When NBC New York tapped digital reporter and anchor Kay Angrum to host its daily digital series “Listen Up,” she made sure her videos had a personal touch. She learned how to tweak her news scripts to sound like her style of speaking, and preferred shooting with her cellphone, so her posts felt more like video chats.
“If I lug around this big camera, it doesn’t give that same feel or vibe or sense as if you’re just taking out your phone and telling a friend,” Angrum said. “Now I’m using even smaller devices, like a DJI Osmo, to feel comfortable, social.”
Watch the video above to learn how Angrum turns news stories into social media videos and read her further comments below.
What’s the biggest difference between producing broadcast news and social videos about news?
When you’re doing something for digital, you have a little bit more freedom to experiment. A lot of times I’m out on the streets with my phone or Osmo, and it has this different energy. The other day, I said in a script, “You will not believe what I just learned. It is wild.” That’s how I would talk to my friends.
How does your audience react?
Depends on the demographic. You’ll get comments like, “What’s this, TikTok news?” But it’s not made for them. For those who do enjoy it and appreciate it, the feedback is awesome. It gets people talking, sharing, engaging. The thing I love the most is seeing people in the comments tagging a friend, like “Come see this” and adding their thoughts. That’s why in a lot of my videos I say, “What do you think?” Because I genuinely want to know. In a studio, you don’t get that same engagement.
What’s your advice for people creating social media videos?
Our social videos are one minute, two minutes long — it would take me eight hours to do those videos. I would get home and be like, “No one knows how much went into this video.” Or maybe some days you’ll not get as many views as you would have liked, or engagement. Oftentimes it’s the stories you love the most, or the videos you work really hard on.
Stay the path. Maybe it’s tweaking and figuring out the time of day I posted it, or the shot I started with, and fine-tuning and learning from those lessons. What can I do next time to get that engagement? But also, engagement’s not everything. If you enjoyed it, that’s great. Keep at it and figure out your niche and the people who it’s for. You can’t be for everyone — that’s OK.
