PromaxBDA’s 2013 Station Summit happens this week in Las Vegas, featuring four days of meetings and sessions focused on the trends and emerging business opportunities that are driving success in local television. In light of Thursday’s Summit session, “Tales from the Lost Remote: How TV Stations Can Capitalize on Mobile and Social TV,” we present a series of case studies looking at how local stations are finding innovative ways to tap into their social communities. Today’s case study features KTTV Fox 11 and its commandeering of Google Hangouts to become the No.1 local media organization on Google+.

Of the growing number of social media options available to marketers, Google+ is a bit of an enigma. Nearly 200 million people have signed up for it, but it enjoys nowhere near the usage, or even awareness of, say, Facebook (1.1 billion monthly active users).

But while Google+ hasn’t exactly caught fire with the mass populace, in the local TV world, it has proven to be an effective tool for enhanced engagement during and after live broadcasts. Thanks to its video conferencing feature, Google Hangouts, stations like KTTV Fox 11 are finding new and innovative ways to connect with viewers and draw them in to exclusive second-screen content.

Google Hangouts, for the uninitiated (as this writer embarrassingly was), is a video chat platform that lets up to 10 Google+ members talk at once. The chats can be either private or, in the “On Air” mode, broadcast to the entire world over YouTube… for free. Los Angeles’ Fox 11 has been taking advantage of this service by presenting post-Morning News interview footage exclusive to Google+. Conducted by KTTV weather anchor Maria Quiban, that day’s celebrity guest or guests pop in after their segment for a Google Hangout with up to nine pre-selected viewers. Participants gets to engage directly with the guest, and anyone can watch the Hangout live or at a later date in the station’s archived YouTube footage.

“It’s a natural progression from the on-air segment to the Hangout, a more relaxed conversational interview.” said Patrick O’Brien, digital director of editorial and content for KTTV FOX Television Stations, Inc. “Often times, the content in the Hangout is much better than on-air. There’s not as much time restraint, and we can get deeper on certain topics. Celebs tend to talk conversationally instead of in sound bites on Google+.”

As one of the first news organizations, big or small, to adopt Google Hangouts as a legitimate content stream, Fox 11 found itself at the top of a Google+ search pile that included the likes of CNN and The New York Times. As a result, the station has amassed more than 600,000 Google+ followers, making it the most followed local media organization on the platform. It’s an impressive achievement, though according to O’Brien, “we’re seeing very little return. The only thing we have is great content that very few see.”

The problem, said O’Brien, is that Google’s social media is not well-integrated with its search, meaning its high follower numbers don’t currently translate into appearances at the top of search results. “With 600,000 people connected to us, our content appears at the top if a follower is logged in to Google+ AND if we have content that matches the keywords they type in a search,” said O’Brien. “Right now, we’re seeing very little of this, despite being the most followed local media organization on the platform. The video views on YouTube are in the low thousands, not tens or hundreds of thousands.”

Without high numbers to flash around, it’s hard currently to monetize Google Hangouts without spending money to advertise through Google. But there are still benefits to doing them beyond simply populating yet another social media space with cool content. “Since many celebrities don’t know what a Hangout is, many times they walk away with a very positive experience,” said O’Brien, “and we are remembered as the ones who introduced it to them. That helps with having good PR relationships. Even Mike Tyson came back for a second time and remembered when we did the first Hangout.

Fox 11 has also managed to eke a little revenue out of its Hangouts content via some creative ad placement. Recently, American Career College took a dive with the KTTV hangouts and put dollars behind them. Their logo is currently featured on a monitor in the background of the hangouts, and receives some on-air exposure through lower-third banners and bumps to commercial breaks. On myfoxla.com, American Career College banner ads reside on pages where the Hangouts are embedded.

As with all social media, monetization efforts are still catching up to Google+. In the meantime, O’Brien loves “ being the most followed local media page on such a massive social platform. It’s worth it for us to invest the time to create content in hopes that Google’s social search will integrate more with natural search results, so that we see it being a major player for referring traffic and views.”

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