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Note: One of the comments on this particular post point out that another person also had written a post pointing out the obvious lack of web savvy by the local news stations. Here is a link to that post.

I use twitter very actively and I believe in Social communications across the board. Due to a recent barrage of local, Spokane Wa., followers of my twitter account, I stumbled across the web services of our local news teams. We have 4 network affiliates. Krem2 – CBS,  KXLY4 – ABC, KHQ6 – NBC, KAYU28 – FOX.

Out of almost a sense of obligation I wanted to follow my local news teams for up to date weather, largely because we’ve made national weather and the weather has been bad around here so far this year. What I learned was a little distressing because in todays web world I expect my news teams to have a clue about what’s going on in the world of technology.

First thing I learned, there is only one news person of any ilk paying even slight attention to anything on twitter. He is the Gadget Guy from KXLY tv. I don’t want to get into my opinion of what he’s doing, suffice to say I know a lot of people a lot more gadget savvy than he is.

The heart of the problem for me was how web 1.0 these TV stations present themselves. It’s disgraceful! My award for absolute WORST website of all of them is KHQ, which is hardly surprising when you consider they have no representation in the socnet arena at all. None. Probably the best represented with less clutter was KAYU.

What makes KHQ a 1.0 website you ask and what does that even mean? Several things.

First, one of the things that happens when you land on their site is a pop up ad. I didn’t think those were even done anymore. That has got to be one of the single most annoying things anyone EVER decided was a good idea. And their ad is particulalrly intrusive.

Second, all the sites have ads, but KHQ has the most ads and the most clutter.

Third, a website should be easy to navigate, have a list of headlines, archived pages for reference and not a lot of stuff to distract. People are easily annoyed with all the garbage they have to wade through. KHQ, again, hasn’t figured out how to limit the number of things on a page and only have the TOP stories there in an easy to navigate site.

To be fair, none of the websites were great at their design. Here’s a quote from my partner, Ken Camp:

In the Internet world, brands and advertising are at much greater risk. The real estate available to work with is typically something around 1280 pixels high and 800 pixels wide (or thereabouts). But the attention span of an Internet user may be slightly shorter than that of a flea (at least speaking for myself).

Misuse our time on the Internet, and your life can be ended with one click. One click and you’re history. Two clicks, and you can be blocked into the abyss forever; your message buried and forgotten for all time.

Something that bothers me about the way our local media is connecting with, and representing their TV Stations to, the community can be summed up by another quote from an earlier post here:

I can’t count the number of times I’ve talked about the human social need to form communities. Twitter is such a community. The strength and value comes from people.

When people represent a brand, like RichardatDELL for example, good things happen. Richard has brought a human face to Dell because he engages as a person. As an individual, Richard reads, follows, engages in conversation and participates in the community. People add value.

I think one of the most important aspects of the engagement we see in the social networking communities today, whether they be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or some other place, is that people are truly connecting with people. The power of the Internet lies in people. It hasn’t been that long ago that the marketing buzz/hype was all about content. Many of the carriers still believe content is king, and are trying to find a way to monetize content. They are doomed to fail.

All these news people, brands, etc pretending to engage with ‘us’ in social media like twitter, might as well not bother rather than throw up a site that isn’t engaging, or putting up a dummy account on twitter where no engagement happens at all.

One thing Ken and I try to explain to people all the time is how important engagement is. A Television station who suggests to it’s employees that someone put an account online so they have presence is sorely mistaken if they think that gets them brownie points with anyone. It doesn’t.

I’d love to do an interview with the chief conversation officer or director in charge of social media engagement at these local stations. The problem I see is that they appear not to have one. How archaic.

Technorati Tags: KHQ, KREM, KXLY, KAYU, Gadget Guy, johnny5, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, twitter