By Steve Schwaid, CJ&N VP of Digital Strategies
Recent Facebook security issues provide stations with an opportunity to digitally connect with their users and viewers. 
Beyond day-to-day coverage of the privacy issues, this is the time for stations to showcase the trust and privacy of your own digital platforms.
Local news rates as one of the most trustworthy news sources. So showcase that message about your news across all of your platforms. Unlike Facebook, you don’t scrape personal info from posts. You don’t sell your data. Those are huge selling points these days. You’re a “safe space” they can trust.
Many of your viewers/users live on Facebook, scrolling the “news feed” as it updates before their eyes (even though some posts may be hours old). The Facebook newsfeed can be the one-stop shopping site for what’s going on right now. But these days, can users trust the Facebook newsfeed, which are sometimes loaded with questionable news stories and posts by bots? Maybe not. And beyond trusting the stories, do users trust their privacy is protected? Right now, they probably believe the answer is no.
So who CAN your users trust? Of course…
Viewers trust YOU every day as the source for local news an information. They know you don’t have bots. They trust you to have vetted the content. That’s an asset. Now is the opportunity emphasize that users can trust your digital platform with unique reporting and content.
To reinforce that trust, your site and pages must feel fresh and updated whenever the user checks in. For you, of course, the ultimate goal is to increase the number of users on your sites and their frequency.
Budgeting and staffing limitations pose challenges. Is there a way to emulate the Facebook newsfeed on your platforms by constantly surfacing stories from your site? Maybe drawing on stories several clicks deep on your site that many may otherwise never see? Maybe it’s worth a test with your platform provider. Can you increase frequency by better surfacing some of your content?
With all of the swirl around social media, this could be the time for local station sites to break through. And are you posting content users want? Listen to them. Ask them and share the research with a designed implementation strategy. Don’t assume what you air is what users want you to publish.
Trust is hard to earn. Users have shown in studies that they trust their local stations. Use that trust as your advantage to drive users to your platforms instead of Facebook. Create your sites so you fill that “newsfeed” itch.
For more information on how CJ&N can help you make your sites and pages hard to resist, send me a note at sschwaid@cjni.com
