by Loyd Ford
Radio companies are so lucky. They have a business that focuses on people. People depend on connection to personalities on our best brands to help them get through their day, share music or celebrity news or changing weather and entertain them while they work. If you look at the things people depend on us for in ?companionship? at the radio station, doesn?t that look like some of the same things listeners do on their Facebook pages? People don?t generally connect to companies (see the Geico Gecko). Adults (and children) connect and identify with personalities.
Here are 5 important points to developing a Facebook plan around your personalities.
1. Build your Facebook plans around personalities. You should have personalities that make good impressions on air and in the market. They interact with people well. These people are your 21st Century front stage drivers for social media. If they are truly excellent, they understand the mission of their ?show? and the station at large. They are open to learning and will help develop and engage your overall plan for the station by personalizing the messages.
2. Post often on Facebook when you have really good content. This does not mean only posts about contests. In fact, your posts about contests should be certainly less than 20% of all posts on your Facebook page. Be sure to develop a specific action plan that fits with the image of your station in the market, but you can include posts on celebrity news or gossip, things that impact your target audience in your city, and you should make sure you often turn posts around with a question to listeners at the end of the post. This encourages participation.
3. Lead listeners back to the station from Facebook. I experience calls all the time where listeners want to build their Facebook page. We are broadcasters. Our mission should be to use Facebook as a tool to engage (and re-engage) listeners with our product. Because you have a webpage, you can do this is a variety of ways. This can include sending them to see pictures or ?additional pictures? on your website. Or it can be delivery of news with an appointment for follow up on the actual station ?this afternoon? at a specific appointment time. However, the idea is to give value and promise more on the website and/or station with specifics.
4. Invite listeners to post pictures from concert events. Why should we do all the work? You?ve seen what reality television can do to seemingly normal humans. If you have a big concert coming up, engage listeners to share their ?insider pictures? along with the pictures and video you will be posting from backstage and at station events associated with the concert event. Share the love. Listeners will love it and it will create new engagement by their friends, family and co-workers (because the listener who posts, brags).
5. Do good. When personalities and brands engage in positive community service (targeted to benefit your audience or at least things your audience cares about), personalities and brands win. When building your Facebook plan, you should decide ahead of time causes individual personalities should take up and get them engaged with listeners about the cause of Facebook. This brings more warmth and passion to the personalities and your station brand.
Facebook is a great tool that can work side by side with your on-air content to connect listeners to you in a stronger way than your competitors who only ?have a Facebook page.? If you haven?t had a staff meeting about Facebook and developed a full strategy that your entire team knows about, that is an excellent place to start.
If you develop an actual plan for your Facebook activity that includes individual personalities, actual engagement over the content they can find more of on your air and expose your softer side by your personalities taking up causes and helping solve issues for your audience, you will have a winning strategy that will give you benefits for years to come.
Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE
Visit his new Facebook page HERE
(8/24/2011 6:47:38 AM)
The point about using Facebook to promote the brand is so important. Glad to see you list that here.
Add a Comment | View All Comments Send This Story To A Friend
