 

Facebook, out of every other social media site in existence, has become the bread winner for publishers. Any tweak in the algorithm can directly influence digital health of a publisher these days. While generating business is the ultimate goal for publishers, brand value is left to be polished by other means.

For example, if you are an established newspaper now having a proper digital website, your revenue is exclusively website dependent but the brand building value still comes from the original source, in this case a newspaper.

Similarly, the television networks in India have also realised the power of digital sync and the operations are now run simultaneously. Even then the brand value for the digital property only relies on the original source.

So can we say that newsrooms are truly becoming digital only? While you think about it let us discuss how we can build brands on social media and what the gaps are and what can be done.  

Social media teams in newsrooms

Most of the Indian newsrooms have a focused social media team which are supposed to keep the influx going. I have observed that high stories productions have led these teams remain glued to desk and make numerous posting on various social media platforms, focus still remaining on Facebook.

While there have been some achievements by Indian news websites on pushing out content on Facebook and decoding its pattern the other social media tools have remained unexplored.

For Editors, it all boils down to UVs and PVs and that pressure is ultimately transferred to these social media teams. With number crunching being done real time it is hard for the social media team to think out of the box.

While Editors may remain focused on numbers, page owners and visionaries should consider social media as brand building tools.

Archaic Editorial rooms

Newsrooms might have changed and adapted but the hierarchical Editorial system from newspapers still exists. In my opinion, every social media person should be an Editor rather than the Intern to Sub Editor to Senior Sub Editor to Chief Sub Editor and follows hierarchy.

Yes, leadership roles are required but choose among equals rather demarcating the team by old school rule (which translates to seniority in terms of years).

Also, the team needs to be divided for different social media handles. Usually, the case is one person knows it all. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Helo, Sharechat etc. What this does is the same story line, with minor tweaks, being posted everywhere. While the excerpt style might work for Facebook audience, it might not make sense to Twitterati.

Segregation of content

Not every content is for every platform! In rush to generate traffic a Breaking News is posted on all the possible platforms. While it rides on the surge, the follow ups are also pushed the same way.

It is to be understood that different social media platform reads content differently. While you can treat Facebook as your news aggregation tool, treat Twitter to create buzz and live interactions (Wendy’s Twitter savage moments*), use Instagram to keep the engagements for the same event (Live Quiz, Live reactions and storytelling).

Imagine a publisher which has its own identity of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit etc. A person who trusts or engages with your Instagram page is most likely going to recommend your page than a person who saw stacked up images with captions.

*I have deliberately tried to avoid examples from the industry 

ALSO READ ON: https://thoughtsthatburn.home.blog/2019/08/20/can-existing-newsrooms-build-a-digital-exclusive-brand-using-social-media/