So, I want to start by stressing that automated content complements human storytelling. It doesn’t replace it.
What about automation that chops up the linear TV segment and posts to OTT? It’s a good place to start, but not what users on these new channels really want. While this is easy, as an industry, we can and need to do better.
Let’s jump into the automation discussion. What do we want to do and what should we avoid? Viewers are smart. It shouldn’t be obvious that it’s automated content. It should be smart content that is useful and relevant, but not make the user wonder if it came from a human curator or not.
The first place where automation is beneficial to a user is NWS Watches and Warnings. For severe watches and warnings like tornados or thunderstorms, the automated content alerts the users to keep them safe while you create a video to inform them in more detail. In most of these cases, you may have already created a video letting people know the potential exists for severe weather. We can and should also have a safety video that is linked to these events to tell the viewer what to do to stay safe. For example, ‘If you can hear thunder, you are already at risk. Seek shelter’. This is a great example of automation complementing your weather team.
Severe weather, while important is a smaller set of use cases. What about more common use cases? Let’s talk about impactful weather, like rain or snow events. Not so long ago, we would set up automation to render radar loops, but if there’s nothing on the radar, the viewers will know they are getting automated content. Therefore, we transitioned over to threshold-based triggering when we built our Max Engage product. So, you can now trigger radar loops to be created when there is or will be rain or snow instead of on a schedule.
Finally, let’s focus on the most common use case, everyday weather. This is where you need to be more creative because it’s a regular, frequent occurrence. Lifestyle content is really important here. It helps fill the gaps and our user research says there is an appetite for it. Based on our recent Magid research, 82% of people surveyed were interested in health-related news via a streaming service. Allergy information is a great example of this. It’s relevant when there isn’t rain and spans three seasons but mix in other content like how does allergy season compare right now to previous years? Or trigger on UV and warn about sun exposure, especially going into the weekends.
Even your headlines are crucial. So, if you always call your automated video “Morning Update”, people catch on quickly and will tune-out by the second day since they’ll realize it’s automated. So, set up multiple triggers and change the headline, ‘Take a look at your morning’ or ‘What does our Tuesday morning look like?”.
While the user should get the information they need from the visuals, having audio with the automation is important. The meteorologist is the brand, so each piece of automated content should have the meteorologist’s voice saying, “Let’s take a look at your pollen forecast.”
One last place I have seen automation used is to extend the storytelling beyond the DMA to population centers just outside the boundary of the DMA. When there is an opportunity to do this, it’s an easy way to pick up additional audience which can then be monetized.
The bottom line is that details matter. A little more setup work and thought makes a huge difference in increasing your monthly active users and video views. One of our customers automated the publishing of video content with Max Engage and as a result, their total mobile video views increased 300% within four months and page views eclipsed 1 million.
There are so many simple ways to boost your content output and make it engaging. Start putting automation to work!
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