Is Your Station Ready For Social Media?
Written Oct. 9, 2009 by Tom Webster in Social Networking + Terrestrial Radio with 2 Comments
Trick question. Yesterday, I watched a panel at the Inbound Marketing Summit (#ims09) discuss getting past the "social media hype." Panelists included Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Paul Gillin and CC Chapman, all respected voices in social media. At the end of the session, panelists were asked to give a last word of advice for companies seeking to adopt or enhance a social media presence. For the most part, the responses were fairly tactical in nature--not wrong, mind you, just tactical. "Be Human." "Be Helpful." "Be Transparent." We've heard these admonitions numerous times, and they certainly sound reasonable. But what does it mean to you--to a radio station--to be "human?"
The answer, of course, is that a radio station isn't human, or helpful--its people are. Asking whether or not your station is ready to embrace a social media strategy is really asking whether or not the culture of your station or group embraces its humans, and whether or not those humans are empowered to transfer that love to their listeners.
It struck me watching this panel that not every station is going to engage in social media the same way--rather, each station has its own culture, its own level of comfort with transparency, and will find its own way to engage in social media. The key is to try--anything and everything--and see what resonates. Some efforts might fail. Chris Brogan has said that a blog is not a kitten--don't be afraid to kill it off. But don't be afraid to try it, either.
One thing that definitely works is a differential approach to all of the various outposts for social media. You already have a "broadcast" platform--that big tower--so using the various platforms to "tweet out" to followers is, at the very least, an inefficient way to use social platforms. Twitter is great as a listening platform, and as a way to extend invitations to engage, while Facebook allows for deeper engagement and community contribution. Platforms like Foursquare and Brightkite might be great mobile social outposts for jocks doing remotes and live appearances. There's no shortage of sandboxes to play in.
What is best for you? I can't answer that--only this guy would prescribe one approach for everyone. What you can do, however, is educate yourself on the various platforms and how they work, and see what feels right for you--in other words, in which platform(s) do you feel most comfortable and human?
Since it's your humans (and not your "station") that will be the touchpoint of those interactions, why not ask them? At the NAB Radio Show recently I watched a panel of some of today's best air talent talk about some of the ways they interact with listeners. I was particularly impressed with Sheri Lynch, co-host of the syndicated Bob and Sheri show. As a resident of North Carolina, the show's home state, I have long known that Sheri is extremely smart and talented. So it was unsurprising to hear that she is indeed very savvy with social networks, and has developed her own Facebook strategy that is actually quite brilliant.
Sheri never promotes her Facebook page to listeners on the air. She may talk about the show's presence, or her blog, but not her personal Facebook page. Instead, she lets listeners find it on their own (not all that hard to do) and treats it like a special place, something more personal and private that only "select" people stumble upon. Of course, she knows full well that her "friends" on Facebook include lots of listeners, but because her Facebook presence is treated like a "secret garden" of sorts, she can use it for more personal musings/photos/videos and let her listeners feel like they have an even more special, deeper relationship with Sheri than the general listening public.
I was blown away by this. Is this the right idea for you? Only you can be the judge of what is and isn't comfortable. What impressed me about this was the amount of careful thought Sheri had given her use of this particular outpost, and how this wasn't a tactical decision at all--it was all part of a shrewd differential communication strategy to engage listeners on multiple levels. So how should the Bob and Sheri show use social networking to engage listeners? Maybe the answer is to ask Bob and Sheri.
How should your air talent engage their listeners online? I bet they already know, or at least have a clear sense of what feels right--and no one can ever know that better than the talent themselves. After that, it's a simple matter to find the right tools and platforms to allow them to express themselves however they feel comfortable and most human. So, is your station ready to engage? The better question is: are your people ready to engage? Why not ask them? If they are, they are.
Reader Comments
Your 2¢, in chronological order — add your comment below.
Tom - very good advice - I want to add to it:
On being human: I gave a presentation at Podcamp Philly this past weekend about how radio and podcasting can learn from each other. My audience was all podcasters, and for them I stressed a lot of things about their content itself - good audio quality, speaking in first person, avoiding meta talk - stuff radio knows how to do well and which podcasters might want to adopt to get more listeners by sounding a little more "professional".
Since there were no radio folks in the room - my second half also fell to the podcasters - but my advice was similar to what you heard from the panel you attended. Most of all - I wanted to stress being human. You can have a radio station fan page, or Twitter account, or whetever - but that is still "broadcasting". Each jock, each person at a station should have their own account - and they shouldn't just speak from the station perspective - but their own perspective. I stressed "living the digital lifestyle" to the extent that the radio person could be comfortable with doing that. That means sharing - not just while at the station - but while NOT at the station. The reason podcasters connect with their listeners is that they are REAL PEOPLE, accessible to their listeners all the time.
Finally - I had this conversation a while back with someone in radio - and they were saying how using all these tools dilutes listener usage of the station website. But that was a short sighted observation. Sure - you might want to drive people to your site in the short term - but the long term benefit of a jock being on Twitter themselves interacting with listeners is a potentially stronger bond with listeners.
--*Rob
Tom,
Well said, as ever. Please allow me to add the obvious. Strive to be helpful, consistently provide the listener with content of genuine value (e.g., make them aware if not somehow smarter or a wee bit more dialed-in to the story and the story behind the talked about story). Be interesting. Respect them as volunteers, a community of folk who are giving you their precious time, reward them for paying attention; earn the prize of trusted referral within their orbit.