KPRC 2 hires first social media producer

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A few TV stations around the US have created a specific social media employee position.  Now KPRC 2 is the first station in Houston (I believe) to join that list.

Naturally every TV station has probably jumped into the social media fray by now after watching it explode. Generally stations have various staff members contributing to the overall effort - but not usually an overall dedicated 'guru.'

Enter Sara Patterson who is now the official Social Media Producer for KPRC. Patterson tells me she will be aiding the station's social media efforts including Facebook, Twitter and other avenues. She will also be teaching the staff/reporters/producers how to effectively run their own channels by measuring their efforts.

That last part makes a lot of sense. I think many TV staffers across the country will tell you they were just one day told in a memo to start posting to Facebook and Twitter with little direction. Some sink, some swim and flourish.

And to be fair, KPRC 2 has had its controversial moments with Twitter specifically. As I have blogged before, nothing brought attention to the station like the fictional Liberty County mass graves story from the summer of 2011. It has been widely reported that @local2breaking was the source for that story as fact, leading many other media outlets to run with it and then later retract it. Later that year, I told you how KPRC re-branded that account to become @KPRCLocal2.

Before that incident, some digital prankster actually created @local2faking. This was a parody account that said some wild and provocative stuff while riffing on the odd nature of the actual station account.

As for Patterson, she has social media experience from her blog Momma Findings. In fact, her "mommy blog" was even featured in a KPRC 2 report on that topic last January. In that story, Patterson says Whirlpool sent her a free washer and dryer. Clearly Houston and Texas media is not as fruitful of a blog subject as motherhood! The most I get is a free book to review once in a while.

In full disclosure, I was hired to consult KPRC on its original Facebook page launch in 2010. Before that, I launched KTRK 13's Twitter/Facebook presence in 2008 and trained the talent in the mysterious ways of social media. I was so hardcore back then that I actually live tweeted Hurricane Ike for 20 hours.  Maybe the first live hurricane tweet in history (probably not, but one of the first TV stations to do it for sure).

After that whole washer and dryer thing...maybe I should dump this blog and start a "daddy blog!"

Also posted this week was a job opening at KHOU as a web/social media producer, so if you missed out on the KPRC gig, here is your second chance.