There is a lot of talk and buzz about how social media and traditional media are interacting with each other, and how it is affecting traditional media companies like CBS. Here at WCCO, we have chosen a strategy a little different then most traditional media companies, and I thought I would share a little bit of how we are doing.
A lot traditional media companies are trying to create their own social networking sites/microsites as part of their strategy. Our social media strategy has been more about pushing our content to existing social sites and creating a presence within those sites that is meaningful and authentic. The idea is not to just join Facebook and Twitter and expect people to just want to interact with us. The idea is to listen to our viewers, not just speak to them. I included an example of interacting with our viewers via Twitter in a screenshot below (I blurred the Twitter user name of the viewer).
I also thought it would be cool to share some interesting stats about how social media sites are driving people back to our traditional site. One of WCCO’s digital minds here at WCCO explored this topic last week. He pulled the number of unique referrals WCCO.com received from Facebook each month in 2009 vs. 2008.(see below for results).
This type of strategy is where the concept of The Wire was born. We have no plans on creating another social networking site, but we do have plans to be a part of people’s news consumption. If people want to consume news via social media channels, then we need to adapt to meet those needs.
