Category: The Daily Buzz

This week, The Daily Buzz social media reporter Morgahn Miller and I headed up to NYC to attend the CW Network’s upfront presentation. It’s an event when the networks, each premier their fall lineup for affiliates and the media. Since the DBZ airs on close to 100 CW stations, were sorta like an affiliate ourselves and went to help out our CW partners, and also grab some good entertainment coverage across some key demos.

We were given a visual index so that we remembered who each TV star was in the editing room – and to help relieve embarrassing interview situations on the carpet.

This is what I looked like behind the camera, shooting video and snapping iPhone pics.

Morgahn Miller and I headed up to NYC on business, but ended up doing a fair amount of sightseeing, as it was her first time in NYC. I love snapping pics, and Morghan is always willing to have her picture taken.

Promoting a syndicated news program comes with an extra layer of difficulty that you don’t get from promoting a news product in a single market. Airtime for promo spots is continually shrinking, and when you multiply that by hundreds of stations the picture only gets more grim. That’s where social media can help shore up some of the on-air deficit. You can engage viewers at work or on their mobile phones, reminding them to tune into the broadcast.

It Only Takes A Click

Part of my online strategy has been to push topical promos on Facebook, but since we’re still limited by our modest number of fans I enlisted help at the local level. Not only does it help the show increase reach, but it also give station Facebook pages (especially those that don’t have news) more content to keep their social media channels active.

This sort of video isn’t just for syndicated programs, you can easily create variations of this video to promote clients and other content partners to share. We’ve already seen incremental increases in reach just after a handful of affiliates joined in.

Moving into the next quarter, our promo strategy still rests on selling the new team and vibe of the show. While shooting our sales and syndication presentations I had the team talk about why they love being part of the show and what we deliver each morning. The show and some of our other promos are very motion graphics heavy, so I wanted to try something that was very clean and elegant.

Part of our rebranding challenge was to convince viewers that the new team and show was still the fun experience they were used to. Using a variation of the show’s opening theme song (produced by N*Sync’s Chris Kirkpatrick), I made this image spot that shows off the vibe and attitude of the show. It’s working. This song really gets stuck in your head. I got word from our Charlotte station that this promo is in heavy rotation throughout the day.

We’ll be updating it with new show footage regularly and pushing it out again every few months.

Here’s a quick spoof that my Creative Services team put together to air on The Daily Buzz ahead of the news about the new iPad Mini. Luckily, my producer/host Morgahn let us use her likeness and such for the spot. (note: We were able to produce this spot quickly, thanks in part to an amazing After Effects template project from videohive.net)