With my second learning objective being around social media is it key to find where their social media is outputted and how similar brands do so, such as Radio 1, or Newsbeat (BBC Radio 1’s news service).
In regards to Newsbeat’s’ social media output, this spans Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with each of them having a different way of being approached and different content on each platform. For example with Newsbeat’s Facebook page, it heavily utilises video content which has varying places it has come from, for example, some clips are from other BBC Local radio stations or BBC Radio 5 live, or things from Radio 1/1xtra.
This shows that in terms of Newsbeat’s’ Facebook output it utilises a heavy amount of video content rather than static pictures to keep the viewer engaged. It is also worth noting that the video clips do not normally exceed 3 minutes in length so that that viewer stays engaged to the content rather than switching off halfway through due to it becoming boring.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/bbcnewsbeat/videos/
The next social media site is Twitter again this is used very differently to that of the others. Twitter does use video to an extent but this is not to the same level that the Facebook page uses however the length is still under a minute and there is often cross-promotion of videos as some videos that appear on Facebook may also be on Twitter. The differences are though that Twitter uses more links to other content such as Newsbeat articles. Finally, the advantage of the Twitter is that is that it is a lot easier to cross-promote content as Radio 1 can subsequently retweet things such as one of their presenters tweeting about the show or an artists tweet about them being on a show.
The next site that is worth mentioning is Instagram. Instagram is utilised mostly for short-form video content that goes in tandem with Newsbeats programming, or short form videos similar to that of Facebook.
. Alongside this are the photos that are put up on Instagram, these are not just photos of everyday things in the studio but more focused around articles or current affairs that are relevant to the audience they are targeting, such as Mark Zuckerberg.
https://www.instagram.com/bbcnewsbeat/
Ultimately what I need to grasp is that all the social media platforms have different roles but all of them should be utilised. This means that for our programme we would potentially create a 40-second video of the funniest bits to try and encourage the listener to tune in which would go on all 3 social media sites, to support this we could then take some photos of the recording session to place on Instagram to build a social media presence for our programme and get people to listen to the programme which is ultimately what you want to happen. Gaining an understanding of how social media is used in Newsbeat’s’ current output also allows me to fulfil my learning objective which is based on social media and learning how it is used in its current context to produce a multi-media presence for radio which is now more important than ever as has been demonstrated above and the frequency of the content that is outputted.
Leave a comment