The audience of the tv.ku.edu site grows every time we mention the site to a friend or student. I showed my friend the fried squirrel and he loved the picture and now he checks the site on a regular basis. A majority of the audience consist of friends who have heard about the site. So our first step is getting visitors, the second step is to keep them coming back.
The days with the most hits for last month contained some kind of unusualness, blood or crime. The start of the Murray trial, the fried squirrel and the Glee Club on the Price is Right appealed to our audience. These stories have different aspects that make them appealing to the target demographic.
The squirrel is a funny story that provided a great but gross vid along with great graphics. It treaded near that line of too much blood and guts and brought that idea of if it bleeds it leads mentality in a different light. Our audience wants to be able to chose their news and we gave them that option by letting them decide if they wanted to see the picture or not.
The Glee Club story contained the idea of unusual news. It's not every day that we see a KU student called to contestant's row, much less singing I'm a Jayhawk on national television.
The Murray has trial affected the community and has grabbed national headlines. Our viewers want to know what both sides are saying and the latest evidence. With a Web site, that information can be presented in a different context that will appeal to readers of our demographic who would rather look at brief chuncks of information than read a two-page article on the topic.
While we can never predict the news, we can enhance it to make it more appealing without throwing too much info at them. For instance, lets look at the interest in the Murray trial. Just looking at the numbers during the start of the trial we had 55,000 hits and one of the top searches on the site was Carmin Murray.
Our audience wants to hear what happened in the courtroom but if we present them with the same tired text of the prosecution said this and the defense said this style the will find their news some where else. Our audience hates to read and likes the pictures and visual elements. With the amount of information that is out there on this trial there are different ways to present the information that will appeal to our audience who want their information short and sweet and to the point.
It's just like the recent news with the BTK killer. There are so many stories out there about this crazy killer. When I visited a news site yesterday I didn't head directly to the news story. Instead, I checked out the extras that provided valuable information in a different way like the timeline on CNN.com that they have under related links. One final idea that I seem to continue to throw into every essay is the idea of interaction. Our audience has grown up with text messaging, email and cell phones. Just look at the craze of Instant Messenger or Facebook. Our audience wants to be heard and a way to do that is letting them have a voice. They can at least provide some ideas for a story. I know I have witnessed days in the newsroom when people go blank when it comes to story ideas, so getting some fresh ideas would help. We need to add an area where they can express opinion whether it be through a message board or by sending story ideas.
We can learn from the stories that have produced an audience and come up with new ways to appeal to our audience. Before long will no longer have to tell our friends about the tv.ku.edu Web site because it will become their stop for news.
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