1-9-2013
2013 is already off to a roaring start. If you are responsible for social media at your radio station, chances are good you may have confusing information about how to get the most out of what you are doing, but you can pick it up, improve what you are doing (even if you are already excellent) and push yourself to produce actual results for your brand in 2013 by marrying your social media to the mission of your radio station on a local basis.
The new trends for this year are local-based social media. Will radio stay with the trends and move ahead or fall behind? Here are four ways to make sure you are doing well and focusing local in 2013 with your social media efforts.
1. All politics is local and so is everything else. If you?ve ever wondered about (at least one of the) major broadcast chains tacking toward national instead of being locally focused and wondered if there was an opening for you, you?re right. Social media trends now point to the fact that you can have a huge impact by being local, but you have to focus on locally important things that matter to your target audience. You can actually stir passion and make listeners identify with you. That can become loyalty. Language is important. Be careful not to fall into the trap of only saying ?live and local.? Really engage people and think ? as you should on the air ? about the actual benefits to the listener. Stay focused on them with truly local content that goes way beyond ?stuff about the station? and you will create real value.
2. Video may soon account for 50 percent or more of all mobile traffic. Radio is loaded with opportunities to create, share, and benefit from local video content. This involves everything from local events of all kinds, to concert backstage access, and video experiences ?you can only get from us.? Leading mobile users back to why they choose you is priceless, and mobile video allows you to really do that if you focus on rich content they want.
3. The more local conversations you have with listeners on social media platforms (and beyond), the better off your actual results will be. Why? Most radio stations are posting content about promotions or tune-ins. There is nothing wrong with doing that. However, you know in your heart that real effort gets real reward, and real effort takes balance and strategy. Staying locally focused and providing rich content with a variety of subjects along with putting your focus on conversations and validation for local listeners is the key to real social media victory for radio.
4. As a part of your strategy, you should focus on collecting data in a way that works for listeners but allows you to further connect with your local audience and how they use radio. You can do this if you put your content focus in the right place and always concentrate on back-and-forth engagement that asks the right questions and offers the right rewards for listeners.
2013 is going to be busy. You will have a lot of priorities. However, your social media should be as effective as you can make it or you are just wasting time. Don?t allow people on your team to waste time. Get more value for the time your employees put into social media by having a strategy and executing it with an eye on real results for your brand. After all, you don?t just want to ?be on social media,? do you? That?s so 2012.
Loyd Ford is the direct marketing, ratings and social media strategist for Americalist and 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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