Social Media: From Newbie To Must-Have

Social media has become so important to legacy media companies that it now serves as a key driver of audiences and eyeballs.

“Facebook has replaced CNN and Yahoo as the primary referrer to our websites,” Jacques Natz, Hearst Television’s director of digital media said Thursday. “That’s money in the bank for us.”

Natz was one of four panelists who explored the benefits of social media at the Content & Communications Expo in New York.

“It’s really a one-to-one experience that’s really changed the way we market,” he said, adding that tools like Facebook help forge bonds with viewers. “When you get a response to your question from an anchor, that makes a difference.”

Panelists agreed there are enormous benefits of using social media to engage consumers, creating relationships that ultimately result in increased audiences and, in turn, appeal to advertisers.

But the return on investing in social media “can’t be measured in dollars and cents,” said Dan Shelley, Radio One’s general manager of digital. “The return is in influence and in the number of people you are able to engage and in the plethora of ways you’re able to engage with them,” Shelley said.

Today, Radio One has six times the number of people engaging with it via social media as it did 18 months ago, he said. Engaging audiences on those platforms has been vital in creating communities around Radio One radio stations, he added.

“The point of social media is to obviously create interaction with your audience and connect with your audience on a new and different level,” Shelley said. “By doing so, you create relationships that can grow and build and suddenly your audience is more than just an audience, but a participant.”

But creating a social media environment that piques — and keeps — audiences’ interest is actually a pretty big undertaking, panelists said. MTV Networks, for example, has 700 social media channels and employs 100 people to maintain them, said Jacob Shwirtz, MTV Networks social viewing director.

“Engagement is not just a digital media channel,” he said. “We try to be where our viewers and users want to be and want us to deliver content.”

Shelley agreed, saying that with the plethora of platforms and providers vying for users, media companies still have to give audiences reason to come — and return — to their social media outlets

“You have to give them a reason to come but you also have to close the sale,” he said. That could mean asking visitors to engage in conversation or participate in polls, for example. “You have to participate in the conversation,” he emphasized.