Snapchat: for the station?!
To start I actually didn’t know snapchat is being used for local news. And before I began researching this idea, I still wasn’t convinced it was. If I go to the “stories” page on the app, which broadcasts your series of videos to all your followers, there’s a “discover” portion where different networks and blog sites have their own snapchat channel. I found CNN’s, (I know not local) which actually ended up being kind of cool. As quoted on our homework page, Allison from Vox.com said the phone screens are smaller giving outlets a chance to use new ways to tell stories, like ten second motion graphics.
They use short videos of certain things that happened on television, or a news blurb with some illustrations and music. Vice also has a snapchat with a similar concept.
So I went out to seek a local news station that uses snapchat, beginning a search to see if Newschannel5 Nashville has one. They don’t. But I found a station in Huntsville that does have one and this is what I found.
What works?
I think the “my story” feature works well for news stations. I don’t think a station would ever snap viewers directly. I also wonder if viewers snap stations breaking news, that would also work in their favor. What I saw when I went through WHNT’s story is they would take a picture of something they’re covering on the web. For this example it was the recent news in regarding the OJ Simpson case.
Another thing they used snapchat for is they were having technical problems during a show and apologized and thanked their viewers. This is good for adding personality and showing viewers they care.
Quite frankly, I don’t think it should. I think snapchat is mainly used n a personal and almost silly way. To me it sounds like information overload when WHNT links to their other social media accounts. If I was a viewer who followed their Facebook, Twitter, and frequented their website I would get a little tired of seeing them.
What I think should be there is something the viewer can’t see like a tease to something or a behind the scenes. The video I referred to before where WHNT was apologizing for technical difficulties. I also noticed how on CNN’s snapchat (I know it’s on the discover), viewers have an option to read more if they want to hear more. I think if local news stations snapchats could somehow attain that option, they would benefit from that. For now local news stations should use snapchat to give personality to their brand.
Nick Bilton from the New York Times says:
that the social network gives the user a “real” snapshot of a moment or a person, rather than a carefully selected or edited view available on other social networks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/style/be-the-star-of-your-own-snapchat-story-.html?_r=0
How can we do this without looking dumb?
Sam Sheffer, The Verge social media manager shows a good example on how to do this:
There’s no written guidelines from an editorial perspective. We’re definitely still in the experimental phase. I have written some best practices for Snapchat, but to make it really simple, I just go with my gut and what feels right kind of thing.
For instance, we always give context, so you’re not just going to post something and post a picture. If you’re taking a picture of a person with a gadget in their hand. You have to tell people who that is, what the gadget is, and why they should care. You can contextualize by adding filters also — like the time filter, the geolocation filters, you can also draw on it, so that kind of thing.
Also making sure you’re taking the viewer somewhere they can’t go: event, sporting game sidelines, fire, certain restricted areas, etc…
And how do you teach the newsroom how to use Snapchat?
- Show how to effectively give our brand personality: in News7 we could show us getting ready, editing, or in the field.
- Effectively post breaking news: getting there, arriving, finishing, etc. Give the story a beginning middle and end just like you would a normal story.
All-in-all you can use snapchat for news stations, although it needs to be done effectively. Will I be following local news stations? Maybe in the future…
