Highlights
Grew advertising revenue by increasing audience.
Improved communication and collaboration through shared reporting.
“Rival IQ has the best approach for comparison the multiple dashboards, schedulable reports and clean graphics made it easy to see the value.”MATTHEW MORRIS, Consumer Insights Director, WUSA9
Overview
WUSA is a CBS-affiliate television station in Washington, DC. The news team needed a way to efficiently track social media reaction to news stories, measure the social influence for on-air talent, and improve recruiting of new on-air talent. The station rolled out Rival IQ across several departments to drive improvements in audience engagement, identify the power of breaking news, and increase advertising revenue.
Challenge
The rise of social media and instant news pose a challenge for television stations who need to find innovative ways to engage their audience.
For stations like WUSA capturing viewer attention means a heavy reliance on strong on-air talent who bridge the newsroom with social media. Their first priority was to find software to help with recruiting and evaluating new on-air talent and answer the nagging question, “are we bringing in the right people?”.
Solution
With social engagement critical for WUSA’s growth, the team looked to Rival IQ. “Rival IQ has the best approach for comparison,” said Matthew Morris, Consumer Insights Director, “the multiple dashboards, schedulable reports and clean graphics made it easy to see the value”.
Reports from Rival IQ now touch nearly every internal department from the General Manager to research and marketing.
Results
After adopting Rival IQ, multiple teams found ways to leverage the software to solve their problems. Both the Consumer Insight and Online News teams have utilized Rival IQ to improve their respective programs. They’re able to collaborate internally for planned content, which helps them grow in a multitude of ways . For WUSA, growth encompasses growing audience and engagement both for their station owned channels and individual on-air talent. This growth in audience and engagement leads to growing revenue with increased advertising, sponsorships and branded posts.
The two teams work together to create sponsored and branded posts related to paid segments on show. Finding new ways to create revenue is important to ensuring they continue to bring quality programming.
Reports from Rival IQ now touch nearly every internal department from the General Manager to research and marketing. These regular reports continue to show the value that their social investment brings the station.
Media companies face even greater challenges – as more and more news is consumed online and through social channels, sustained engagement is critical. Win at engagement and WUSA can win in growth and revenue. Rival IQ enables them to see how they stack up and identify how to shift that engagement to their channels, beating the competition.
For example, WUSA can see when their competitors post the same or related news story, and determine why their posts did better or worse. In a competitive industry like the local news, this insight is critical to success, enabling WUSA to learn and take action.
Additionally, Boosted Post detection has been key to understanding audience reaction to news stories. Rival IQ’s Boosted Post detection feature uses machine learning to understand when competitors are spending money to boost posts, and labels the posts. This clarity into audience reaction and competitors arms WUSA with the key insights to strengthen their own strategy.
To maintain balance the team must determine where to invest time, and which trends serve their goals. Rival IQ enables them to learn from their competitors and make better decisions about where to invest their limited time.
The talent at WUSA has been able to reap the benefits of Rival IQ through regular reporting. They’re able to identify what tactics they should be using, identify the content and channel that works best for them making improvements. Rival IQ gives them the opportunity to see how they stack up both internally and within the DC market. With this data, they are armed insight on what content is working, which types of media to post and how to grow. The internal team can then act as a resource to support them as they maneuver through the intricacies of social media. Over the last year, WUSA has been able to help their talent pool improve social engagement.
Like most social media professionals, the team at WUSA is up for trying new trends, but recognizes the need for balance. The news doesn’t stop – they need to keep up with stories and ensure the stories get traction. To maintain balance the team must determine where to invest time, and which trends serve their goals. Rival IQ enables them to learn from their competitors and make better decisions about where to invest their limited time.