TVCOM - Social Media in a local Brazilian TV Channel
TVCOM is a local TV Channel in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It shows a variety of programming: journalism, entertainment and sports, with a focus on local issues, along with broadcasting the major cultural, political and sport events throughout the south of Brazil.
With more than 3 million potential viewers, the content can be watched on cable, UHF transmission or in the website (www.tvcom.com.br).
The social media strategy is focused on Facebook and Twitter. Their facebook page has 15.300 likes. Their posts are related to local breaking news, what will be broadcasted that day in the the entertainment shows, and even content (like photos and videos) sent by the viewers. The cover photo on changes periodically, depending on what´s happening in the city (Porto Alegre). On 11/11/2013, for example, the city was suffering with the rains and some areas were flooded. Because of the importance of this subject for the local viewers, the cover was the following:
The current strategy is to bring the viewers from TV to the social media area, informing and involving them with breaking news and the programming. Other important aspect is that TVCOM is a part of GRUPO RBS, the largest media corporation in the south of Brazil. The corporation runs newspapers, radio stations, tv channels, besides other businesses. Thus, some content can be shared among the websites and pages. For example, in the TVCOM facebook page, they link content published on the newspaper site (zerohora.clicrbs.com.br):
Their main strategy for facebook is to focus on the tv channel page (facebook.com/tvcomrs), but the most important shows have their own pages:
These pages don´t have a huge number of likes, but they have their own viewers that probably are more interested on the programming of their favorite shows (maybe only) than the whole TV channel content posted on the main page. This is the reason they don´t give up on these smaller pages. They have an audience that demands information and content.
How the main facebook page (facebook.com/tvcomrs) works? Actually, they don´t have a big team designed just for that (who has?). They have a journalist and an intern, plus the help of the newsroom. Mostly of the photographs used on the page are taken by someone of the newsroom, but sometimes they have content sent by the viewers. In this case, they use the images that are related with something important happening in the city (the local factor is the most important). For example, a viewer sent images from the flood this week. This kind of images are important, not only to make the viewers closer, but also to report breaking news from areas away from the reach of reporters:
The heavy rain and subsequent flooding this week in Porto Alegre is a good example of the way social media is being used for this TV channel. Taking Monday as an example. First, they have the reporting about the weather conditions (during the morning, to help people that are leaving home for work, school, etc.). After, they ask the viewers to send content (images, videos and information) to publish it in the facebook page. Some of the content published come from people in the streets (following the situation by facebook or twitter) and some comes from the newsroom reporters broadcasting or producing the TV content.
Being a local TV channel, the strategy is to keep informing and involving the viewers. Broadcasting local breaking news, sports and entertainment shows is what the channel does. The facebook page has the purpose of add something and, besides that, allow some meaningful interactivity for the viewers. Not always this can be done, but keeping the social media channels active and responding to the interaction made by the viewers is essencial to create and maintain a good image of a business concerned with what the consumer thinks.
Regarding to twitter, they have a bigger audience (something around 21.280 followers) but they drawn less attention to this network. They still tweet, because depending on the programming the twitter has a specific audience that likes to interact. For example, some breaking news or sport shows always use twitter as a way to talk with the viewers and receive feedback.
About marketing, the current number of likes on facebook or followers on twitters keeps growing. A year ago, they made several contests and promotions on facebook to attract viewers. It worked and the number of likes grew. Nowadays, they are trying to keep the viewers they already have and keep the numbers growing, even more slowly.
Concerning the management of the social media, they already do a great job, responding to the purpose they signed for (inform and involve people in the local issues). The things that could be done differently demand specific work (and people) that may not be available for them now. I believe it would be great if they could develop some special content for the facebook page or their web site. The videos displayed in the website are the same already broadcasted on television. This is an important thing, allowing the viewers to catch up with some show they missed or re-watch something they liked. However, it would be better if they could produce and publish specific and original content just for the web. The problem is that it demands people to produce, record, edit, and the small team that exists is already full of work reporting the breaking news on the page, editing and posting the broadcasted videos and curating the social media.
One solution for the short term is to integrate even more the newsroom to produce specific material from their shows to the web. The web team, being really reduced, can´t spend their time doing that because of their own responsibilities. In this way, for example, if someone in the sports newsroom that know about infographics could produce a small video summing up the preparations for the World Cup events in the city, this content could be published directly in the website. Besides that, there are a lot of subjects that don´t have the opportunity to be on TV (because of the short time or other issues) and could be explored better on the web. For the entertainment shows, backstage footage with musicians and celebrities is always something that draws attention.
Thinking about the contents sent by the viewers it is important to notice that most of it is published raw or almost like this, without any treatment, producing or editing. For breaking news it doesn´t matter, because the important thing is to be fast and true. However, for entertainment shows a better production could be done, with web exclusive reportages and better producing/editing. This would demand time and people, but it would show that the network wants to offer more than the usual for the viewers.
Another problem that local news have is that the number of viewers/readers for each neighborhood focused news page or website is inherently small. If this number is sliced further and further down, it gets smaller and smaller audiences. Because of that, it could be hard to have advertisers that support big projects just for the web. Thereby, a good solution remains in the cooperation within the newsroom. Having several shows and a wide variety of programming it could be easier to make a schedule of producing web content. Once a week, for example, each show could produce and publish a special content designed for the web.
In the meantime, there is always the issues of how much it would cost or the time the journalists would have to dedicate to these tasks. Anyway, it´s time of paying attention in the web and the importance of good quality content produced for this media. Maybe, one or two editors could be designated to edit web content. The newsroom journalists could start, with the production, some reporter or even the producer himself could record or write, or depending on the complexity just one person could do everything. It´s the multimedia storytelling world, isn´t it?
Summing up, social media can´t be treated as just one more thing. It attracts people to business, integrate them and allow to understand how to be better with the interaction provided. All around the world, many newsrooms are losing personal. Understanding that with digital content a journalist can reach more people could help to keep a job or, maybe, innovate in the area. In the newsrooms is the same. Innovation and multimedia tasks are the key to tell stories nowadays. With these ideas, a journalist can spread his work beyond the borders of his regular viewers/readers. To conquer new followers or to reach the one´s that are far away for some reason is something rewarding to any storyteller. Learning how to be better on this isn´t a one way path. In the social media era, there are a lot of ways and channels turned on, and listen to them is really important.
