- We monitor Facebook and Twitter as some of the presenters suggested to do if we care about social media influence. We can top this by confirming that our CEO has done a video that is spreading via YouTube and viral channels. In fact, we believe that our customers are engaged.So what? How much does this all matter when looking at the bottom line?Here we tell you more about how BBC is trying to cope with social media.
In fact, BBC is often conveniently forgetting how slow it seems to respond to viewer requests regarding malfunctioning services it offers online. Much of its online offerings fail to work properly and have been failing users for more than 12 months.
Find out – read on and learn why BBC may have learned to engage but failed social media 101 miserably even after having repeated it for the third time!
11 days ago I attended the social media influence conference in London. Some of the impressions and ideas I gained from this gathering I have shared here:
SMIuk08 Conference – should you ban Facebook?
SMIuk08 Conference – ‘Be passionate’ ‘monitor Twitter’ is the call
SMIuk08 Conference – marketing 2.0 – are you innovative?
SMIuk08 Conference – so blogs are dead – is your CEO’s video on YouTube the answer?
Have a look at the above links to get a better insight into what this great conference all offered (tidbits, gossip, techniques, tools, trends).
Has TV news managed social media and succeeded in engaging its viewers?
The last presentation dealt with the above topic. Below I list some of the tweets that occurred during Pete Clifton’s (Head of Editorial Development, Multi-Media Journalism, and BBC) presentation
MarkJones:@SMIuk08 there’s been a transformational moment — it’s now 25 pct. Has changed the way we think about video – commission what most relevant
jangles:Pete Clifton: putting videos on BBC News site ‘transformational moment.’ #SMIuk08
MarkJones:@SMIuk08 Pete Clifton (BBC) phenomenal change in habits since we embedded video – conversion rate used to be 2 pct would clikc on videolink
Cybersoc :#smiuk08 Clifton talking about BBC’s “big change in mindset” – now pointing people towards debate off bbc.co.uk.
So what has BBC’s online presence really accomplished? We are clueless about how many comments people leave before or after a news feature with BBC online. No surprise, considering that some of this technology fails to work properly at BBC sites – has failed to work properly for more than 12 months – yes 12 months it is, see here:
Tidbit about BBC News Blogs – Posting Comments is a Nightmare
Nevertheless, Pete Clifton gave us a very interesting update about the BBC’s efforts regarding responding to their viewers’ concerns, interacting, blogs and much more.
My take on this engagement business
Remember the old days when we programmed our VHS player to tape our favourite show or news hour. In turn, we then watched it at a time, which was convenient to us. In North America, we fast-forwarded the type during commercial breaks, of course.
So here, you have an educated customer who uses Twitter (she also attended this session) and she does enjoy the non-virtual things in life as well, such as:
tayler: have clipped, mowed, pruned, cut back, rearranged, replanted, watered the garden. Now sitting back and admiring the results. Such individuals are those that I consider to have an active social live. In turn, time to watch videos online and participate in any kind of forum run by BBC is a bit limited. I am not even sure if such viewers would want to take the time to do so.
For some people like myself, why should I go to the trouble and download a news video clip to watch it on my PC or TV. Fact is there will be a re-run in 30 minutes (e.g., BBC World).
Getting news online – reducing your biggest time waster
For me it is obvious that I have failed to grasp what the objectives were that BBC intended to achieve with its online presence and keeping its viewers engaged. What does BBC mean with having learned to engage and has this affected any key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics?
So unless we can learn from BBC what this has all meant for the bottom line I am still a bit puzzled what good it does for my viewing experience or BBC costs and revenues. Can you clarify this for me, please do and leave a comment below.
I for sure know that my current customers and potential clients are not those that take the time to download BBC news videos or to participate in the BBC online community such as posting comments on stories posted on the internet. Nevertheless, maybe I just missed when Pete Clifton addressed this issue but if I did, so do my fellow delegates as far as I can tell from checking Twitter.
tracking Social Media Influence Conference on Twitter
tweetscan – what happened during the SMIuk08 conference on the Twitter back channel?
Check out
BBC Click Online fails social media 101 and looses trust with story about Facebook
Get ready for SMIuk09 – the conference you have to attend if you want to hear about the latest trends in social media 
(my sales pitch for this Sunday). Sign up here, because you will be glad you did:
following SMIuk09 on Twitter – 08 success to be repeated with 2009 event – be there
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