SOCIAL STANDOUTS 2016 Main Station Pages Share Rocket s 2016 Social Standouts: Stations At Share Rocket, we ve been tracking and gauging performance on social media in much the same way broadcasters do on-air with ratings-based metrics since 2014. However, we ve never before utilized that data for an annual list of the top performers on social media in the United States, until now. In December, we began a month of work to crunch the numbers on more than 24 million total posts and nearly 2 billion engagements in an entire year across the nation to establish our first-ever Social Standouts top 10 lists. Monday, we announced the top 10 anchors and reporters in our analysis. Wednesday, we announced our top 10 meteorologists. Today, we re finishing up with the top 10 stations in the country. Congratulations to all of our top performers! The performance of any station s primary social media accounts is a group effort. It takes a creative and quick-thinking staff manning the accounts to continue to find, evaluate, and share news from myriad sources being published around the world at any given time; it takes a reporting staff that can tell moving and gripping stories, as well as see social opportunities even as major news breaks around them; and it takes the producers, writers, photographers, and editors (sometimes all in one person) to make that content shine and look like a piece that was put together over days not hours. At Share Rocket, we can determine how much of a station s total impact on social media comes from the station pages themselves, as opposed to the talent who work at that station s page or sub-brands like weather or sports. Often, the main station accounts are responsible for 80 percent or more of the total market share carved out by a station s social media presence. Having THE TOP 10 #1: WNYW New York, NY #2: WTVT Tampa/St. Petersburg/ Sarasota, FL #3: KABC Los Angeles, CA #4: WLS Chicago, IL #5: WJW Cleveland/Akron, OH #6: WXIN Indianapolis, IN #7: WFXT Boston, MA #8: WHNS Greenville Spartanburg, SC & Asheville, NC #9: KIRO Seattle/Tacoma, WA #10: WAGA Atlanta, GA
a talented team managing the page and everyone else at the station (and often audiences, too) contribute to its content is critical to overall success. For a long time, a strong performance on social media was simply a nice skin on the wall of a station. But today, that success is being used to generate real revenue for stations and that trend is only going to grow in the years to come. More and more, social media trends and new features on America s biggest social platforms are driving how the news is delivered to audiences. The explosion of Facebook Live since summer 2016 and growth of video content overall on Facebook has opened up new ways for journalists to reach people within their communities, as well as a global audience. You can see those invested eyes on your content in the form of engagement. We believe engagement is the key metric in determining success on social media, so it is at the heart of the five key performance indicators used to create this ranking. By proving that a person actually looked at and thoughtfully engaged in some way, shape, or form with a piece of content proves its value. Advertisers are also recognizing that value more and more, as evidenced by year-over-year leaps in ad spending on social. That trend is not about to slow down with Facebook testing mid-roll advertising for video. All of this has amounted to a local news station s Facebook page becoming one of its biggest financial assets moving forward, and its value is driven by the work of the people who contribute to it every day. If they are drawing in new followers and getting them to routinely be invested enough in the content they are seeing to react, that holds tremendous value for a station going forward. A station s success on social media is no longer just a skin on the wall. More and more, it is looking like a driver of future revenue for the industry. The station accounts that made the 2016 Social Standouts list all have shown remarkable ability at keeping their social audience engaged. However, you won t see quite as many examples of quality content on our list of top stations as you saw on our anchor/reporter or meteorologist top 10s simply because there is so much that goes into creating a successful social media presence for a station. It truly takes a group effort from all involved at the station to stay on the pulse of what matters to a station s social audience and present them with engaging, quality content that keeps the audience aware of the world around them nearby and on the other side of the world. When major news broke, these stations were there with the latest for their followers on social media. When they needed a laugh after a long day, these stations were there. When they wanted to see an amazing piece of video that in the old media world would have been saved for the nightly news, these stations were sharing it and getting to work on the followup stories. While it s hard to break down their overall performance over an entire year by looking at individual pieces of content, their overall impact is shown in the engagement they generated; in connecting content with people, one post at a time. [For an explanation of the methodology used to create our 2016 Social Standout top 10 lists, click here. Although Share Rocket tracks performance on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the examples in the links of each entry are exclusively from Facebook because that social network easily produces the highest amount of engagement and provides more
variation and creativity from post to post than Twitter or Instagram. However, the rankings of our top 10 lists are based on combined data from all three networks.] WNYW WNYW 1 Fox O&O New York, NY Market No. 1 Working in the largest market in the country has some distinct advantages (namely, some of the most active tower cam live videos you ll ever see and a mountain of beautiful Instagram pictures of your city from both residents and tourists), and WNYW definitely makes the most of its large audience. The station finished No. 3 in the country in overall engagement in our analysis, but it was not just a matter of size the station finished second in the country in both engagement-to-audience ratio and engagement-per-post. The quality was there, too. The station makes good use of behind-the-scenes and post-show video and gets huge response even on things as simple as celebrity birthday shout-outs. WNYW dove into Facebook Live feet-first, from political rallies to chopper shots and their followers were quick to jump on board, too. They also made use of their partners to find content that would drive engagement and repurpose it. Pair all of that with a good eye for video with viral potential, and you ve got the No. 1 station in the country on social media in our analysis. WTVT WTVT 2 Fox O&O Tampa, FL Market No. 11 Fox s Tampa station has a magic touch when it comes to snazzily-edited, highly-shareable social videos. And many of them have an appeal that is largely universal, so their reach goes well beyond the Sunshine State. The station provided streaming hurricane coverage for viewers in the path of storms, but also found some more unique wins in live video. WTVT had a big viral hit late in the year with by sharing an eagle s nest live cam that many
followers around the country spent a large amount of time tuned in to. The station s staff clearly has an eye for great video, from time-lapse sunsets to holiday jaunts. That included video from other Fox stations here, WTVT borrowed live video from WNYW to get a bump in engagement. Another great approach to drive enagement was live chats, like this one with lawyers at the station. WTVT finished 1st in the country in engagementto-audience ratio, as well as in the top five in two of our other four key performance indicators. The station also finished the highest in average market Share of any of our 2016 Social Standouts top 10 stations. KABC KABC 3 ABC O&O Los Angeles, CA Market No. 2 Finding and highlighting the emotional heart of a story is the key to writing an effective Facebook tease or drawing followers into watching a video, and KABC was among the best in the country at doing it. Sometimes it s just about pairing the right text with a link. Other times, video borrowed from a content partner (or parent company) just needs a little emotion that can be quickly read while scrolling through a timeline to get followers to slow down and look. Whether tugging at the heartstrings, sharing gripping moments caught on video, or getting the audience riled up at crime or injustice, the station gets the most from stories both within and outside their market. KABC finished 1st in the country across three of our five key performance indicators, including total engagement, engagement-per-post (factoring in audience size), and in average SEI score throughout the year. WLS 4 WLS ABC O&O Chicago, IL Market No. 3 Another station that takes advantage of the beautiful city in which it resides, WLS was also very successful at finding video opportunities early into Facebook Live s rollout. They also had some unique ideas around it, like the Friday Flyover. And the Cubs winning their first www.sharerocket.com
World Series since 1908 made for a ton of great social content for WLS and the other stations in the market. However, it was not all light and breezy content. The station also aptly covered the gun violence plaguing the city, stories behind it, the emotional toll in its wake. Whether it was critical coverage of severe weather, funny on-air moments, or important breaking news, the station made itself indispensable to its audience. WLS finished 2nd in the country overall in total engagement and 3rd in two of our other key performance indicators. WJW 5 Tribune-owned Fox affiliate Cleveland, OH Market No. 19 WJW s top posts from 2016 are about as varied as any station in our Social Standouts top 10. From sports to live video to shared content from viewers to coverage of big national events, the station made its presence known. While Chicago might have gotten the World Series win, WJW used the Cleveland Indians run to the Series to its advantage for social media wins along the way. Anyone who doubts Cleveland s credentials as a sports town need only look at the engagement driven by WJW s posts in the fall to be proven wrong. The station did a great job of getting Facebook Live updates from its reporters to the main page in serious coverage and more fun content. WJW was well-rounded in its performance, as it was the only station in the country to finish in the top 40 of all five of our key performance indicators. WXIN 6 Tribune-owned Fox affiliate Indianapolis, IN Market No. 27 Indianapolis had its share of heart-wrenching headlines this year, and WXIN made impactful social posts out of most of them. More of the station s hits on social media are focused on local news than some of its larger market counterparts. That focus on quality local news is something you see less of in the age when station groups share their most successful content with the click of a mouse, but WXIN s 2016 success proves local audiences are still very interested in local content when stations do it right. The station finished in the top 10 in the country in average SEI. www.sharerocket.com
WFXT 7 Cox-owned Fox affiliate Boston, MA Market No. 9 Putting in a little bit of extra effort to make something your own can pay dividends on social media, and the Fox affiliate in Boston is fantastic at it. Usually, it s a social video that has been edited with the format in mind. But sometimes, even some simple station graphics over the same breaking news post everyone else in the market is bound to have is a great way to include your station s name and local credibility to the content. WFXT even includes its branding on Facebook Live video from time to time. People gravitate to the news sources they know and trust. WFXT reminds followers who s providing the news often, and they keep coming back. The station finished in the top 25 of three of our five key performance indicator categories. WHNS Meredith-owned Fox affiliate 8 Greenville/Spartanburg, SC & Asheville, NC Market No. 37 Controversial officer-involved shootings and the protests that followed them were a major news topic throughout 2016, and WHNS s coverage of those events created a high level of engagement for the station on social media. Overall, Fox Carolina News had a big year for hard news, keeping their followers up to date on everything from severe weather chances to the tragic shooting at Townville Elementary, and often included Facebook Live video in its coverage. WHNS is in the smallest market of any station that made the cut for our 2016 Social Standouts top 10. The station was 11th in the country in engagement-to-audience ratio and 9th in the country in average SEI in our analysis. www.sharerocket.com
KIRO 9 Cox-owned CBS affiliate Seattle, WA. Market No. 14 KIRO is one of the most creative stations in the country when it comes to the use of Facebook Live. The station uses it in ways many other do, like live chats and news conferences. But you ll also find more original uses, like this chant left for the page s followers to complete, updates on breaking news that switch to a graphic letting viewers know where to look for more information when there is no video to share, or even a stream of the first block of their newscast. Going all-in on Facebook Live seems to have worked KIRO was one of the top 10 stations in the country in audience-to-engagement ratio and had the 14th-most total engagement. WAGA 10 Fox O&O Atlanta, GA. Market No. 10 WAGA s all-around solid performance was enough to round out the Social Standouts top 10 stations. Looking through WAGA s timeline, you ll notice a lot of the best practices from other stations on the list rolled into one. Well-edited social video? Check. Heart-warming local stories? Check. Gorgeous tower cam shots? Check. Funny video with their on-air talent? Check. Raw, emotional moments caught by the camera? Check. The station also brought a high-interest local trial to its social audience through daily Facebook Live videos from the courtroom. That good mix of content elevated WAGA to the top 10 in the country in engagement-to-audience ratio and 6th in total engagement.