After a false start in February, the day has finally come when broadcast television stations make the switch to a digital signal… Today!

The onslaught of reminders, crawls, demonstrations of “how to” hook up your new antenna, old television recycling events, town halls, community meetings, blogs, special websites, advertising and news coverage reminded me of the last great media play in our state when Krispy Kreme opened its doors (point of disclosure, I was responsible).

While the marketing approaches employed by broadcast television stations were relatively simple, they now face a far more complex problem.  The stations need to decide how they are going to utilize and cross promote the new bandwidth (a.k.a. more channels) to an audience that was challenged to hook up a new antenna.

Hopefully the television broadcasters have learned what works and what doesn’t work when trying to connect with their viewers.  Second to their own product, Social media is the most effective way for broadcasters to build meaningful connections with their audiences.  Comcast has successfully paved the way on how to build those connections through Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook and other social media.  Unfortunately, many broadcasters are relying solely on their corporate website as “social media” outreach.

Now that the DTV switch is “official”, hopefully broadcasters will truly leverage new media opportunities with the same kind of fervor as the above mentioned marketing approaches.

Photo provided from the Washington Post