It’s always a mixed blessing to be quoted in a published news article. The attention is great, but quotes that may be misunderstood by the author, editor or audience are an unintended, but predictable consequence. Over the past 30 years, I’ve been covered, quoted, and mis-quoted by the media dozens of times, and in the past I wasn’t able to respond with clarification.
Thank goodness for Social Media and my blog!
I was contacted by Duane Dudek of JSOnline.com (@thedudekabides) for my opinions on how the local TV stations are using Social Media. The article and a blog sidebar were published on April 21, 2010
Duane did an excellent job of capturing the essence of our discussion. Perhaps it was because of our mutual previous lives as Milwaukee radio guys. There were a few errors. One was my own typo, and the other was just a word I don’t remember using, but it didn’t change the meaning of what I said.
However, my quote about WISN12’s Morning Show “not doing squat,” raised a few eyebrows. While perhaps a bit overstated, here’s my rationale:
True Confession: I’m up every morning at 5:30 and I watch WISN’s morning show for at least a half hour before moving on to cable news. While I watch, I’m already active on Twitter, and watching the fun little Twitter-party that’s going on every day between TMJ4’s morning show and their fans. Every member of their team is busy doing all the things we hope our clients will do when we recommend Twitter as a tool that’s part of an overall Social Media strategy.
Susan Kim ( @SusanKim4 ), Vince Vitrano ( @vincevitrano ), Craig Koplien (@CraigKoplien ), and Caitlin Morrall ( @CaitlinMorrall ) – and Lisa Manna before her ( @LisaManna ) – along with several reporters keep up a lively round of Twitter chatter, both publicly, as well as via private DM’s.
WISN’s Morning Show folks remain noticeably detached in comparison. Portia Young’s Twitter Account has never tweeted to her 12 followers. Patrick Paolantonio is MIA. The WISN12 News twitter account (@WISN12news) just posts news blurbs, but doesn’t engage anyone. Reporter Kyler Burgi (@WISN_KylerBurgi) maintains a Twitter presence, and while he’s fairly active, and seems the most approachable, he seldom publicly engages with followers. And when Matt Salemme returned to the morning show, he announced that he could be Tweeted at “twitter.com/@wisn12news.” Reporter/Weekend anchor Jason Newton(@jnnewt) is just starting to get going.
A new WISN12 TV ad is filled with Web and Social Media Icons, but a commercial does not a well executed Social Media Strategy make. You have to search for the WISN folks, while the TMJ4 folks are showing up regularly in the fabric of Milwaukee’s Social Media conversations and are hard to miss. WISN’s Web site doesn’t even have those icons on its home page, and the only mention of Social Media is a text link in a sitemap that you find only after considerable scrolling.
A little while back, the WISN morning show did a feature on Foursquare, and it was obvious that all they knew about it was what they were reading from copy.
In their defense, 12 does an OK job on Facebook. And maybe their strategy is to focus more on that than Twitter. Portia is active on Facebook. And while their news presence there posts a lot of headlines, and people write comments on the wall, whoever it is who’s posting (unlike Fox6 and TMJ4 where I know the people who are behind their posts) it’s hard to find them ever engaging back. Their Weather presence on Facebook is the one area where they do seem to be doing a lot correctly. Their 6,400 fans (now likes) is a decent number (about the same number of followers as I and my dogs have together on Twitter), although fans and followers are the equivalent of “hits” on Web site – a great bragging rights number, but one that is less important than the five or six more valuable success metrics that many don’t even measure.
But here’s the biggest difference… and an example of the power of Social Media. Several times I’ve been close enough to Patrick and Portia in public to say hello, but didn’t feel comfortable enough to do so, knowing that to them I’d just be another viewer. I’ve met Susan and Vince at Tweetups, and they knew who I was. I…and more so my business partner/wife…have gotten to know Ted Perry (@TheTeditorial). My wife (@triveragirl) was his first follow. And at a Tweetup last summer, Vince Condella (@fox6weather ) sought me out to congratulate me on the recent birth of my granddaughter… which he learned about on Twitter.
The biggest mistake brands make with Social Media is taking the traditional media model and using it to just blast information to the masses and believe that people actually care. Well, guess what: in the Social Media arena, unless people know YOU care about them, they don’t really care about you. They might fan/follow, but those companies are probably better off just putting up a billboard. They’ll accomplish the same thing with less effort, push their message out to more eyeballs and they won’t be kidding themselves thinking that what they’re doing is participating in Social Media.
My intention in offering my opinion for the article was not necessarily to call anyone out. But my job, after all, is to evaluate and recommend improvements in Social Media and Web practices. And if I can ever help a business in that regard, I’m happy to do so. Even happier if they come to me and are willing to pay me to do it.
But my mission is to help raise the awareness and Social Media savvy of the market as a whole. And if my comments and observations help someone who needs the help, I’ve done my job. I’m hopeful that WISN will appreciate the freebie.
UPDATE: Comments posted to that article inspired Vince Vitrano to write blog in response. You can read that blog here
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Tom Snyder is Founder, President and CEO of Trivera Interactive, a Midwest New Media firm. Tom is a Web guy, wine snob, music junkie, Ex-Milwaukee Radio Guy, HDTV expert, and political wonk.