ANC, the ABS-CBN News Channel, reached another milestone last Tuesday (Oct 19) after its followers on twitter broke the 100,000 mark, making it the most followed and most influential Filipino news organization on the popular international social-networking site.
This only shows that ANC (#ANCalerts) is the preferred source of more Filipinos from all over the world for breaking news and news updates in the country and the world.
ANC Chief Operating Officer Glenda M. Gloria said this new achievement further solidifies ANC’s presence in social media, which is said to be where the future of journalism is heading with the growing number of people who get and exchange information online.
“ANC was the first TV channel in the Philippines to convert Twitter and Facebook into a second channel,” says ANC Chief Operating Officer Glenda M. Gloria. “We were also the first to have its own social media team, which is composed of young, aggressive and news-savvy producers and writers.”
Because of its social media presence, more young professionals and students are now tuned to ANC, a market that Gloria says ANC had not been successful in penetrating before 2008.
As one of the country’s first and staunchest advocates of citizen journalism, ANC has already built a strong following among netizens. On its Facebook page, around 34,000 of its 41,076 fans actively participate in the ANC 24/7 wall, while post views reach an average of no less than 500,000 a month.
In July 2010, meanwhile, ANC joined other global news channels such as BBC and CNBC, which are regularly advertised by Twitter on its front door. It also tops the list of the most influential Philippine news accounts on Twitter.
On October 4, a regular news day, @ANCAlerts had a unique reader reach of 92,422 but a total reader reach of 5,818,350 based on re-tweets. ANC’s election day coverage, on the other hand, also got the biggest number of unique visitors among all the election newcasts that were live streamed on abs-cbnnews.com on May 10.
Through social media, the Philippines’ first 24-hour global cable news channel hopes to empower Filipinos from across demographics to get involved in discussions on the nation’s issues, to report on the situations in their areas, as well to keep abreast with the latest events in the country.
It has also incorporated social media in its programs like the newly-launched “The Brew” featuring Twink Macaraig, Nadia Trinidad, and Gang Badoy, and “Tease” with Ginger Conejero.
