The broadcasting industry and newscasters as a whole have struggled in recent years to adapt to the way social media and web-based content marketing have overtaken our everyday lives.

In many cases information spreads so quickly through those platforms that the newscaster almost seems behind the times when they finally get a chance to make their reports.

Fortunately, there is much to be learned from today’s digital marketing gurus which can be effectively applied to the science and art of broadcasting media.

Audience Identification

In the beginning, traditional marketing and even early digital marketing was based on the idea that the more people you could reach, the higher return you could expect. However, recent years have shown us that personalization and identifying closely with a small group of individuals actually has a higher payoff.

Studies show that when you connect deeply with a very targeted demographic they will become loyal to you long-term, coming back time and again, and even becoming ambassadors for your brand, sharing you to their friends and family. This is a free boost to your followership without buying up every spare second of air time to promote yourself.

Active Engagement

One problem that the broadcasting industry has had in recent years is that so much of their newscast material is reactive instead of proactive. Radio broadcast schools are now turning their focus to more active strategies for engaging audiences by encouraging the newscaster to follow trends closely, and create a buzz of excitement around their topics.

By actively engaging listeners and making a strong call to action you can push people to make decisions like never before, and you can track how successful your ads are when you see them searching online for your headlines. All it takes is a little bit of energy and planning to get people excited, and then you can tell them exactly where to find you and ask them to check it out right now. Everybody has a phone in their pocket or a computer at home with which they can look up your broadcast, your products, and more.

Concise Topics

If there is anything else we can take away from the digital marketing industry, it is that people have a much shorter attention span today than they did in the past. With so much social media and content being limited to just 140 characters or a quick link with a picture, people are no longer sitting through a 45-second ad to learn about what you’re promoting. They just want facts, quick and clean so that they can decide on their own if they are interested or not.

Today a newscaster can play to shorter attention spans by limiting their reports to the facts without any of the gimmicky tactics of the past. Headlines should be to the point, not full of fluff or speculation. Reports should answer the basics of who, what, when, where and why without dragging in irrelevant data or making too many disconnected segues.

Media Schools

Ultimately, broadcast media is going through a period of evolution where it is trying to keep up with the pace and style of newer digital mediums. A newscaster can learn from some of these techniques by looking at the ways people are currently interacting in the digital world and seeing what type of content gets the most engagement. Deliberately styling your newscast with that format in mind can revolutionize the way listeners interact with your broadcast as well.

If you are interested in a career in broadcasting, please visit our Media Schools online to learn more.