Whether you’re depending on pictures, videos, comments or information you can make them all part of your broadcast in three steps using SND On Air. 

• Curate Content (Grab content from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit & more)
• Style Your Content (Use templates that match your on-air look exactly)
• Go Live! (Decide an output and put your breaking content on TV)

New to SND? Click here to line up a demo or to learn more about Social News Desk!

The post SND On Air for Breaking News first appeared on Social News Desk.

Conan Gasque, WIAT’s noon anchor and multimedia journalist, uses SND On Air regularly for many stories of note, including Alabama’s primary elections. Most recently, though, he’s been covering some “good news” stories about businesses, organizations and people going the extra mile during the COVID-19 crisis.

Gasque uses Social News Desk’s search tools to curate content from local businesses and organizations in order to showcase how they are helping the Birmingham community using SND On Air‘s simple, powerful display tools.

Want to learn more about how SND On Air can add an interactive element to your newscasts? Contact your SND Client Success Manager or support@socialnewsdesk.com.

The post WIAT-TV Expands COVID-19 Coverage with SND On Air first appeared on Social News Desk.

I’m obsessed with this new tool. From a former producer to another. This has been great for “Social Media Responses” and “What’s Trending.”

Our social-display tool, SND On Air has re-launched to media orgs around the world, and the reviews are in – newsrooms love it! We’ve heard from TV stations who have been long-time users as well as stations – and newspapers! – who are trying it for the first time.

I really like the new set up, it gives me more control over the comments as they go out over the air. It’s also easier and quicker for me to create playlists.

– Megan Belcher, WEHT-TV (Evansville, Ind.)

WWLP, a TV station in Springfield, Mass., has been a long-time fan of SND On Air. They regularly feature viewer comments in their newscasts to give another dimension to their storytelling, one of the most popular uses of SND On Air.

Several newspapers have been trying SND On Air as a way to give their coverage more visual punch on the web and on social media! The URL-based output makes it easy to insert into tools like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) or even to embed in a story.

Appen Media Group, a newspaper group in North Georgia, tried out SND On Air for their Cadillac Jack podcast. The podcast features a beloved Atlanta-area country radio host in conversation with his wife, with their own spin on current events.

We saw some great political coverage from WIAT-TV in Birmingham, Ala., who put SND On Air to work for Super Tuesday. Reporter Conan Gasque highlighted reactions and analysis from their newsroom during continuing coverage.

Even longtime users of SND On Air love the updates, including faster media loading times, simple playlist control, and playlist and channel streams that live in the Dashboard, side-by-side with content streams for ease of use.

It looks great, and I love how it is seamlessly integrated in to the SND Dashboard.

– Tom Houston, WFMZ-TV (Allentown, Penn.)

While our free trial of SND On Air has come to an end, we’d love to show you what’s new if you didn’t get a chance to check it out! Get in touch with us at info@socialnewsdesk.com to set up a demo and learn more about how SND On Air can power your newsroom’s social display to make your newscasts and videos more interactive.

The post Local newsrooms LOVE the new SND On Air first appeared on Social News Desk.

BREAKING NEWS

When news breaks, it’s always a scramble at the assignment desk to get crews out the door and on the road. What if your viewers are already on scene and sending in photos and videos of what they’re witnessing? Or your reporter has posted a few photos and a video while their photog sets up the live truck… In no time, SND On Air can get those breaking news visuals ready for the top of the newscast.

As someone who worked in a newsroom for many years, I wanted to try it for myself. So I set the timer… and in under 2 minutes, I was able to build a playlist from images sent in from a viewer about a bank robbery and have it ready for air:

WEATHER

When severe weather hits, you’re likely ready for it with team coverage, pizza and an 8-box filled with live feeds. But you can’t forget about the thousands of viewers who follow you on social media and love to share what’s happening “In [their] neck of the woods (Al Roker).” Use the great photos and videos from your viewers to add additional color to what your meteorologists are presenting. And give them a much-needed break to sample the pizza and chug a coffee.

The beauty of SND On Air, is that you can continue adding content to your playlist, even when it’s already live on air, so you always have fresh content to come back to later in the coverage!

MORNING SHOW/TALKER

A great way to connect with your viewing audience is to showcase their comments on air. Morning shows are primed for this, but you can use a “talker” in any newscast. Pick an interesting story that’s going to get people talking. Maybe it’s your kicker in the D-block, or maybe it’s a local story that really has people sharing their opinions. Post the story on your Facebook page and ask what people think. Share the best comments on air!

This lets your audience know you’re listening and reading what they post. They’re more likely to continue engaging with your social posts if they may “see their name in lights” later!

SPORTS

Whenever you’re covering local sports, you know there’s going to be great content available on social media! Use your search to hunt down posts from local sports teams, popular hashtags, etc. If you have something like “Friday Night Football” coverage, have viewers send in photos from their local high school sporting events and showcase them in the sports segment of the show!

And the best part is … this thing is SO simple. Using SND On Air might just be the easiest part of your day. We like it that way.

The post Pro Tips for Using Social Media in your Newscast first appeared on Social News Desk.

I. Curate content (Playlists)

Search and curate social content from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, even your own website (others too!). Is the light bulb going off?

Quickly add content using the new drag and drop feature! You can still add content to your playlists like you’ve always done using the “Add to On Air” button in the post menu, or by manually adding content using the URL (see the large + button?). Learn more about how to add content to a playlist.

You can also modify or mask post content. Learn how to edit text, hide names and avatars, and more here.

II. Style Content (Templates)

Style your playlist by creating layout templates with your own backgrounds to match your graphics packages. Once you create a template, anyone on your team can quickly pair it with a playlist to get it on air.

There are so many options for customizing your templates! Check out the elements you have control over or visit our Template Style Guide.

• Layout: various vertical and horizontal layouts
• Post Styles: how the social posts are styled
• Background: use a green screen or upload your own
• Backplate: none, transparent, or upload your own
• Fonts: Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Source Sans Pro and Gotham (note: some require a broadcast license)
• Animations: set the auto-rotation speed
• Overlays (optional): upload sponsor logos or banner ads

III. Go Live! (Channels)

A channel is the output (via URL) you’ll provide to your production or studio team in order to display your playlist on air. You can display any playlist on any channel. Each producer can have their own, or you can even have a display for the newsroom or lobby!

It’s really that quick and simple!

SND TIP: Create your breaking news and weather templates in advance so when the time comes, just create a playlist and its ready to go for your broadcasts in a snap!

For assistance or to learn more about SND On Air, check out the SND On Air Knowledge Base or reach out to us at support@socialnewsdesk.com.

The post How to get your social content On Air in 3 easy steps first appeared on Social News Desk.

1. Download your old backgrounds, or create new ones

Do you have backgrounds that are in your regular rotation? It’s easy to save them from your existing instance of SND On Air, so you have them handy for creating templates when the new version is available.

In SND On Air, click on the Backgrounds tab to access all of the background elements you’ve already uploaded. You can right click on any of the backgrounds and click “Save Image As…” to save the background to your computer.

2. Review your graphics files

Have you created new graphic looks for franchises, segments or in-house displays? This is a great time to make sure your SND On Air graphics are built to match. You’ll just need a 1920×1080 .jpg or .png file for each background you wish to use in SND On Air.

3. Reconsider your engagement strategies

SND On Air is a powerful tool for gathering social content to display, but it works best when it’s powered by great, engaging responses from your audience! If your social content isn’t generating many comments or replies that you can use in an on-air segment, it might be time to spend some time reviewing social best practices. SND’s Client Success team can help!

4. Learn how to monetize SND On Air with sponsorships

Sponsorship opportunities in a newscast are extremely valuable to your advertisers, because they get the chance to be showcased next to your content instead of waiting for a commercial break. We can help you with ideas for selling social display opportunities in a way that feels organic to your viewers.

5. Get Excited!

There’s a whole lot to love about the new version of SND On Air. The clean, fast new interface will sit side-by-side with your content on SND Dashboard (no more clicking to a different screen). And the new drag-and-drop playlist builder (our number-one feature request) is now a reality! Plus – SND On Air isn’t just for social media anymore. You’ll be able to add items from YouTube, Reddit and just about any URL to an SND On Air playlist. So your content is only limited by your imagination!

The post SND On Air: Launch Checklist for Superusers first appeared on Social News Desk.

Did you know you can add Reddit feeds to your SND Dashboard? This powerful integration allows you to view any Subreddit and even put content from Reddit into a display using SND On Air. Here’s how it works:

First, find the URL for your favorite Subreddit(s), and copy the link. In the SND Dashboard, click on the “Add RSS” icon on the left, and paste in the URL. Simply remove the last slash ( / ) and then add “.rss” at the end of the URL. And voila! All that content becomes a stream.

You can even take your favorite posts from Reddit and add them to the NEW SND On Air playlist! Just create the playlist and drag the post in.

The post Reddit Now Live in Social News Desk first appeared on Social News Desk.

To start your poll – you guessed it – click on that there thumbnail. Then just follow the on-screen prompts to upload a poll photo and set your questions and responses.

When the poll is live, you can find it on your timeline inside your feed column in the SND Dashboard. Click on the ellipsis (…) and you can “Add to On Air” just like any other item.

The SND On Air interface has a special display for poll items. You can see inside SND On Air that an item has been identified as a poll because we add a very helpful little poll badge to the playlist name on the left rail.

From here, just set up your display options like you would any other SND On Air playlist. Then you’re all set! Because Polls have different rules than other kinds of displays on Facebook, they exist in their own kind of playlist. If you’re running a poll back-to-back with another kind of SND On Air playlist, just have it staged and ready to go. Flipping to the new source is simple.

With SND On Air, you can solicit viewer participation in your newscast and easily turn it into an on air display WITHOUT needing to build any graphics or macro any commands into your ENPS or AVID playlists. You’re in complete control. It works so well and so fast, you can use it for planned broadcasts or breaking news and weather events.

Want to see how to set this up in real time? We have a video right here.

To learn more about SND On Air, drop us a line at support@socialnewsdesk.com. We’re happy to show you how awesome you can be.

The post It’s easy to put your Facebook poll results on air! Here’s how… first appeared on Social News Desk.

SND Score

Okay, this feature has been out for a while already, but we haven’t really had much of a chance to talk about it. Our relationship with Facebook gives us access to stats from any public page to compare in your SND Dashboard. A powerful to way to measure those metrics is with the SND Score widget.

SND Score measures Page Likes, total Post Actions across all posts, and the average number of Actions Per Post. It also includes the Storyteller Rate, which is similar to the old PTAT rate, and measures how well your fans engage with your page. We recommend putting SND Analytics widgets on a big screen in your newsroom to show where you are relative to the competition. The SND Score and SND Leaderboard are striking visual interfaces designed specifically for this use. Learn more about the SND Score here.

If you’re not using your SND Analytics tools to the fullest extent, check it out by clicking the button on the left of your dashboard or ask your Client Strategy Specialist to help you get set up.

Download User Report

The new Download User Report feature allows managers to get raw data that shows which users are posting the best (and worst) content across the entire newsroom. The report shows SND Dashboard activity for the last 30 days and includes total number of posts, total engagement, and last login date, among other key stats. Learn how to download it here.

Facebook Video Insights

The SND Post Manager allows you to filter posts by type, content, time or creator – then sort based on the metrics that matter to you. Now those metrics include video insights from Facebook. It was one of our most-requested features from our clients, and it’s now live in Post Manager. You can see different types of video views, video engagement, and video view durations. See a demonstration here!

Link shorteners

You can now connect your SND Dashboard to your Bit.ly and Po.st link shortener accounts. Does your newsroom use both services? Feel free to connect both and switch between the two (if you want). See how it’s done here.

Using Google or Adobe Analytics for link tracking in SND? Your tracking code will be added to the link before it’s shortened. Link tracking galore!

SND On Air

Did you know you can display video with audio during your SND On Air segment? You can! The playback canvas is touch screen compatible. Check it out here.

Do you have a vertical monitor on your set? We have new SND On Air layouts that allow you to display content vertically.

Also new to SND On Air, you can add overlay graphics to your templates. Drag and drop sponsor logos or segment logos in seconds. Or you can add actual ad tags to your display; dynamically generated ad overlays that track your sponsors in your traffic software. It’s easy, see how to do it here.

SND Campaigns

New in SND Campaigns, view live reporting on more than 25 metrics, including impressions (which advertisers ask our clients for). Branded content is a huge opportunity for social monetization, and SND Campaigns makes it simple to track & report results.

Coming Soon!

We have more great stuff on the way, including Instagram search integration, RSS feed publishing, and SND Campaigns branded content reports. Keep those great ideas coming!

The post SND new features: new analytics, video insights, link shortening, and more! first appeared on Social News Desk.

Want to showcase your audience’s best costumes, Halloween decorations or recipes? Find social posts in either your comments, Twitter mentions or by using a Twitter search. Hint: Creating a social post asking your viewers for photos now can make your job much easier later!

Then, hover over the three dots to add a post to SND On Air and create a playlist or add to an existing one. Repeat for each cute costume you find.

Once you’ve added a few posts to your playlist, open up SND On Air and select a template for your playlist. You can take it on-air as-is, or continue to style the template with an especially spooky background.

Then save your On Air Item, place it on deck and you’re ready to take your content on air!

You can also create a poll to get your audience involved both on social media and engaged on air. Easy poll ideas include costumes, candy and whether or not parents are stealing candy from their kids’ trick-or-treat bags (spoiler alert: of course they are).

Remember, the earlier you post your content, the more you’ll have to choose from. And don’t forget – seeing social content on air usually means more viewers scrambling to share their content later, so be sure to update your playlists for later newscasts. Need help? Get in touch with your client strategy specialist and we’ll get you set up! Happy Halloween from #TeamSND!

The post Two Simple Ways to Make Your Halloween Coverage Stand Out Today first appeared on Social News Desk.