With 344,145 Facebook fans and 78,056 Twitter followers, Los Angeles’ KABC is leading all local news stations in social media, according to Lost Remote. Cheryl Fair, vice president and news director of the ABC O&O, talks to the website about the importance of a strong online community:
As a news organization, we see social media as a way for our viewers to talk to us, and not just as a way for us to talk to them. Listening is important. Since starting our Twitter feed in 2008, we have made it a commitment to reply to comments and questions as often as we can. People will frequently Tweet us to let us know about what’s happening near them and to ask us for details. That carried over to our relationship with our viewers on our Facebook page. To accelerate our reach, we did a combination of community service campaigns and traditional sweepstakes, in addition to paying close attention to the news stories we post.