Tuija Aalto
Yle
There are great TV series freely available for viewing on Yle Areena. Your task is to communicate the information that there are some great classics as well as some interesting new titles there.
You have fifteen seconds to communicate the message because you’re doing it on TikTok.
This kind of creative brief is business as usual for actors Thelma and Valtteri, familiar to Yle Areena users from the Uusi päivä daily drama. They are the faces of Yle Areena’s newest social media channel on the short video app TikTok.
Thelma and Valtteri appear on Yle Areena YouTube channel as well (see playlist). These are two of dozens of social media accounts Yle operates, aiming to reach young audiences wherever they may use media.
Strategic outcome: increased trust
Our mission is to strengthen the Finnish society and culture. As per our 2017-2020 strategy, Yle fosters a sense of community by listening to, involving and bringing different people together.
Social media is an essential part of Yle’s online presence.
In 2019, Yle’s relationship with the audience strengthened and the weekly reach was at a record high, a considerable achievement, given the changes in the media landscape, notes Yle’s recent Board of directors’ report (link to pdf).
Beyond reach, beyond the creative results of the many co-creation efforts, there’s one thing we always strive for: trust. Trust is created by being there for our different audiences, asking them questions, and listening to their ideas.
Trust is created by being there for our different audiences, asking them questions, and listening to their ideas.
Yle primarily publishes its content on its own platforms. We do produce original content weekly for social media, however. We also produce content for which we do not have publishing places in our services.
In this case, we work where the target users are, on each platform's own language. Working on social media platforms always requires active presence and interaction.
We explore many social media platforms. We are on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. We also use Discord, Jodel, TikTok, Twitch Twitter and Snapchat.
A selection of Yle's channels on YouTube
- Children - Pikku kakkonen, Yle Galaxi, Hajbo, Yle Summeri, Pavlovin rotat
- Factual - Aleksi Rantamaa - Yle Kioski, Yle Kioski Journal, Marjuttuulikki, Yle Perjantai-dokkarit
- Music - Ylex Feat, YleX Music, Uuden Musiikin kilpailu
- Humour - Noin viikon studio, Viki ja Köpi - YleX
- Lifestyle - Emma Karasjoki, Essi Lamppu
- Television - Yle Areena.
In the first months of 2020, Yle published an average of 100 YouTube videos, and 1000 Instagram posts monthly, to engage with younger audiences.
We also published an average of eight thousand monthly Tweets, and ten thousand Facebook posts across Yle’s different social media accounts, to convert traffic to Yle.fi.
These social media activities help us reach young audiences.
As many as 69% of Finnish people aged 15-44 said last autumn that they encounter Yle’s content on social media daily. That added 12 percentage points to Yle’s daily reach under 45-year-olds (KMK autumn 2019, Taloustutkimus / Smart data and Audience Insight, Yle).
On Instagram, Yle Uutiset had the average feed post reach of 85 000, average story reach of 20 000 and average total weekly reach of 214 000 in 2019.
On Facebook, the average 28-day-reach of our news page Yle Uutiset exceeded two million in Q4 2019. Facebook accounted for 16% of all the visits to Yle's news in 2019, Twitter for 1%.
Our biggest social media success in 2019 in terms of publishing strategy, was, when Yle Kioski’s YouTube talent Aleksi Rantamaa produced a six-part documentary series, published on Yle Areena.
A special episode on his YouTube channel created a substantial traffic surge to Yle Areena. Season II of TLDR Mad was just announced.
Collaborations and do-good campaigns
In addition to regular, ongoing social media services Yle engages in specific collaborative productions and campaigns. Here are two examples.
Desired outcome: prevent mass extinction of bumblebees
“Save a pollinator” is a campaign by Yle to increase the amount of meadows and other pollinator-friendly habitats in Finland.
The campaign challenges Finns to stop using toxic substances in their gardens, not mow their lawns and build insect hotels.
Goals for the campaign are set in terms of amount of actions reported on the campaign page, count of IG posts with hashtag #pelastapörriäinen as well as hours spent reading the articles online.
Some of Yle's Instagram profiles
Eurovision diaries was filmed by fans
Yle music facilitated the production of a fan-filmed documentary Eurovision diaries for TV1 and Yle Areena (available for viewing in English).
Publishing partner was involved in crafting the publication plan for the documentary. One part of the plan, a music video “Love is my favorite song”, was published on YouTube.
How Yle social media is organized
There are social media activities in all content departments: News & Current affairs, Creative content and Media as well as Svenska Yle.
Yle has several editorial social media teams across the departments from news to Yle Kioski & YleX, to factual, science and learning, entertainment, music, and sports.
In the Media department there is a team of publishing partners as well as a team of content marketers or ‘phenomenizers’.
The role for Yle Next is to foster partnerships with social media platforms, develop the social media strategy on company level, as well as enhance the networked culture inside Yle.
Tuija Aalto is Head of Social Media at Yle.
Yle services on Facebook
- Corporate brand account Yle, the archives Elävä arkisto
- Children’s parents - Pikku kakkonen
- Learning - Digital skills training peer support group Digitreenit, Yle Oppiminen, Yle Uutisluokka
- News & current affairs - Yle Uutiset, regions such as Yle Tampere, Svenska Yle, Yle News, news in sign language Viittomakieliset uutiset, news in Russian Новости Yle, Yle Kioski
- Factual - nature Yle Luonto, science Yle Tiede, health & lifestyle Yle Akuutti,
- Music - Ylex, Uuden musiikin kilpailu, Radio Sinfony Orchestra, Yleklassinen
- Humour - Noin viikon studio, Yle Kioski
- Television - Yle Areena, Puoli seitsemän, Ylen aamu, Sohvaperunat, Eränkävijät, Docventures, Marja Sannikka, Yle Teema
- Radio channels - Yle Radio 1, Yle Radio Suomi, Yle Puhe, Yle Vega.
