It's an emergency: Inspiring users to help cover the news

Summary: When the Red River overflowed its banks creating a civic emergency in Fargo, North Dakota the local television station Web Site found a way to let viewers help cover the news, more than tripling traffic to the site.

Company: KVYL/KXJB television two stations sharing a web site
Media sites: ValleyNewsLive.com
Owner: HOAK, Inc.
Location: Fargo, North Dakota
Traffic: 3.1 pageviews and 108,000 visitors
Executives: Charley Johnson, station manager

Challenge: Two stations, KVL and KSJB TV in Fargo, North Dakota originally wanted to add user-generated video to its Web site, hoping to drive people back and forth between on air newscast and web site. They partnered with YouNewsTV to create a user-generated video channel. However, people did not automatically start posting.

“They have a deep seated propensity to go to YouTube, so its difficult to get them come back and post on your own web site.” Johnson says. The first effort at engagement was video-taped a sponsored marathon, with only moderate increases in viewers.

Strategy: When the state experienced a major flood in March, 2009, the station decided to have its on-air broadcasters invite viewers to post videos and photos of the flood in their area.

“It went crazy,” said Johnson. Hundreds of videos and photos were uploaded. The station also used the viewer-generated videos in live broadcasts to beef up flood coverage. After the flood some of the viewers became regulars on the site. “People will respond if you a. give them a reason and b. remind them,” Johnson says. Now the station is looking into Best Baby and Pet video contests to promote using the broadcast station.
Results: At height of the flood the web site usage shot up from 3.1 million to 13.8 million page views and from 110,000 to and 341,000 visitors. The average session increased 4 to 5 minutes to 9 minutes. On demand videos grew from 60,000 normally per month, in march to 201,000, a large portion of which were user generated on the YouNews channels.

Lessons learned:
1. User-generated content doesn’t happen on its own. “To drive a component of your web site like that you need to have an event” and promote it using offline media.
2. User-generated video is an important tool to cover community emergencies, strengthening the relationship with viewers. “It’s like having a bunch of stringers out there.”
3. To fully capitalize on user-generated video such as YouNewsTV, media companies also need a strategy for contests that create more sponsorship opportunities.

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.

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