7-9-2011
By Loyd Ford
You can?t get much out of the holidays and social media, right? Wrong. You can use creativity to give a powerful impact to listener holidays and bond them to your brand.
This is not about 4th of July or Christmas. It is about holidays in general and how to engage listeners or connect with them. Imagine using your creativity to create a stronger bond with the listeners who will matter the most to your connectivity in the market and ratings.
Let?s take a look:
1. Dress staff and vehicles for the holiday and provide listeners with a virtual ?holiday card" they can share on their Facebook walls and in email (among other ways of sharing).
2. Use your creativity to make a video that includes many of the things your listeners will be doing during the holiday; have some fun with it. Highly engaged listeners will love it and share it if the creativity is there. You can even encourage listeners to post their own holiday videos or pictures on your station Facebook page.
3. Upload holiday-oriented pictures of past station events relating to the holidays; post artwork promoting current holiday events. Put in special effort and creativity and it will be rewarded.
4. Think about offering ?rewards" for Facebook and Twitter fans and include an event and/or advertisers, but be careful to keep the listener benefit at the foreground of what you are doing ? not advertising. This takes planning, but it can be done well. Again, use creativity to capture the moment and reward sharing or participating. Think discounts and small gifts to make the holiday easier.
5. Create holiday-themed Facebook and Twitter pages. Tons of people do this and you should think about using creativity to engage listeners in the way they feel about the holiday by having your own theme. This is easier to do than you might think. Don?t miss opportunities to encourage listeners to include your station in their holiday plans in your themes.
6. Show pictures of your staff volunteering during holidays or create an ?event" where your team (with listeners and engaged staffers) does something in the community during the holidays. If you really want to connect with listeners, this is a great way to do it.
7. Create an opportunity ?window" for listeners to vote for their favorite charity for a donation from your company or give listeners the opportunity to add on to your donation and vote for the charity they would like to see receive the donation.
The point here is: You can use creativity and what you already know about listeners, the specific holiday, and your own brand to make a large impact and have real connectivity with listeners in their lives. Why not?
After all, this is radio. Social media has nothing on radio. With a little thought about your listeners and the creativity radio is known for, you can actually bring listeners closer to you, your personalities and your brands this holiday. No matter what holiday we are talking about today.
Loyd Ford programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY. Learn more about Loyd here: http://about.me/loydford. Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE
Visit his Facebook radio social media page HERE
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