One of my most memorable career experiences has been working in traditional media. In both experiences (WAPA Television and Uno Radio Group), there are unique challenges when integrating one emerging and quickly evolving medium into an older, firmly-established one. Here are three pieces of advice on integrating media digital and analog media.
Aim to Complement
If there is any critical advice you should take away from this read, aim to complement and elevate the media consumption experience. Powerful synergies can happen when one medium complements the other. One example of this is from the 2012 election, while in WAPA TV, we integrated tweets and audience comments into the newscasts. These were first tested in other shows, and the results were astounding, leading to opening these live tweets into sponsorships, as seen below. Social media here elevates the TV-watching experience by adding user opinions; in turn, television further expands the voice of tv viewers. While working on radio, listeners could find daily recaps, expanded talk show segments, and more in podcast formats.
Quantify Everything
On the production side, you will work with two types of people. The type who is all up for digital and will aid integration and bring ideas to the table, and the one who just wants to get it done will often see digital as interfering with their work. In either case, analytics data will validate your work and provide results. A great way is to be transparent and provide some analytics, even if these are optional. Creating this habit helps build trust, reveals viewer/listener preferences, allows for content optimization, and can yield new sales/monetization opportunities.
Befriend Production and Be Flexible
Being the “digital” person does not exempt you from learning the ins and outs of production work. You should ask around what people do and how things work if you don’t come from a production background. Expressing curiosity for others’ work opens the door to conversation and having others show more interest in your work. Show producers on TV and radio carefully plan their programs, so often, digital needs to be the more flexible partner to find the best fit within the producers’ work. Ideally, you will be embedded in production meetings and have an advanced copy of the show’s run down, which is critical to finding the best moments for digital activations.
While working on the music reality competition Idol Puerto Rico, our social media team worked hand-in-hand with producers. We collaborated by telling them who people on social responded best, what content they asked for, and more. This led to the creation of complementary content, giveaways, and more. This deep integration and collaboration won us the best-connected TV show in the 2013 Latin Social TV Awards.
My advice comes from my own experience. As live TV viewership declines against streaming services, there are opportunities to deepen digital & traditional integrations that can benefit both media & viewers. Aim to elevate the viewer/ fan experience and reward you for your efforts. Good luck!
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