A lot of that improvement can be attributed to The Weather Channel’s digital editor-in-chief Neil Katz, who told Tubular Insights he’s “proud of growth hacking” four of the brand’s new Facebook channels: Rockets Are Cool, The BRB Life, Crazimals, and United States of Awesome. Then I watch our mobile morning show called The Lift, which provides The Weather Channel’s 24 million daily mobile users with snack-sized updates on breaking weather, cool science and outdoor fun to start their day. TI: What tools do you use to manage The Weather Channel’s video channels/outlets? NK: We started with data from our own properties. Most Americans have around 200 days of good weather a year. We use our flagship Facebook page for The Weather Channel (7,699,080 fans) to grow the audiences of the new channels. TI: What impact have these new channels had on The Weather Channel as a larger brand? Our mobile audience is 24 million people each day. And, users that stay with us for content, not just weather data, spend 7x more time with us each month. If we can use video to help our fans make better decisions on a daily basis, we’re very happy with that.
What do you think of when you hear the name The Weather Channel? Most likely you think of one of the top destinations to check what the temperature will be that day in your area, or the primary brand you turn to when you’re about to go on vacation and need to know what the weather will be like so you can pack accordingly. But The Weather Channel, which was founded just over 35 years ago, is so much more than just a place for meteorology.
The Weather Channel boasts a host of related digital channels, all of which have proven popular with audiences. In fact, one of the brand’s biggest bragging rights is that its mobile video viewing has grown 120% year-over-year! A lot of that improvement can be attributed to The Weather Channel’s digital editor-in-chief Neil Katz, who told Tubular Insights he’s “proud of growth hacking” four of the brand’s new Facebook channels: Rockets Are Cool, The BRB Life, Crazimals, and United States of Awesome. Here’s what Katz’s job consists of on a daily basis and how he grew these four channels into must-see content for The Weather Channel’s dedicated audiences.
Tubular Insights: What does an average day look like for you? What are your primary responsibilities/goals each day?
Neil Katz: A breakdown of my average day as editor-in-chief usually looks like:
I usually wake up at 6:30 am ET, and check my email to get the overnight weather forecasts, which includes hotspots for serious danger over the next 72 hours. Then I watch our mobile morning show called The Lift, which provides The Weather Channel’s 24 million daily mobile users with snack-sized updates on breaking weather, cool science and outdoor fun to start their day.
After that, I read the a list of early pitches compiled by the team, which leads to into our 9:30am ET editorial meeting where we get an update from our lead meteorologist on the breaking weather news that we need to track and where we need to position our shooters to cover. During the meeting, we also review pitches for all the fun stuff we’re going to do on our social channels such as dancing…
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