The Kansas City Star wanted to build relationships with younger audiences. As an audience intern during the summer of 2022, I helped the Star start its account, build workflows and evaluate which content resonated with our audience.
Scoping out the audience in Kansas City
When beginning the project, we wanted to make sure there was an audience interested in Kansas City news. At the time, there were not any other news outlets on TikTok specifically covering Kansas City. However, there were accounts who were promoting news in Kansas City. Accounts like the Chiefs had millions of followers, and users were actively posting about Missouri and Kansas culture, food and news. This showed us there would be an audience for our content on TikTok, and it was a platform worth pursuing.
Understanding news formats on TikTok
We wanted to make sure we created content that was authentic to TikTok and was reasonable for our audience team to produce. We looked at other TikTok pages for news organizations, like the Washington Post, NBC News, Dallas Morning News and the Miami Herald, to categorize the types of content we would create for our page. We categorized these content types by how long they would take to produce. Some of these categories did overlap, but this way, we had a baseline to understand which formats might work for promoting certain news stories.
Our first category was Hard or Breaking News. We found these videos typically had a serious tone that either featured a reporter explaining a complex news story or a clip of a speech from an official. Depending on the format, these videos could take a significant amount of time to create because they required deep research.
@nbcnews #Twitter’s board of directors unanimously blocked #ElonMusk ♬ original sound – nbcnews
@miamiherald 🏟 Watch as Miami Mayor Francis Suarez celebrates after city commissioners approved the lease for Miami Freedom Park, the soccer stadium for Inter Miami. #miami #miamifl #miamiflorida #miamitiktok #intermiami #miamitok ♬ original sound – Miami Herald
Second, we had a format called Feature Stories, which used b-roll and interviews to showcase food and city culture. These stories required a member of the audience team or a reporter to gather video, which could also take time.
@wbznewsradio So many great places to eat in #Boston ! #Massachusetts #NewEngland #MassachusettsCheck #BostonCheck #BostonTikTok #bostonfoodies #Foodies #FoodTour #Dunkin #Coffee #Donuts #Bagels ♬ original sound – WBZ NewsRadio
@dallasmorningnews Crews on FW-based American Airlines & Dallas-based Southwest have alleged that they’ve been attacked by passengers. #dallas #airtravel ♬ original sound – DallasMorningNews
Next, there were Staff Favorites, or videos that didn’t particularly relate to a news story, but showcased the staff of the news organization. These videos helped make news outlets more personable, further building trust with their audience. Depending on the production value, these did not necessarily take much time to produce.
@washingtonpost Having a fish or fish tank in the office is a violation of company policy, and Post Malone must vacate the premises by end of day. #fishtern #fintern ♬ original sound – We are a newspaper.
@columbusdispatch On my way to ruin your day. #journalistsoftiktok #columbusdispatch ♬ original sound – Lauren Agans
Finally, there were Humorous, Trending Audios. These videos used skits or sounds within the app to explain the news. The time to produce these videos varied widely, from 30 minutes to a half day of work.
@planetmoney When salaries are a secret, employees make less. #salary #pay #jobs #economics #learnontiktok ♬ original sound – planetmoney
@washingtonpost Ketanji Brown Jackson is the first Black woman justice in the Supreme Court’s 233-year history. #scotus ♬ In My Mind (feat. Crystal Waters) – Never Dull
Developing our workflow
Once we had a baseline for our types of content and the time it would take to create them, I developed a system to create and evaluate scripts to simplify the production workflow. When I was an intern, our team posted videos five days a week. I created a script template to organize the planning of each TikTok we created.
KC-Star-Script-TemplateThe audience team used these scripts to brainstorm ideas before we shot videos to make sure we were using our time effectively.
Next, I created a spreadsheet to help us track trending audios. This way, as news broke, we would have an easy way to identify a trend that may resonate with the story.
Setting KPIs and Measuring Success
Since the account was new, we wanted to focus on growing and understanding our audience during the sprint. We wanted to grow the account to 500 followers by the end of the summer. We also wanted to track which videos got the most views and engagement to understand what types of content we should invest in producing.
I set up a metrics tracking sheet to understand how content was performing each week. We not only tracked our weekly metrics, but also tracked our follower growth rate and which videos got the most views and engagements. This way, we were able to identify which types of content performed the best.
Drawing conclusions and iterating
By the end of the summer, we created plenty of TikToks within each of our content categories. We learned content that used trending audios resonated very well with our audience. We also found that our audience was proud of being from Missouri and Kansas. They heavily engaged with content that promoted city and regional pride. Because of this finding, we tried to focus on creating this content when appropriate while still providing information as a news organization.
@thekansascitystar The first commercially sliced bread was sold in Chillicothe, Missouri on July 7, 1928, and our lunches have never been the same #missouri #kansascity #bread #breadtok ♬ original sound – Millennial32
@thekansascitystar Here’s what you need to do before you vote in Missouri and Kansas’ primary elections on Aug. 2. #kansascity #kansas #missouri #election2022 ♬ BaLsAmic VINAGAUGh – Da Garbage Prince Hans
The TikTok account also served as a way to fight misinformation after Roe vs. Wade was overturned. Our team created videos to explain how birth control was impacted by Missouri’s abortion ban. We noticed many posts claiming that all forms of birth control and Plan B were banned in the state, which was not true. We created an explainer video to share what we knew and what we didn’t in regards to the new law.
While these videos didn’t perform as well as funny, trending audios about Kansas City pride, we were able to provide information that our readers needed on the platform.
@thekansascitystar Here’s what Missouri’s abortion ban means for birth control like Plan B and IUDs. #missouri #roevwade #birthcontrol #abortion ♬ original sound – Kansas City Star
By the end of the summer, we doubled our follower goal, hitting 1,050 followers with an average of 37,000 views per video. Audience members were even tagging us on TikTok to give us story leads to pursue.