KWTX Tops Social Media In Waco, Texas

KWTX is the leading local media performer on social media in Waco-Temple-Bryan, Texas (DMA 87),over the past six months according to data from audience insight firm Shareablee.

The Gray-owned CBS affiliate had 28% of the market’s total social engagement of almost 2.2 million total actions. It’s almost 619,000 actions in that period were most closely followed by Drewry Communications Group’s ABC affil KXXV with over 575,000 total actions.

KWTX’s performance is on the ascendance, too. It had 44% engagement growth over the previous six-month period with 43% growth on Facebook, 78% on Twitter and 450% on Instagram.

KWTX led Facebook with more than 599,000 actions there, though the market’s best performances on Twitter and Instagram were captured by other players. The Battalion won Twitter with over 44,000 actions, while Wacoan magazine took the sleepy Instagram space with nearly 34,000 actions.

Local fans/followers also flocked most to KWTX, which had over 212,000. It’s closest competitor there was again KXXV with almost 143,000.

KWTX News Director Mikel Lauber says social media is always a team effort at the station with all personnel treating it regularly as a major platform and no dedicated staffer overseeing it. That said, one of the station’s most important practices is to respond to every message it gets on social platforms so that viewers know they’re being heard. Lauber says that Social News Desk has been an important tool toward keeping track of those responses.

Just as important a practice is focusing on posts that are local in nature and not wrangling in viral national content just for clickbait’s sake. “We have a much larger percentage of our posts that are local content,” he says. “We’ve discovered that works very well for us.”

So does being honest about where posts are coming from. It’s bad practice to try to give out-of-market posts a local veneer, Lauber adds. “Viewers and consumers of social media want you to be clear and honest with them,” he says.