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Today Media Post (reg. required) ran a story about a study directing local TV news to go where young people are — i.e. social networking sites — to reclaim lost viewers. Granted the study did caution that local news should consider “young social-networking customs,” but it didn’t exactly provide much additional direction. I agree with the conclusion that young people are open to relevant, contextual, “social” news on these sites, and figured I would post a few suggestions for local news stations before they start developing apps and attempting to chat up or friend random young people.

Everything on social networks is about the size of your friend/fanbase
Apart from buying ads and showing up in relevant places, how much you can do on these sites depends on how many connected friends and/or fans you have. Still, this doesn’t happen overnight and can backfire if it feels spammy. If I were a local news person charged with spreading the word on social networks, I would immediately hire young interns who are extremely well connected, especially locally, i.e. lots of young friends in the area, and make them your evangelists. They can help build your social network and keep your page/profile updated with relevant compelling content.

Create fan pages for popular on-air broadcasters
If you have an anchor who is a beloved personality in your local community, create a page for him and have an intern keep it fresh/updated. If the anchor is open/willing have him or her periodically participate as well by posting video blogs, photos or other fun extras that give “fans” of your anchors content that feels more personal.

Search for active, general local groups
Local networks, whether it’s your high school, college, hometown or current city of residence are a big part of many user profiles as are groups based on these local affiliations. Local news folks should find active local groups and offer an RSS feed of local headlines for admins to plug in when appropriate. The biggest San Francisco group on Facebook has over 1K members.

Look for issue-oriented groups in your local community
Are environmentalists fighting a new incinerator or dump? Is there a group focused on fighting gun violence in a particular neighborhood or protesting plans to open a new Starbucks? By joining these groups, you can again offer admins an even more customized issue-based RSS feed they can plug in with related headlines to keep up to date on a particular issue. Also, be sure to connect with charities and events on these sites your news station already supports, i.e. the AIDS Walk or a big street festival. RSVP to these events (and have your anchors do so as well) and offer to post videos/coverage, news stories, etc.

Create local news tune-in events
This would need to be done sparingly when there is a cool youth-oriented story or feature – maybe pick one or two a month to promote to your local fan base, allowing folks to invite their friends. Consider doing this with profiles that involve young people who may be on these social networks as well. Give them the heads up and encourage them to invite friends and family to attend/tune in.

Last but not least, you can always try advertising in a way that surfaces your pages when people are searching for people, events or groups in your local community. Feel free to add other ideas for local TV newsers who want to reach youth on social networking sites in the comments!

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