(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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Results Radio Reports Death Jose Ochoa

12-31-12
The 35-year-old Ochoa died of an apparent heart attack. The station website says, "The Power Family lost one of our own, DJ Jose Ochoa. He is survived by his wife Monica, their infant son, and his three stepchildren whom he loved and raised as his own. Jose was an inspiration to us all. He was kind to everyone he came in contact with, never had a bad thing to say about anyone, and always had a smile on his face." 

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(SALES) Improve Results With Clients Now

11-26-2012

One of the functions that I perform in my consulting business is to travel in the field with media reps to coach and train them. I see the issues first-hand that the reps encounter day in and day out. I would like to share five practices that I have observed that can improve media reps? results with their clients.

1) Hold the Client Responsible for Their Portion of the Advertising Campaign

In selling a media campaign to clients, reps need to understand that the advertiser also has an important responsibility in the campaign. The client sets the price, the placement, and even chooses the specific product for the campaign. The media rep is responsible for promoting the product(s). The media rep does manage a portion of the campaign, yet they are often given full responsibility for the failure of a campaign. To avoid being blamed, reps should set the expectations at the beginning when quantifying the results with the customer. The rep then establishes a means for tracking the results or objectives of the campaign. They should be sure to meet with the client before the advertising begins and establish measurement guidelines on realistic product movement. In addition, the rep should use a return-on-investment calculation if possible, so the advertiser will have realistic expectations. There are various aspects that constitute a successful campaign. The rep needs to make sure that the client is also doing their part to insure the campaign?s success.

2) Bring Creative Ideas to the Client

I am surprised at how many times that I attend a closing presentation and the rep fails to include creative ideas for the campaign. The media rep is the advertising consultant for the account. One of their most important responsibilities is to make sure that they have creative in place that will accomplish the client?s goals. If the rep has completed the customer marketing profile, they should already know what the customer needs. When I hear a sales rep ask the advertiser, ?Are these ads what you need?? it is a good indication to me that the campaign is already off to a rocky start. The media rep should be making the recommendations about the advertising, not the client.

3) Do  the Homework Regarding  the Customer

Hit-and-miss, drive-by-shootings is how I like to describe these calls. A drive-by-shooting is when I see a media rep rambling on in a sales call with no particular objective. They will try and throw something out there and hope that the client bites. The client will occasionally feel sorry for the rep and toss some small buys or scraps their way. Remember that only five percent of sales reps do any homework before attempting to set up an appointment with a client. Tragic! Do not be the rep that gets the scraps.

4) Follow up With the Customer

Following up with a customer is how a sales rep earns their stripes. There are many different aspects of follow-up, but it is key to maintaining an ongoing relationship with a client. Whether it is a thank you note from an initial meeting or a return phone call on a customer inquiry regarding their ads, the rep needs to be timely in their replies. A simple motto regarding customer follow-up: ?Do what you say you are going to do.?

5) Organize Territory

 I see many reps driving aimlessly with no solid plan. With today?s gas prices, how can a rep afford to leave the office and merely drive around? Reps will miss a lot of precious face-to-face selling time by not having a concrete plan for a territory. A solid day with a well-organized call list can increase sales substantially. The key point here is that a rep?s week should be organized the previous week, not as they are walking out the door to start their day.
The success of any sales rep is a direct result of following proper selling techniques. The most successful sales reps are always measuring their customers? expectations, bringing them new ideas, following up with their clients, and organizing their territory. The top reps work smarter, not harder.

Sean Luce is the Head National Instructor for the Luce Performance Group and can be reached at sean@luceperformancegroup.com.

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(AUDIO) New Jersey Car Dealer Says Pandora Works And I Can Track Results

To Joe B, Angelica, and others who are holding onto the past...

Quite a few points to address; the most important being "Pandora is not radio and those touting it as being wonderful don't get what radio is about."

1) Radio is whatever the client/consumer chooses to call "radio." Thinking that you still have the power to define it for each group is a misstep.

2) Do you honestly believe that people who have spent decades in radio "don't get what radio is about"? (I, and many others, fall into this category.) Is it possible you are not getting what "accountability" is about?

3) Re: "The personalities you listen to are your friends..." may have been radio's strong point a decade (or more) ago, but that's a watered-down statement in today's world of voice-tracking and jock layoffs.

4) Re: "I am tired of reading/listening to these worn stories about Pandora. It's all 'hype'..." ... "Please stop writing about it and let it just disappear." So, your solution is to not report on the activity which is captivating media buyers - who are shifting more dollars to new media campaigns each year? How wise is that? If you believe that Pandora (or its form of accountable advertising) will disappear, you are the one needing a reality check.

5) Re: "Do you think there might be just one other dealer who satisfied with the results of radio, or dare I say a radio and digital campaign..." Yes, on the first part, but more dealers are placing more money online for a reason. Also, the radio industry has not demonstrated a true "digital campaign" to date. Not, at least, in the sense of managing metrics and accountability. A banner ad run is not a digital campaign.

Be thankful that you have a publication like Radio Ink that's willing to put itself on the line to bring the fine points of advertising's future to you. As distasteful as those points may be they are where media buying is headed, with or without you.

Radio is a powerful media when done right. But there's been a fracturing of audience, across multiple new audio options, and that, coupled with radio programming not staying as sharp as it was in the past, means change is needed within the industry to maintain relevancy for advertiser and audience.

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5 Ways To Get Meaningful Results From Social

by Loyd Ford

Here are 5 ways you can give your social media activity meaningful results starting now:
1.   Don?t be afraid to stand out.  Get noticed by really crafting your content on social media platforms to the specific audience you want to attract and engage.  Use video with your personalities to really connect.  This can be done cheaply with a Video Flip or similar device in activities radio already participates in on a weekly basis.  Listeners can get excited seeing other people just like them having a great time with your personalities and your brand.   If you have enough fun, it can lead listeners in social environments right back to your radio station.

2.  Make sure your content is excellent and useful for listeners of your brand.  You know how to do this because your content on air has to be brief and focused on the targets.  It?s not different on Facebook, Twitter or any social ?environment.?  Have that content be reflective of your station brand?.but delivered by personalities.

3.  Identify influencers in the social media space interested in your product (I am specifically talking about what makes your format special and why people should want to connect with you).  You see who these ?influencers? are if you are truly ?listening? and ?watching.?  They are attached to a good sphere of people who trust them.  They engage.   And they can help bring a wave of people like them to connect with your radio brand.  Have your personalities engage these influencers.  It can be as simple as sending a private email to them on Facebook saying you were thinking about them and left a pair of movie tickets or concert tickets for them at the front desk at the station.  ?Why don?t you come by and pick them up??  Don?t send them a Facebook email as the radio station.  Have a specific personality on the station do it.  It?s easy to make a huge impression this way and they will talk.

4.  Tilt every activity, post and interaction back toward engagement of your brand.  I know I risk confusion here.  I?m not the saying to post commercials for the brand on social media.  I am encouraging you to have your team think with the purpose of bringing social influencers closer to you and back to your actual product in most everything you do in the social media space.  However, make sure the content is focused on a benefit for them ? not the station.

5. Don?t be afraid to activate your ?actives? to engage your brand, events or to even perform specific actions.  The power of radio is relationship and connection.  Use your social connectivity to engage real activity in the real world.  Work to move listeners/influencers into the role of street team activists or at least social media cheerleaders for your brand.  It?s easy to see the benefit of doing this right, but it has to come with real relationship.  You can start at this level.  Listen to them, engage in the conversation, build trust and then influence them to become active as a part of your overall plans. Remember that Human connection is what people crave.  People are uniquely frustrated because most companies eliminate as much of the human element on their end in dealing with you.  They want your money ? not you.  

There is a large void of human interaction that radio can benefit from today.  We are the people who are companions for millions every day.  Put some care into your social media space and you will extend radios? benefit. Even with all the voice tracking that takes place in your average radio station today, listeners still identify with strong personalities on your brands.  There is great opportunity for you to use your strong personalities to connect listeners to your brands using social media.  Social media is an environment where  personalities rule.  Use your natural advantage and really win.

Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE
Visit his new Facebook page HERE

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Clear Channel, Entercom Announce Results Of Shareholder Meetings

May 19, 2011: Clear Channel Communications parent CC Media Holdings held its annual shareholders' meeting on Tuesday, with shareholders electing 12 nominees to the board of directors, including former CEO Mark Mays and former president/CFO Randall Mays.

Additionally, an advisory vote was held on how often the company should hold advisory votes on its executive compensation. A majority of shareholders voted that such votes should be held every three years, and the board is taking the advice and will include the vote in proxy materials every three years -- until the next advisory vote on the frequency of advisory votes is due. The SEC requires a vote at least once every six years.

Entercom Communications also held its shareholders' meeting on May 17, electing its board and getting shareholder approval for an amendment to the company's equity compensation plan. Entercom's shareholders also voted to hold an advisory vote on executive compensation every three years.

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