Yesterday, Nexstar held a web seminar for their employees to talk about social media and push “digital first” when it comes to coverage.

Employees at the Nexstar stations were summed to the conference room and bribed with pizza to watch ways in which they could improve their social media.

A number of Nexstar employees, ones that the company thinks does well on social media took turns explaining their tips and tricks for doing social media.

While we applaud Nexstar for at least trying to get their employees on the same page when it comes to digital, we were a bit bummed out to see how they continue to put so much emphasis on Facebook, which is a digital space that is not owned by the company.

The staff was told that when it comes to social media, Facebook is “king” and it needs to be the “priority.”

We would argue that the station’s website should be the priority. It is an outlet that your company owns and can profit from.

Asking employees to focus on Mark Zuckerberg’s website and not the station’s, means that the employee will be using their time to create content for a website they don’t own, nor control.

FTVLive has focused very little on social media and this website has grown every year for 19 straight years.

There are only so many hours in the day and we like to focus all the hours we can on FTVLive.com and not on a website we do not own.

A look at our Facebook page shows that the last time FTVLive posted to it is 6 days short of one year ago. Yet, in that year, FTVLive experienced the most growth to our website ever. We focused on us.

Nexstar is not the only station that preaches Facebook and I know asking a station to give up Facebook, is like asking an addict to give up crack. But, the focus should be on you and your website and your TV station.

WRIC (Richmond) Anchor Constance Jones (no relation) who spoke at the web seminar for Nexstar, posted this to Facebook recently.

Now, there is no doubt that Jones is a very beautiful woman and there is nothing “wrong” with this post. But, can anyone at Nexstar tell me how this post to Facebook, brought a single viewer to the station’s website or turned on WRIC’s newscast?

I didn’t think so.

Again, I applaud Nexstar for at least trying to get their employees on the same page when it comes to digital. More companies should follow Nexstar’s lead and do the same.

But, it is time to start spending the money on your websites and push people there. Mark Zuckerberg has enough views, time to get some of your own.

And just in time, the Columbia Journalism Review has done a story titled, “Should the Media Quit Facebook?”

I think you guys know how I feel about that…