Boost Mobile Phone To Include NextRadio

1-3-14

The Moto G phone by Boost Mobile will be available Tuesday, Jan. 14, at http://www.boostmobile.com/ and select Boost Mobile retail stores nationwide. The Moto G will come preloaded with the free FM radio app NextRadio. A Boost press release says, "With NextRadio, listening to FM radio on smartphones is a new type of interactive radio listening experience. When compared with streaming, NextRadio consumes about three times less battery life than other music apps. That's because the audio is coming through a built-in FM tuner instead of over the Internet."

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(SOCIAL) Boost Station (Brand) Advocate Cheerleading

3-6-2013

While broadcasters constantly try to find ways to boost listeners who have a diary or a meter (how to game the system), seeking to please highly passionate listeners and those who are engaged and active on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter could have an even more significant impact (because they could influence diary holders and meter carriers). These passionate advocates could become your secret weapon (and you should be thinking about how to engage them regularly).

Suppose you were to turn your station advocates into powerful brand advocates that crank up quality influence on social media with friends, co-workers, other ?fans? of your format, and their own family? That should be a goal, right?

1.    Go to your own database. Do you have a relationship with them? When you are ?engaging them,? ask this question: ?On a scale of 1 ? 10, how likely are you to recommend us to your friends, family and co-workers?? Those that answer with a 9 or 10 should be considered strong candidates to encourage higher ?inside? participation where you can reward them for cheerleading. Of course, you should be asking these questions in a variety of environments, including Facebook, Twitter, your station website, and more. Consider that the big corporations that are forward-leaning do this kind of work all the time. If you don?t know anything about your database and you don?t have a relationship with these people, you really don?t have a database. At all.

2.    When you find listeners in social media who are cheerleading, it?s time to find out all about them and encourage them even more. Find out their info: Their email, where they work, how much they listen to your station (and who they listen to when they don?t listen to you). Work to connect with them and give them a ?thank you? without making it a contest. Don?t even make it a reward for what they did. Just make it a simple ?thank you.? This can make a solid impression and accelerate their passion for your brand.

3.    When listeners make comments on Facebook or Twitter, you don?t have to wait for them to be a compliment about your brand (or even about your brand) to ?get in it? with them. On Facebook, you should look for opportunities to ?Like? their comments, follow them back to their Facebook page and comment on some of their other posts. If you truly engage them in conversation, send them a friend request. Validate them and you may increase their attention to your brand and the cheerleading they will do for you without you asking.

4.    Avoid making tricks the essential part of your social media strategy. If you get listeners to click on content but it does not deliver on the promise of providing something they seek, find interesting, or something that makes them feel smart to share with others, then it is only a shallow click. Shallow clicks look good, but they are not true engagement and they won?t encourage sharing or any advocacy of your brand. What you?ve heard is true: If it is too good to believe, it probably is. Have 40,000 likes but no passionate engagement of these people? You don?t have much. Work to engage their passion and really connect with them with content and on issues important to them. That is much more valuable than shallow clicks that ultimately lead nowhere.

5.    Always develop your plan first. If you don?t have a strategic plan for the high-quality content you will use on social media platforms (and what you want to accomplish to attract and energize the ?base? of your advocates), you are making a mistake. Are you focusing your content on the listeners you most want to attract to your primary brand? This is why the plan comes first. What kind of content is important to these listeners? How much of each type of content creates the right mix to build your advocate community? How many pictures should you be using? Videos? What kind of content do you plan to encourage advocates to share?

When it comes to encouraging high-passion listeners to do more cheerleading, the impact can be dramatic. However, it?s not a trick. This is rolling your sleeves up and developing a plan that benefits the radio station by focusing on the listeners you most want to attract and giving them content that feeds their passion for sharing, identifying with and endorsing your product. Do that and you will win again and again and your competitors will wonder why they keep falling so far behind. But you?ll know.

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. Get his radio ? social media blog FREE right on your cell phone or email here:  www.rainmakerpathway.wordpress.com. 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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CMG Ohio Collaborating to Boost Local news

2-8-2013

NetNewsCheck reports how all CMG's properties in Dayton, including radio, are collaborating to create a fast and reliable local news product. The cooperation includes WHIO-TV, the Dayton Daily News and six other newspapers, three radio stations and various websites. "They have established a Breaking News Team that is the key to its cross-media collaboration, gathering stories for all of the company's Dayton properties."

Here's an excerpt from the NetNewsCheck piece. "It started with an email to the Cox Media Group Ohio-owned WHIO-TV station to alert the reporting staff that an expected humdrum January school board meeting would instead be red-hot. A last-minute agenda item had a member of the Springboro Board of Education in suburban Dayton discussing whether to allow school staffers with concealed weapons permits to bring their guns onto school grounds, a raw subject sparked by the recent school shooting tragedy in Newtown, Conn."

"Although the email came to the television station, they quickly funneled the tip across the room to the Breaking News Team. A team member notified a print reporter in the office who covers the community and was able to quickly reach school board members to confirm the information. That reporter wrote a short item for the Web, along with a fuller story that was posted that day online and appeared in the next day?s Dayton Daily News. More than 500 people turned out for the meeting that night."

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(SOCIAL) 3 Social Platforms To Boost Results

1-16-2013

You are strapped for time. It?s difficult for your small staff to do everything. Budgets have been cut (again). The boss and the company still expect great ideas, creativity, and growth. You want to find ways to grow your ratings, grow your engagement, but you may not be sure you can be effective using social media along with your ratings marketing. It?s not about being ?on social media.?  Here are three ways and three social media platforms you can use to really boost your results this year. First, here are three ways to pump up!

1. Build a strategic plan specifically with what results you want to see and the listeners you want to attract in mind. You can build this plan to include the type of content you want to share on social media, how you follow up with actual ?conversations? in your market on social media, and who on your team is responsible for each piece or type of content along with how often each type of content is required as part of your plan.

2. Determine which social media platforms you want to use and exactly how they will help you reach your goals. Remember:  This isn?t just to make sure you are ?on? social media. You want results, so everything has to be designed with those goals in mind for the station.

3. Make sure your social media regularly and consistently goes beyond ?posting content." You want to open up ?conversations? or interaction. You want to seek opportunities to validate potential listeners and create loyalty through social interaction that turns into on-air relationships (listening).

Now, here are three ways you can use three social platforms to gain access to more sharing, more participation, and more listeners!

1. Use Facebook to drive listeners to your website, on-air, and blogs with visuals and content that makes social media users feel smart, funny, or creative so they will share. You gain little value from being ?on Facebook.? Your value comes only when you can use content, creativity, visuals, and entertainment value to draw them back to your products. And you can do that with Facebook every day.

2. Twitter allows you to use the shortest messages. If your content is excellent, you can experience wide sharing and draw listeners directly to your product.

3. You and your staff can use YouTube to share video of station events, ?inside the station? moments listeners will find interesting (your job is likely not anything like their job), backstage at concerts, and viral opportunities to create talk about your product.

You can be ?on Facebook and Twitter? or you can decide to make a big difference in the growth of your radio station by using these basics and building your effective use of social media consistently and with the ?end result for your radio station in mind.? If you decide to take on the challenge of social media for the effectiveness of radio (and not just to be ?on? social media), you can have powerful results that your boss, your company, and your market can feel.

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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SOCIAL)10 Ways To Boost Station Events

5-29-2012

In radio, there are events. Sometimes it is as simple as after-work parties or concerts, sometimes it is a non-traditional revenue event. Of course, we are excellent at promoting an event on-air. But what about with social media? Radio can use social media to boost consistent participation levels in these events. Here are 10 ideas to help you boost!

1. Make sure your event has real appeal for your coveted audience. This falls under the idea of knowing your audience and giving them what they enjoy. If they don't find your event interesting, something is wrong and you are engaged in an event you probably shouldn't be.

2. Before your event, post pictures of a past event of the same type. Or if it is a concert, post pictures of the concert from other cities on the tour and encourage listeners to get involved as you prepare for the concert with your radio station.

3. Have your station on-air talent blog about the value of the event in advance. Give specific details on how to get the most out of the event. Make sure to include pictures and video (we're all visual creatures). Post your blog on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Doing this in advance builds excitement and puts your station at the center of the event when it comes.

4. Invite listeners to the event on Facebook. Include pictures and video from past events like the one coming up and encourage listeners to "like" your event.

5. During the actual event, take pictures and video of what your listeners find appealing (valuable) at your events and post them immediately. This "jacks" listeners for the current event and also future events of this type. In fact, radio often has events the general public considers fun and exciting. Take advantage of this by manufacturing that excitement on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and spread it to your website and these social media platforms along with station-loyal listener email. Again, the chief consideration should be the value of the content. If you build it, they will get excited about it.

6. You should post content regularly to at least Facebook and Twitter every 30 to 40 minutes during the event. This helps listeners not on-site to engage and it baits listeners who may not be able to attend the current event to attend future events.

7. Ask listeners at the event if you can post pictures of them and then do so you can tag them on Facebook and spread the impact of your influence to their friends. I don't have to tell you that when your friends see you having fun, they may want to join you.

8. Get listeners already on site at your event to talk about what they are enjoying about the event and post the quotes, video, and/or audio. This might seem like a no-brainer, but listeners will engage once they see other people already doing it. There is nothing like the feeling of missing a good time to motivate others to join you!

9. Get lots of "listener attributions" during the event so you can post quotes after the event on your website and social media platforms both during and after the event. In addition, get audio for future events so that you have a lead-in promo (even if it is only on your website and social media platforms). Something like, "Hi, I'm Walter. And I'm Nancy. And we love the Kiss 102 After Work Party at Midtown!" Listeners love the excitement of other people sharing fun with them. It draws them to events and you can use this tactic to pump up your events with consistency.

10. As you did before the event, post pictures and videos, and blog about the event. And always include pictures and video in the blogs. You can do this to take credit and promote ahead the next event.  This helps you build the image of being a good "party-giver." People like to know who throws the cool parties. Is it you?

You might consider all of this to fall under the simple philosophy of "Tell 'em you are going to do it, do it, and remind them you did it." However, simply engaging listeners at a high level on site can bring more people and more excitement to an event. Do that consistently and you will build an absolute following. Do it right and you will find your listeners will be doing some of these things along with your efforts. Cheerleaders are good!

With so many opportunities to be visual and lead listeners to your party, a little of this kind of structured activity before, during and after events will make you seem like the genius social media promotion expert on your team (and maybe in your company).

Loyd Ford has programmed successful radio brands in markets of all sizes, including KRMD AM and 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 www.facebook.com/socialnetworking4radio

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Wilson Phillips Gets New Boost from 'Bridesmaids' Movie

by Cortney Harding  |   May 22, 2011 8:00 EDT

Wilson Phillips' "Hold On" is reaching a new audience thanks to the film "Bridesmaids," 21 years after the song hit No. 1. It's one of the key tracks in the movie, whose 13-song Relativity Music Group soundtrack also boasts Blondie's "Rip Her to Shreds," a cover of Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun" by Nouvelle Vague and songs by Hole and Smokey Robinson.

Even though Carnie Wilson has a small part in the Judd Apatow-produced film -- which opened May 13 and took in $26.2 million on its first weekend, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com -- a 20-minute conversation with her makes it clear she could've played a much bigger role. Effusive and hysterically funny, Wilson wraps up the call by saying that she's taking her mother and some friends to see "Bridesmaids" again. Only this time, she's wearing a pantyliner. "I peed my pants laughing so hard the first time I saw it," she says. "So this time I'm totally prepared."

Video: Wilson Phillips, "Hold On"

Wilson, along with Chynna Phillips and sister Wendy Wilson, should also be prepared to step back into the spotlight. "Hold On" rises 620%, with sales increasing from 1,000 to 6,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. While the band's latest record, a Christmas album released last year by Sony Masterworks, sold minimally last week, the trio's catalog has shifted 4.2 million units since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.

Winston Simone, who co-manages the group, says he arrived at work on May 18 to find two messages from TV showrunners asking about the group's availability -- and that the phone has been ringing nonstop. Wilson Phillips charted three No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 in the early '90s. Having released its last studio album, "California," in 2004, the act has played select dates as a trio while simultaneously pursuing acting careers, writing books and raising children.

A fan of such earlier Apatow-produced comedies as "Knocked Up" and "Superbad," Carnie says the group's publicist Lizzie Grubman "was the one who made 'Bridesmaids' happen. I'm more of a music business chick than a movie business chick, though, so actually shooting the scene was a new experience for me."

Carnie says the scene where she and her bandmates play at the wedding of Maya Rudolph's character was an all-day affair. "We were there until two in the morning, but it was amazing," she says. "We spent time with Kristen Wiig, who is hysterical and so talented. We were just laughing the entire time."

Although the film has reignited fond memories for the act's longtime fans and introduced the trio to a whole new generation, Carnie says a Wilson Phillips blitz isn't likely. "It takes a lot of money to capitalize on something," she says with a laugh. "We are doing select dates around the country. We have four in June [including Mount Pleasant, Mich.], one in July, a few in August and then some in December. We've also had to turn down gigs because they've been one-offs, and it doesn't make sense financially to do them."

She adds that she has no desire to tackle the arena circuit, either. "We've been touring quietly for the past two years, and I'm really happy with the venues that we are playing, like performing arts centers and the occasional casino," she says.

But fans will have a new album to look forward to: a collection of covers featuring tracks by the Mamas & the Papas and the Beach Boys, which Carnie says will likely be released next January on Sony Masterworks. She adds that the group is in the early stages of talking to a network about a reality show that would follow the trio through the recording and touring process. For now, Carnie says she's just excited to be part of "Bridesmaids" and that she loves the film's message. "It's all about the evolution of female friendships," she says. "And that's something I can definitely relate to."

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