I instantly knew what 2 changes NEEDED to happen, immediately.
1. They need to post local news on ALL of their platforms, because that is why people are following them.
2. We needed to start repurposing the content that the reporters were already making into short form videos. Normally generating content would be the hard part, but that wasn't the issue here. They were covering 3-6 News stories a day, and not posting about them at all on their instagram. Meanwhile on their Facebook they posted so many articles that the local stories weren't standing out.
Television Edit
My Social Media Edit
*Unfortunately the station can't afford to send a videographer on every shoot, so the reporters often have to film and edit everything themselves. Unlike me, they don't have Adobe to color correct with so that's why the television edits are often inconsistent.
Even after just 2 weeks, we were seeing results.
And then the tornadoes hit that last week in April 2024...
I'll never know what the data would've looked like had the weather been normal, but I'll attach the data I was able to collect that month so you can assess the results for yourself. The most important detail is, we were able to get the word out to even more people now that we were actively giving updates through social media.
Now that we were getting the content we already had uploaded, it was time to start creating content specifically for Social Media.
We had a few test runs where News Anchors filmed themselves vlogging, as well as the Firefighters story to our left here where I joined a reporter on her shoot to film a vertical version of the story intended for the social media treatment.
I surveyed everyone at the company for ideas, and got a response from morning anchor Annette Campbell with some series ideas she wanted to make. After discussing the idea with the News Director and the Sales Department, it was decided that not only would we make the series but we would find a Title Sponsor for it.
And thus Mom's of Texoma: Summertime Edition was created.
I'm very proud of the fact that I was able to produce this series, from designing the logo, to choosing what music to attach to the videos when I posted them. Even advertisers must've been excited for it, because we were able to get a title sponsor the day we announced it.
On average these videos got between 5,000-17,000 views on Facebook. We produced 6 different episodes over the Summer and posted them every week (sometimes reruns). We tagged the sponsor in every caption and thanked them for sponsoring in every video. Since this was the first time the company sold a social media package, we also bundled it with digital ads to make sure the sponsor got value from it. *these videos had music attached on the social media platforms
This News Station's Facebook page became ranked #1 in the company after just 1 month.
After 2... We monetized.
When I started working with KXII, they only used their Facebook and Twitter as a place to post links to articles.
Their Instagram was full of stock images and automated weather videos than didn't provide any information.
Before
After
We had 3 reporters whose contracts were all ending at the same time, so we thought we would give them a big send off so people knew why they weren't seeing them anymore. The first video did really well getting over 30,000 views and overall positive comments, which was also the most transparent as the reporter explained that she was pursuing another opportunity. The others were kept vague and got a lot of comments from people who were sad to see them go. The sad response was considered negative by management so we decided not to continue the series even though it got a lot of attention. We considered doing introduction videos for new reporters, but haven't produced any yet.
The Goodbye videos
For 2 long days, I shadowed morning news anchor Kylee Dedmon as she and another producer created a dozen news packages. While they recorded horizontally, I got the vertical footage on a Canon R6, Go Pro, and my cellphone (batteries died in the process). After lots of fried food and an interview on a Ferris Wheel, these are the reels I made.
State Fair Coverage
To wrap up the work I've done with KXII, here are some of the television promos I've produced for them.
Social Media Promo:
Editing by Monica Reeves
Script written by Matt Griffin
*Most of the footage was provided from various newscasts
Weather Promo:
Editing by Monica Reeves
Improv by Talent Steve Lanore,
Brady Blackstock, Brian Briggs
Filming by Monica Reeves and
Aidan Williams
More Local News:
Production by Monica Reeves
News Promos
News Promos for television
My goal for this campaign was to fundamentally change the way the station utilized their social media pages so that they could promote what they needed, when they needed to. Not to do everything for them (unless they wanted to give me a full-time job to do it).
These are some things they were able to start doing after seeing the possibilities:
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Reporters sending in LIVE stories
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Created a Canva branding guide so their team could also create on-brand content as well as providing them with "Behind the scenes" images and videos they could post themselves
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Use story video templates I made for them to announce breaking news and severe weather
Everything I did as we developed the strategy:
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Surveyed the employees for ideas
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Created presentations to pitch new content
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Filmed content, edited videos, converted horizontal news stories to vertical for social media reels
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Created Youtube thumbnails, helped them start posting Youtube shorts
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Started using Instagram highlights
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Started posting stories promoting the evening news every weekday
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Created television and social media promos to get viewers to migrate to more platforms
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Joined reporters on their news stories to help shoot and create social media videos
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Cross-trained their creative services department to be able to do what I did
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Reviewed the Meta Business Suite analytics in weekly meetings with the team