Yesterday I talked about how a media outlet took action to implement social media suggestions, but today I’d like to talk about the exact opposite.
My hometown paper, the News & Record, doesn’t seem to be as keen to change. And to be clear, I know lots of great people that work for the paper and think they do good work (most of the time).
For this post I’ll stick to their activity on Facebook (their reporters are active on Twitter and do a good job with that) and how they are using the network.
On the News & Record home page you’ll occasionally see a blue banner (highlighted in the photo above) that tells readers to “Join News-Record.com on Facebook Now and Stay Up-To-Date on the Latest News and Headlines.”
Out of curiosity I’ve monitored their page during the last month; during that time their fan base has grown by around 150 people (totaling 889 as of this writing) – not exactly huge growth.
Their Facebook page can be seen above, and if you are an avid reader of this blog you’ll immediately notice two things:
- The landing page could use some work
- The updates are simply a push of news, which provides no added value
I’ve casually talked with a few folks at the paper about their Facebook content and tossed out some ideas, but I’ve not seen any implemented thus far. Here are a few:
- Publish parts of stories that didn’t make the cut. There’s bound to be interesting parts of various stories that didn’t make print due to space limitations.
- Have photographers (they have several very talented folks on staff) post shots that didn’t make the story. When I suggested this I received the response of, “We already do that online.” My response was, “Yeah, but people on Facebook don’t know that. You should post a few photos each day along with a link to the full photo gallery on your site. That will drive traffic.”
- Use the space to poll readers about various local topics and ask for story ideas.
I’m sure lots of other ideas could be thought of as well, but I surely hope they make a change at some point – for their own good. The lack of fan growth over the past month is proof that something isn’t working.
As more people move to online sources for news, it’s important that print publications have a clear understanding of how to drive traffic to their site and engage readers in the social space – and I say that as a reader and an advertiser.
PS – Like my ideas or not, using social media to simply push is not a best practice – and down right dull.
