Local social media (1/4): News 9 leads OKC station numbers

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[Editor’s Note: This four-part series examines Facebook “likes” and Twitter activity among the local news media. Part one covers TV news, followed by newspapers in part two, then online-only outlets in part three, and finally an overview of all the media included in part four of the study.]

The following study is not scientific. Rather than pretend like this analysis has statistical significance, I instead present these findings out of lurid curiosity (part of which stems from NonDoc’s desire to orient itself within the local news landscape).

To say that the casually and randomly retrieved data reveal anything statistically significant would be like saying a pornographic film depicts a version of true love. Hence, what follows could be considered a type of “data porn.”

Leer away.

Methodology

The purpose of this study is to identify who among the most recognizable Oklahoma media outlets have the most dominant social-media presences on Facebook and Twitter as measured by likes, tweets, followers and those following.

TV news organizations in the OKC market

The OKC TV-media market is Oklahoma’s largest market, covering central Oklahoma and spanning west to Texas and north to Kansas. Stations were selected largely on the basis of my personal familiarity with them as players in the local news scene.

For example, KAUT Freedom 43 was omitted on the basis that it’s a subsidiary of KFOR and only has a morning show and, essentially, a preview of  KFOR’s 10 p.m. newscast. (For the record, Freedom 43 has 33 likes on their “Rise and Shine Morning Show” Facebook page, but 20,599 for the Freedom 43 channel as a whole.)

The two social-media platforms — Facebook and Twitter — were chosen because every news outlet included has at least one account on the two platforms. Although some media also have Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and, rarely, YouTube accounts, limiting the study to only Facebook and Twitter allowed more direct comparisons (apples to apples, if you will).

These data were gathered between noon and 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29. Since that time, some data have likely changed, so this report considers all cited data a snapshot of that particular time.

Facebook likes: News 9 wins popularity contest

KWTV’s News 9 is the most “liked” OKC-market TV news organization, with more than a quarter-million likes on Facebook. KOCO follows closely, trailing by less than a thousand likes. KFOR’s News Channel 4 rounds out the top-three, while Fox and OETA trail by margins in the tens and hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile, Spanish-language network affiliate KTUZ is the least “liked” local TV media outlet on Facebook, with a mere 46 likes.

Tweets: KOCO is the noisiest bird

For Twitter, @koconews is the noisiest TV station in town, with more than 79,000 tweets cast into the ether. KWTV has tweeted more than 56,000 times, and KFOR is edging toward 48,000. They are close to KOCO, but no cigar in regard to sheer volume.

Twitter followers: Another popularity contest

It’s one thing to be noisy on Twitter, but it’s entirely another to have people actually listening to what you’re tweeting. With regard to followers, @NEWS9 leads the way with almost 85,000 followers. @koconews places a distant second with regard to followers but still posts an impressive data point just over 60.6 thousand. It should be noted, however, that individual news anchors can also garner competitive numbers on Twitter. For example, @kfor ranks third by followers among TV stations in this study, but KFOR meteorologist Emily Sutton alone has more followers than the network as a whole.

Following on Twitter: News 9 follows its fans

Some stations seemingly seek to connect with the outside world more than others, and @NEWS9 again leads the way within the OKC TV-media category, following 6,719 accounts on Twitter.

It should be noted that, among those I have looked at, @NEWS9 is the only OKC TV outlet to place among the top-five of overall Oklahoma media with regard to following Twitter accounts. (Of all media outlets included in this study, The Tulsa World ranks first, following 8,726 Twitter accounts.)

In short, this snapshot of OKC’s TV station social media presence confirms that the big four networks, by far, dominate Twitter and Facebook. News 9 leads the way in both Facebook likes and Twitter followers, which means on any given day they have the highest potential click-through to drive traffic to their online sites. That, of course, looks good for advertisement rates, which could partially explain why the Oklahoma News Report on the state-funded OETA network doesn’t have the social media focus its for-profit competitors take. (KETA, for the record, is the channel frequency assigned to the OETA network.)

Feel free to follow all these stations yourself and draw your own conclusions about the type of content they distribute on social media. You can post your observations in our comment section, if you would like.

Tomorrow: Tulsa TV market stations

The “data porn” continues tomorrow with an examination of the top news outlets in the Tulsa market, which spans much of the eastern part of Oklahoma from Kansas to Texas.

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