KBIA Social Media & Website Analysis

In Fall 2021 in my Social Media & Audience Strategy course, we were tasked with doing an analysis for a client. Our client was KBIA and we did a full in-depth analysis of their social media and website accessibility, data, design, and strategy offering advice as to where they may need to make improvements. In this analysis, I acted as Account Manager as well as data analyst and strategist. I was tasked with going through their data, contacting the client as well as doing the initial research.

Transcript

1. KBIA Social Media and Website Analysis Alec Slonneger, Christion Rice, Luke Swezy
2. Objectives • Discuss KBIA’s audience, brand voice, and competition • Analyze the current state of KBIA’s social media and website ◦ Post, Design, and Analytics • Offer recommendations for KBIA’s social media and website
3. Brand Summary Brand voice - KBIA’s overall voice is serious, thoughtful and community-oriented. They are part of one of the most renowned news organizations, NPR. KBIA strives to provide a professional and distinguished voice. A voice that they know their educated audience would want to listen to. • Personality: Trustworthy, empathetic, knowledgeable • Tone: Professional, Local, Historical • Traits: Engaged and distinguished Competition - KOMU, Missourian, other news/talk radio stations, podcasts
4. Internal Brand Summary • Statement from website: To provide thoughtful stories that inform, engage and connect the community. We seek out undercovered issues and places and look beyond the headlines to provide perspective that expands understanding and inspires connection. We train the next generation of journalists to practice responsible, critical, ethical and innovative journalism, and above all, to be curious.
5. External view of the brand • KBIA’s internal goals match pretty well with their public perception due to strong brand identity as an NPR affiliate • KBIA’s audience knows what to expect from them • Well respected
6. NPR/KBIA Audience Profile DEMOGRAPHICS 54% Men 46% Women 52% Aged 25 to 54 22% Aged 18 to 34 35% Aged 35 to 54 69% College degree or beyond 37% Post graduate degree TRAITS 54% somewhat or very liberal 19% Somewhat or very conservative 68% Voted 94% Involved in public activities
7. NPR/KBIA Audience Summary Target audience • Columbia/Mid-Missouri residents • Millennials and Gen X (25-54) • Highly educated • Leaning liberal • Invested in the community • Closely follow the news and politics • Concerned with the environment and public health
8. Social Media Analysis
9. Social Media Platforms • Active ◦ Twitter ◦ Facebook • Existing ◦ Instagram • Options ◦ TikTok ◦ Linkedin
10. Current Facebook and Twitter Presence • Twitter: 8,673 followers • Facebook: 2,961 followers • Uniform posting style across Facebook and Twitter ◦ Caption + link to article with an image preview • 1-2 posts daily
11. Lack of engagement on Facebook and Twitter • With the amount of followers on each platform, you’d expect more engagement, but most posts get very few reactions • Both platforms get very few likes. • The post formula doesn’t allow for much engagement. ◦ Short caption & link to story
12. Current Instagram Presence • 254 followers • Last post: October of 2018 ◦ Lots of new features added to Instagram since then including longer videos and different photo dimensions • Most existing content follows the format of this example
13. Relaunching the Instagram • KBIA already has great, well produced video content! • Adapt existing content into video clips for Instagram feed posts or IGTV ◦ Clips under 1:30 would work well as supplemental content on Twitter and Facebook as well
14. Relaunching the Instagram • Recommend posting 2-3x a week for feed posts • Daily Instagram stories • Content should vary to include video clips and posts promoting web stories • Prioritize shareability
15. Overall Social Media recommendations • Start using the Instagram page again, it suits the content being created for the podcasts • Higher frequency in posts (2-3x daily) • Utilize photos, graphics, and video clips to create a variety of engaging content
16. Overall Social Media recommendations using the Feedback Loop • Focus on story selection and audience needs ◦ Not all stories get posted on social platforms, always post the stories that fit the interests and needs of the audience • KBIA’s posts with the highest engagement in the month of October ◦ Barbara Buffaloe on Paul Pepper, CPS approves wage increase for bus drivers and protestors call for reinstatement of mask mandate ◦ What do those stories all have in common? ▪ Receive positive feedback from a liberal-learning audience ▪ Example: KBIA’s audience wants to share good news about things like vaccine developments while commenters for the newsrooms want to get in fights over it
17. Website Analysis
18. Impression of Website Design • The home page operates as a single column • Text side for subheadings is small (NPR Top Stories, Missouri News, etc.) ◦ Larger titles would make it easier to navigate ◦ Missouri News was listed last on the homepage, based on the needs of your audience that category should be prioritized
19. Notable website analytics: bounce rate • Google Analytics, “Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.” • KBIA has a bounce rate of 50.7% • According to similarweb the average bounce rate for News & Media is 33.6%
20. Current Website
21. Current Website
22. Suggested Website Change • Create a recommended stories tab to help retain traffic on the website ◦ Use the tags on each story to determine what similar categories a reader would be interested in • Include promotion of a podcast on the sidebar of all web stories
23. Search Engine Optimization Consider how a headline feeds into search engine algorithms • Prioritize important keywords • Keep headlines concise • Think about what terms someone would be searching for that would lead them to your story
24. Search Engine Optimization Example: - Current headline: State Board of Education focusing on raising minimum teacher salaries Rewritten to prioritize SEO: - Raising minimum teacher salaries a priority for Missouri State Board of Education
25. Website Accessibility
26. Importance of accessibility • Making all content accessible benefits all readers ◦ 61 million adults in the U.S. have a disability • Prioritizing accessibility promotes inclusivity
27. Website accessibility Alt text on KBIA original content: the back of two radio producers are facing you. Between them you can see two standing audio booths - a black soundproofing box on a tall pole - and the individuals who stand with them” Caption: “The Missouri on Mic team has been traveling all over the state during 2021 - gathering the stories of Missourians at events like the Missouri State Fair in August”
28. Website accessibility Alt text on story from KCUR hosted by KBIA: Curtis, Nebraska has had a program in place for years to incentivize new resident. The town of 800 people gives away free plots of land to anyone who builds a house in the community, and hands out checks to those who enroll their children in the local public schools Caption: Curtis, Nebraska has had a program in place for years to incentivize new resident. The town of 800 people gives away free plots of land to anyone who builds a house in the community, and hands out checks to those who enroll their children in the local public schools
29. Website accessibility Better alt text example: A sign welcoming visitors to the town reads: “welcome to Curtis, Nebraska’s Easter City”
30. Accessibility recommendation • When posting stories from your partners (KCUR, STL Public Radio, NPR, etc.), make sure to manually add proper alt text to images even if the original content did not have it
31. Analytics
32. Why use analytics? • Spot trends • Understand consumer behavior • Improve overall product
33. How it helped us • Understand KBIA's consumer • Strengths and Weaknesses • Where we can make suggestions
34. Facebook Analytics
35. Facebook Analytics v. Other Newsrooms
36. Facebook Consumer
37. User Analytics (10/15/2021 to 11/10/2021) Average 3 engaged consumers per day Average reach of 138 Average impressions of 141
38. User Analytics (10/15/2021 to 11/10/2021) 70 likes, 4 comments, and 0 shares Average engagement per post 2.2% Iconosquare 3.2%
39. Recommendations
40. Social Media Manager • Establish and maintain a uniform social media voice and presence • Can help with increasing engagement • Grow audience • Track social media and website data
41. Social Media Brand Guide • To ensure consistency across all platforms, we recommend adopting a social media brand guide • Focus on brand voice • Include community guidelines and protocol for when the brand responds to comments • More creativity and new ideas for creating engagement
42. Social Media promotion of podcasts
43. Optimization • For example, $10 a day x 7 days ◦ This would reach 600-1.7K people ▪ Target: the 25-54 age segment within a 50 mile radius of Columbia • People Who Match Interests in Economics, Charity and causes, Higher Education, Current Events, Community issues, Law, Environmentalism, Politics, Volunteering, Sustainability or Religion ◦ Government Employees and Legal Service workers are targeted by their occupation as well. • Education Level: College grad, In grad school, Master's degree or Professional degree ▪ This could lead to a maximum of a 50% increase in followers. We believe this is a good ceiling given a safe budget of $70. ▪ A social media budget should be considered as this is an efficient way to gain a sufficient amount of engagement. ▪ Our proposal was designed with cost-restraints in mind until we learn more about the extent of their budget.
44. Listen to audience • Ask your audience what they would like to hear/read about • Remind radio audience to follow on social media • Create engaging post/polls/interactions
45. Q&A