Local Media Consortium Announces Partnership with Facebook’s CrowdTangle

The Result Could Mean Making Social Insight Tools More Readily Available To Newsrooms

The new partnership means Local Media Consortium‘s (LMC) members will have access to CrowdTangle‘s tools for real-time social media monitoring and tracking in newsrooms across the U.S. This partnership has resulted in the onboarding of 100 percent of the LMC’s membership, which is comprised of more than 75 companies representing more than 1,700 digital news properties.

The partnership enables the LMC members to onboard to the CrowdTangle platform, providing real-time dashboards to monitor trending stories and hyperlocal content, track keywords and conduct competitive analysis across more than one million Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Reddit accounts. Additionally through CrowdTangle, members will be able to create cross-platform reports and dashboards that can be customized for use in newsrooms and on-air broadcasts; journalists can also use CrowdTangle’s Chrome browser extension to quickly monitor content performance across the social web, and track influencers sharing their content. The platform’s video search tool can be used to help journalists find videos trending on Facebook as well.

“To remain competitive and relevant, it is imperative for community news providers to actively monitor content trending on social media in their own communities,” said Rusty Coats, executive director of the LMC. “This partnership with CrowdTangle provides our members with a platform to help them better engage with their audiences. We welcome the opportunity to work with technology leaders such as Facebook and CrowdTangle to identify best practices for engaging social media to shape hyperlocal news delivery.”

As part of the Facebook Journalism Project, in January CrowdTangle became free for publishers and journalism schools to help give partners the data and insights they need. In the first half of this year, CrowdTangle on boarded over 1,600 new partners around the world. Moreover, overall usage of the tool tripled, the platform is growing quickly in emerging markets like India and Brazil and is now being used in over 1,000 local newsrooms.

“Local news is one of the largest and most important verticals we work with at CrowdTangle and is a key focus of the Facebook Journalism Project,” said Brandon Silverman, CEO, CrowdTangle. “The Local Media Consortium’s incredible network of members, their knowledge of the industry and their overall passion for the space has helped make sure we’re building tools that make a real difference for local newsrooms and journalists. And the best part is that this is hopefully just the beginning.”

The LMC used CrowdTangle to track member coverage during hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and share coverage with its entire membership. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, one of 130 daily newspapers and 555 websites owned by GateHouse Media, used a national live display provided by the CrowdTangle platform to identify story ideas throughout Hurricane Irma. GateHouse’s newsrooms also use CrowdTangle to source stories from alerts generated from topics over-performing on CrowdTangle, which has resulted in additional stories generated across the GateHouse network.

McClatchy, a longtime member of the LMC and parent to the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee and more than two dozen other news properties across the country, uses CrowdTangle at both the corporate and local levels.  “Our real-time teams use CrowdTangle’s over performing and viral alert features to monitor content from our competitors, local organizations, and people in the community,” said Jessica Huff, McClatchy’s Social Media Director. “The reporters on our real-time teams are often the number one traffic drivers in our company, and for good reason. They’re our first-responders, and the folks who are keeping up with the social media conversations happening in our markets.”

The partnership includes bespoke training from CrowdTangle to help the LMC’s members get the most from the platform. In return, the CrowdTangle team is able to tap the LMC members’ collective expertise to gain insight on best practices for product use in local newsrooms.  To further the relationship, CrowdTangle will host a series of webinars for the LMC members, and Silverman is scheduled to speak at the LMC’s semi-annual meeting in Dallas this November.