Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol.

This is part two of my two part conversation with KB TV evening news anchor Rusty Surette.

Now, if you missed part one, you can find it on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube or the KAMU website.

I really enjoyed part one.

I think you will too.

It was essentially, Rusty's news guy origin story and how he has built an incredible following among people who might not even watch his newscast or even live locally.

But today we are tackling the world of Rusty Surette's social media, which is probably how you experience him, how and why you see what you see.

So welcome back sir.

Thank you sir.

For better or worse.

Right?

Right.

Okay, let's go straight into a specific platform.

Yes.

And getting your your thoughts about those.

So I checked these numbers.

It's been a few days.

They've probably moved.

But Facebook, I think I think your news account has close to 220,000 followers.

And your personal account, because you have both has north of 12,000, maybe 14,000 by now.

Talk to me about your relationship with Facebook, both professionally and personally.

The Facebook thing, I never expected it to go where it did.

When I came to KBTX, they were, real big in getting journalists to have their own Facebook page and their own X account or Twitter account at the time.

And the idea was you just you just want to be able to share stories and to allow the audience to communicate with you one on one.

That was at the very baseline, what we wanted to do with social media.

And every TV station, every media organization was going through that.

Now it is it's kind of evolved over the last decade into the best way I'd describe my Facebook page is, and I treat it almost like a community bulletin board with the good news, the bad news, things you should know, fun things to look at, fun things to know, new businesses, interesting people.

Good news to share.

Bad news to share.

It's a little bit of everything.

We got lost pets, garage sales, fender benders, and whatever's happening on highway six.

It's it's a little just anything and everything kind of page and that it and growing that that platform.

I'm I'm really big on monitoring trends looking at the data.

Yes.

I've got 220,000 followers.

But when you go into the analytics, I'm tapping into about 3 million views a day.

And, and a lot of those views on Facebook are coming from people not in Aggieland, which I think in a, in, you know, what we talked about in part one where those views are coming from.

It's it's the the Aggie moms.

It's it's graduates who have moved on.

But you still want to keep in touch.

Grandparents want to know what's happening in Aggieland because that's where their grand grandkids are at.

You know, there's a world wide audience on anything and everything here in Aggieland.

And so to have a go to place and I think that platform has grown just because I've been here.

It's not because I do anything special or anything out of the box or reinventing the wheel of any sort.

It's just I've been here for, longer than what?

Most reporters stay in a market like this.

Journalists come two, three years, and then they move on.

And so that audience has grown just, it's pure luck.

And, consistency is what I would call it.

Then you have X. X was the other one that I, that I was really early on.

And that was primarily, just headline generating account.

I would throw things out there on X and we were talking before we started recording how I, you know, I don't have a great desire to be on X, but that is where a lot of Aggies are and continue to go.

But you have north of 45,000 followers there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and it every week a couple of hundred more new.

Yeah.

And the following.

And so what newsrooms across America are challenged with right now is meeting the audience where they go where a TV station.

But we have to be a media company.

And and our content now is being stretched across and being put on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and Twitter, but also podcasts and streaming and Roku and you just you have to be everywhere.

And that is been now the stretch where we've gone from, oh, get on Facebook because you want the audience to be able to connect with you and, do this, that I, that now is I think the primary way people do see is there's still a very don't get me wrong, very strong audience that watches us on TV, the traditional audience.

But there is a growing and it did it.

It blows my mind to see the age, because you can see all those numbers in the analytics, the 30s, the people in their 20s, even even down to the teens who follow on TikTok now and, and, and Facebook.

So it doesn't matter the age.

People want to be informed.

They want to know what's going on.

But what we have to constantly crack the code with is where are they?

And that is a that is something that is a it.

Every month we're trying to figure out what's what's new.

Is there something coming on the horizon where people going to and every platforms, different stuff that I post on Facebook doesn't work on Instagram, things that I'm sharing on TikTok.

They're not good x post.

So you and I, this is the part of the job that I love is trying to figure out what works where, give me an example, what works and doesn't work on on this platform.

Facebook I share a lot of go-fund-me, fundraising stories.

I do a lot of advocacy for nonprofits.

Those travel really well on Facebook.

I can tell you why.

I've tried a couple of times to share some of those on X and the engagement just it drops.

I've even had a couple of people who've reached out and said, I don't want to see this on my timeline.

But on Facebook, it travels well on Instagram a little bit more.

The personal stuff, the what am I having for dinner?

What are the dogs doing?

What?

You know what?

Where did I go over the weekend?

That works a whole lot.

Better on Instagram than it would on X or Facebook.

Is it just because of the demographics that or.

I think it's the demographics, but it's also when you would you pick up when you pick up and open up TikTok.

I don't I think for a majority of people, depending on your algorithm, you don't expect to see, a newscast clip on on TikTok, you don't expect to see somebody very formal sitting there and talking to you like their newscaster.

Things that I post on TikTok.

I a lot of the things that what I've what I have figured out and and again it's a trial and error social media that's what that's what I love about it, because you're constantly trying to figure out what what works, what works.

And you got to you got to change.

You got to shift and change on TikTok.

Now, if I'm if I'm sharing a news update, I'll try to do it while I'm walking the dogs ball cap on trust still in my eyes.

I just woke up and I'm just I'm just rambling.

That works on TikTok.

And I think it's because that's what the TikTok audience expects when they open up.

When you open up Facebook, there's a little bit more formality that I think is okay that people expect to see, or they they anticipate that showing up in their timeline in a certain format and way, and then you shift over to X and Snapchat and everything else.

Everything's got a distinct look and feel, and if you're not falling in line with that one, it's going to impact the algorithm and how how much that platform pushes your content content out to eyeballs, but to the reaction that you get from the the user, on the user, and so on.

TikTok, if I'm a little bit more laid back and a little bit more, not so uptight, it just looks like a dude with a cell phone rambling about whatever.

But I'm being informative and I'm giving you news, but I'm not doing it in a coat and tie and in a new studio.

At least what I have picked up from that is you're more likely to get the engagement and the follow and and share if you line up whatever that content is with whatever platform embraces that.

But you were expected to be at your best at 5:00, 6:00, 10:00.

Is it at 4:00?

Are you on the phone?

It's sometimes.

Okay.

We just got a new anchor, so I'm off the 4:00 now.

Okay, but.

But you're also involved in in what the news is for the day, how it's stacked, the whole thing.

But then you're expected to vigorously post on your social media accounts, which you do.

It's a it's kind of a crazy pace, but then you choose to also post often on your personal accounts.

Yeah.

Where does the the burnout and the exhaustion creep into that almost daily?

Yeah, I honestly, but you still do it.

But I do it because that is I it is.

This is just me.

I do believe that to build an audience, to build a following, you have to be consistent.

You can't take a day off.

And I know there's career folks and mental health folks out there that say, no, no, no, that's that's not what you should be saying.

And I, I am of the belief that if if the audience is going to go to you and they're going to trust you and they're there, expect you to be there when they need you, you need to be there and and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't exhausting.

Some days there.

Yes, there's burnout days.

My days start as soon as I wake up, I grab the phone.

I'm looking through emails, DMs.

I get 5060 messages just on Facebook a day.

And so I'm trying to go through all of those, then you go into work and now you got to deal with everything, work, but still responding to social media inquiries and post and DMs and now it's Instagram and now it's Facebook and TikTok and it it it becomes a lot.

The biggest frustration that I have in my job right now is not having the time to respond to everyone not being able to reply to to those that I want to reply to the news tips that come in that I sometimes leave behind because I just don't.

I don't have the time.

You get every news tip in town at it feels like it.

And I don't say that in a in a way that I'm.

I don't like it.

I'm very grateful, but it does.

Nobody else has access to my social media.

Nobody.

It is just me.

And if a day goes by where I'm busy doing something and then I come back and, well, if I've missed one day of catching up now, I'm two days behind.

Well, now I'm 200 messages behind on Facebook and it becomes a lot.

Okay, so for transparency sake, I want to ask you this.

Are you a paid influencer on any platform?

No, no.

Now it is.

It's just where we have to be.

It that is and and if being transparent.

Yeah.

In the state of our industry, I, I don't think my bosses, I hope my bosses would not ever want to come to me tomorrow and say, hey, we have to let you go.

But we have we have corporate offices.

We have, you know, you know, you know, the state of the media nowadays.

It is very when we're seeing this all over the place where where longtime news anchors, trusted news anchors, very well liked and very followed journalists are being laid off from their jobs because of consolidation or mergers.

And, trial of private equity, I think audience decline and more people going on social media.

So I, I, I build all my social media platforms up almost, one because it's whatever reporter should be doing.

But but there is also, if I'm being transparent, a sense of, it's almost like insurance for me so that if I ever do get laid off, I still want to live here.

I still want a storyteller.

I still want to do what I love doing.

It's not my job.

It is my passion.

And I still want to have platforms that I can do it.

So if for whatever reason, God, I hope it doesn't happen, but I get laid off from KBTX, I still want to be able to connect with our community, to share the good news, the bad news, to promote a nonprofit to help with the lost pet.

Whatever it is, I that's why I do what I do on social media, because it is where the people are at, where they're going.

And it is also, selfishly, a little bit of a kind of job security or insurance is what I look at.

It as.

In case I ever do become unemployed, I still want to be able to do what I do.

Yeah.

So Rusty is not a paid influencer.

People on a platform and accused of that a lot.

Well, you know, I wanted to ask because I imagine it it could creep in into, a market, into an individual, I don't know.

Yeah, but but same goes for not being paid by any entity outside of.

Yeah.

You it I mean, our contracts are very clear that I can't, have another job, side job, side hustle without first getting clearance from, the, the employer.

As far as promoting another business, one thing that happens very often, I'll go into a restaurant and they'll say, hey, no, this is on us.

Yeah.

No, no.

You know, we, and as much as I'll push back, there are some that go.

Nope, nope, we're not doing it.

Okay, well then what?

I'll turn around and do take whatever the value of that meal is.

Leave that as a tip and and then add a little bit more for tip.

I don't ever want to be caught in a situation.

And and I've done this job for 30 something years now.

I've never been cuz I don't want to start now of, oh, you you know your restaurant report card you do every Thursday.

You're not highlighting that restaurant because they hook you up with free food, right?

Like not now.

We're not going down that road.

So, that that is something very, line in the sand.

I don't cross the, the the influencer, the the paid media, the the favors, payola.

We can't do that.

Right.

Let me reintroduce you to folks if you're just tuning in.

I'm Jay Socol.

My guest today is KBTX-TV evening news anchor Rusty Surette.

This is part two of our two part conversation.

Okay, in terms of some of the content that you share, sharing photos, sharing video, sometimes of what I, as a as a news person from many moons ago, I would consider being trivial or sensational things.

Absolutely.

Parking lot fistfights, somebody veering out of their lane in traffic who share that right, veering out of their lane in traffic.

Should the market's biggest anchor be sharing that type of content, or is it just about clicks or talk to me about that?

It's a little bit in the middle, if I'm being honest with you, the what?

Especially on Facebook.

You, you want to go for what's going to people engaged, get people to keep coming back?

I mean, that's not that's not any secret.

We do that on TV.

We do it in radio.

We do it, newspapers.

You want to put out something out there that that keeps people coming back?

You know, you figure out a formula works.

The fender bender wrecks the the parking lot disputes, you know, those kind of things.

Yeah, they're absolutely trivial.

They're things that would never end up on a newscast.

But Facebook is not the newscast.

And and Facebook's more of, and the way I treat my Facebook is a little bit more of like I said, the the community bulletin board, the, the, the traffic things that will post.

I mean, that's what gets people fired up.

It's what people talk about the, the, the medians, the color of the water tower, the, the long lines at a grocery store, pets not being on a leash at a park.

It they're they're things that people feel and discuss and they'll they'll talk amongst themselves.

I'm putting it out on a platform for for everyone to to chime in.

You can't look at Facebook and you can't look at X, and you can't look at whatever platform it is and and expect the same standards to be held as your 6:00 evening newscast.

Right.

Have I crossed a line sometimes?

Absolutely.

My boss, once a week gets a complaint about something that I've posted or I've shared, and there have been times where I look back and and I go, oh, that's yeah, maybe I shouldn't have shared that.

Or do you have an example of one of those?

Oh, okay.

Not off that.

Honestly.

Not because once one hypothetical I'm thinking of is if you're sharing, the somebody hopped a curb and and hit a business and that gets shared.

But you find out later, oh, there was a medical event for somebody, you know, should should there have been more time given to figure out, okay, what happened is it was everybody okay?

Was there not a medical event, that sort of thing before putting that out?

Sure.

Well, I think despite the reason for what happened, it happened.

And so there's there's now an expectation from from audience, especially my followers, that if if something has happened in this town, that if there is a car that jumped a curb and hit a building or went into a ditch or flipped over even a medical emergency, there is a people want to know what happened, what happened, why.

And and by sharing that, you answer the the very basic oh what was going on when I, when I passed this restaurant, it's all five police cars and a fire truck out front.

What was that all about?

And and so a lot of that is just informing.

I'm, I'm, I'm just letting people know what's going on.

Why?

You know, the fender bender wrecks on the highway.

Newsworthy.

No, not for the 6:00 news, but I, I want to make sure that anyone stuck in traffic for ten minutes and maybe light to something can open up my page and go, oh, it's because somebody had a flat tire and was taking up a lane, you know, trivial, maybe, but useful information to others.

Okay, so you mentioned earlier that that you really enjoy looking at analytics, looking at the numbers, the engagement where people are that sort of thing is Rusty Surette bigger than KBTX in some ways, because there's plenty of digital evidence to suggest that people are seeking their information from you and engaging with you.

Instead of KBTX accounts.

I don't I don't think so.

I think because without KBTX there's there's nobody right now.

And that is the, the that is the platform that I am able to use our research because I can't chase down every tip that we get, every little news.

But that that comes in.

We have a growing newsroom and resources that continue to be poured into our place.

That allows me to do these things that I like to do and, and to to be able to share things that are factual and accurate.

If I'm posting something, it, it a lot of times there's, there's other people behind the scenes that are helping to fact check.

No, I get that.

Yeah.

But when the eyeballs in the, in the, in the thumbs are going to Rusty sent in numbers that eclipse what the station is getting.

What does that tell anybody that that for me says there's somebody who's been here quite, quite a while.

Although a decade doesn't feel like a long time for a small market that sees a lot of turnover in its local media, you you latch on to someone.

And I just happen to be that go to person.

And and again, I don't think it's anything that I'm doing or any, reinventing the wheel or anything special.

It's just I'm.

But as long as people are clicking the story link, they're ending up back at KBTX.

But anyway, that's the goal ultimately, is to feed people back to the website because that's where the money is made.

Is the, the, the, the, stories that are on our website or you try to push people to, to the on air product.

That is where, at the end of the day, you want the audience because we're business.

And at the end of the day, so you you want to use social media?

I use it to, to be a community bulletin board, but I also use it to make sure that our followers and our audience, no matter where you're looking at it on, on my page, somebody, another reporters page or the KBTX page, we're telling people those, the stories that we're covering, the stories that we're sharing.

And here's where you can go and get more details, because the goal is to push people back to the website, because that's how we have that's that's how we make our money.

Right?

Yeah.

Now, you mentioned a little bit about this earlier, but outside of a news context, you really have the ability to sort of make or break things.

Fundraisers.

I know people send you a lot of those.

Hey, Rusty, can you please share this, new business openings, troubled businesses that that really are at risk of closing up, and they need some help, and they turn to you.

All of these folks turn to you for, your assistance.

Getting in front of more eyes.

How much pressure is there for you to do that sort of thing?

I wouldn't call it pressure.

I do get frustrated that I can't help everyone, and I've I'm very lucky to have a following that trust what I share.

So when I share a go-fund-me, there is some vetting that is done there, and we've been able to help raise thousands of dollars for people.

Not by sharing anything on Kbtx, it's just a Facebook share.

But that goes back to the quality of the people that are that are following and, and the the care and the compassion that comes back down to this community, helping a business, thankfully, yes.

I've, I've shared stories of, a restaurant that slow or about to close and and one share I'll get messages that say we've been sold out for three days, right.

Like that's I, you know, that's the stuff as as, as tiring as all of this can be and exhausting.

And yes, there's the burnout when I get those replies that say, hey, your share helped carry our family another week with with medical expenses or you help to save us from shutting down this month were able to make rent.

It's not a lot of work on my end.

It's just it's just a share.

And to see that, that is the stuff that keeps me gassed up and empowered to go the next day is seeing those results, seeing that you have followers, that that trust and respect what you're sharing.

And they don't just sit on it.

They they take action, they see somebody needing help.

And that just goes back to this community.

We live in a community, thankfully, that responds and says, let you know, but to get to that point that that's from years and years of making sure that the stuff you do share is vetted and and credible and, and correct, you don't just get that overnight.

So I'm, I'm, I'm very thankful that I have an audience like that.

And I don't ever want to take that audience for granted.

And, and, so the yeah, the biggest frustration with, with my job right now is just not being able to reply to everyone, because there is so much coming in.

It is like drinking from a fire hose every day.

Sure.

And I, I wish there was an easier way to, I mean, I, I hopefully one day we'll figure that out how to manage all of that before we started recording.

And we've got a couple minutes left here.

You mentioned that you and some others are KBTX about to be getting into the podcasting business yourselves.

Can you talk about that?

Yeah.

Well, it's the same thing with social media.

You we have to meet our audience where they're going.

We we we have a very strong television audience.

We we have very strong social media presence, I think.

And, now with some new leadership at KBTX, we are taking a we're stepping back and going, okay, where are we?

Not right now, podcasting is one.

The digital, the streaming, YouTube, all of those platforms, we're just looking at anything and everything and trying to stay ahead of of the audience, and where they're getting and consuming their information.

So yes, we are we are not scaling back any on air product.

We're not scaling back any newscast.

We're not taking away resources.

We're adding a few new people to the newsroom.

And we will also increase our workload a little bit in in doing more content for those platforms, like a podcast, I, I should have something like some show of my own here.

But sports will be turning out much more content online.

Whether, our investigative pieces are what we're just looking at, how and where can we continue to meet people, where they're going and, and, that's how you survive these these days with, with, with media is you just have to be where they are.

So in our final few seconds, do you dare look past TV?

What?

What might Rusty's Surette be doing?

Following your TV career?

I don't know that I would, not saying that I think I would ever stay with TV forever.

I don't want to leave, and I don't.

I don't have plans to leave anytime soon.

What?

I can be certain about is, after doing this for 30 years, I want to continue storytelling.

I want to continue advocacy for those who need help in our community.

Nonprofits included individuals and businesses.

I also want to make sure that there is a place in this, this world that we live in with so much disinformation.

And I you don't know what to believe.

And, and what is what?

I just want to be one, one place that somebody can turn to and go, what's the truth?

And I hope that that I can help answer that.

Rusty, thank you so much for joining me.

Not for one episode, but this was a pleasure.

This has been a lot of fun.

Thank you, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Brazos Matters is a production of Aggieland's Public Media.

KAMU.

We hope you've enjoyed this show.

I'm Jay Socol.

Thank you so much for watching and listening and I hope you have a great day.