3-20-2105
The Univision PR team has launched a Twitter account, with the latest news, ratings, Univision launches, programming details and behind the scenes access to all things Univision. Follow them now @UCIPRTeam.
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5-24-2013
Today could be an important day for you. Once I was a 20th century radio pro. I believed certain things and even believed that those things were universal truths that didn?t change.
Well, now I live 13 years into ?the future,? and things change here all the time. I?ve had to learn and embrace the contact and engagement elements of social media. I?ve had to look at platforms like Facebook and Twitter for what radio can get out of them for our brands (not just as places where we go and act like someone who is on Facebook or Twitter in their personal time). That has led me to embrace Facebook and the connectivity, validation, and closeness that it can bring you with the listeners you most want to attract and bring back to your brand. However, I have been slower to embrace Twitter. Maybe it is the 140 characters. But now that is over, too.
Twitter gives us opportunity to be relevant and sticky on subjects most likely to be of interest to the listeners we most want to attract. So, here are some thoughts to ?open the floor? on discussion about Twitter.
1. Local radio should focus on building the personality-listener on Twitter and the subject should relate to local, local, local whenever it is possible to do so.
2. Twitter allows you to post 140 characters (hopefully) about something important to someone other than yourself, the radio station, or the broadcast company you work for today. Note to self: Make sure your 140 characters are about something that would interest to the listeners you would most want to attract for your local radio brand. You can do something compelling that is uniquely focused on listener interest. This could be related to a local issue, a local photo, or something that happened nationally in the news that has a local spin to it.
3. Use hashtags to zero in. Twitter allows you to use hastags so listeners who search content can find things of a specific interest. If you live in Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, you might be interested in Atlanta. If I programmed a station in Atlanta, I might offer content with the hastag #Atlanta whenever appropriate so I can capture the eyes of those searching #Atlanta. At the same time, if I were a Country station and Zac Brown was doing a show tonight, I might use #ZacBrown or #ZacBrown with my city name as my hashtag for those listeners most interested in Zac Brown. By the way, this works for any artist-related content.
4. When you use Twitter and hashtags, your focus should always be to bring them back to a product you own. Not Facebook or Twitter.
Social media are something you should experiment with today. It is a largely free resource and we don?t live in the 20th century anymore. So we shouldn?t still be back there in 1999. As your mom may have said to you back in the day, ?Get out there! There?s a whole world waiting for you!?
There are just a few more things that you should think about associated with these thoughts:
People respond to visuals and the visuals you use in social media (especially Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest) should be important to the listener (not just the station), they should be relevant to the current moment, if possible they should be fun and they should lead back to the products you on (either on-air or on the web). This especially includes your use of images and hashtags on Twitter (or anywhere social).
Keep this in mind: When you are posting anything or commenting on anything as a personality for your radio station, you are representing the radio company. As long as you use common sense, understand that social media ? like being on air ? is public, make sure you are responsible and legal and respectful to everyone, you should enjoy and experiment to develop important impact in your social media for the radio station. That?s the goal. As long as you know that the words and images you use are ?really out there? in ?print,? you should be respectful and positive to bring back only positive benefits for your station and employer.
If your employer doesn?t get the value of social media, work on showing them how you can help the company make additional revenue with digital and social media. Show them that and you will get all the cooperation you want. You might even get a raise.
Having said all of that, It?s 2013. This could be the year of local radio ? again. Be local, have fun, think about the listener and be visually engaging. Respond to listeners. Be helpful. Let?s go get it on-air, on the street and in social media. It?s our world.
Loyd Ford is the direct marketing, ratings and social media strategist for Americalist and has programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes, 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. Get his radio-social media content sent directly to your smart phone or email for free here: www.rainmakerpathway.wordpress.com. Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE. Visit his Facebook radio social media page HERE
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4-18-13
As expected, Twitter is now in the music business. TechCrunch says, "Twitter Music seems to feel like a lot of other music apps while still being slightly unique from all of them." Mashable says, "It's a bold move for Twitter which now seems to be picking up and expanding into all kinds of new services. This could also spell trouble for streaming service Pandora, which is not on the Twitter Music partner list ? yet. Mashable says Twitter Music is practically making you follow musicians and that's good news for artists" The service was launched Thursday on "Good Morning America." Here's how the service works.
Twitter Music uses Twitter activity, including tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular songs and emerging artists. The songs on Twitter Music currently come from three sources: iTunes, Spotify or Rdio. By default, users will hear previews from iTunes when exploring music in the app. Subscribers to Rdio and Spotify can log in to their accounts to hear full tracks that are available in those respective catalogs. Other music providers are being explored by Twitter. Users can also tweet songs right from the app.
Users interested in songs tweeted by the artists and people they follow on Twitter can navigate to #NowPlaying to view and listen to those songs. Or if you?re scrolling through a chart and you want to learn more about a band, you can tap their avatar to see their top song, follow them right from the chart, or tap their Twitter username to go to their profile. Or if you want to listen to music from an artist you follow, you can search the artist using the search icon in the top right corner. Then tap one of the artists you?re interested in and hit the play button to begin listening, or press "Play" on the player to listen to all the artists.
(4/19/2013 4:57:13 PM)
Tied into AM/FM? Yeah, like a boat anchor around its neck. . .
(4/19/2013 7:42:57 AM)
Is Twitter Music tied into am/fm radio in any way?
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4-15-13
The New York Times and All Things D are both reporting that Twitter is about to launch a music feature that will use the listening habits of users' friends and followers to recommend music. It's part of the company purchase of We Are Hunted. Exactly when the service will launch is unclear.
Twitter set up a blank page with the silhouetted bird logo, ?#music? and a sign-in tab that, when clicked, asked users to give a trending music application access to their account. It describes an app that can scan your Twitter feed, update their profiles and post tweets, suggesting an ability to alert users about the music their friends were listening to.
(by Mike Stiles) Ever wonder what the most successful brands are doing that warrants their getting mentioned on Twitter? Yeah, me too. I?m always interested in what strikes a cord with followers, whether it?s of information or entertainment value.So there you have just a few lessons from successful brands you can apply to your own Twitter strategy to make sure your station is relevant to listeners and you?re genuinely giving them a reason to tweet about you. Do it right and you?ll be the awesome Egg McMuffins we know you can be.
Mike Stiles is a writer/producer with the social marketing tech platform, Vitrue, and head of Sketchworks comedy theatre. Check out his monologue blog, The Stiles Files.
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New York Market Radio (NYMRAD) says Biz Stone, co-Founder of Twitter and now co-Founder of Obvious Corp. will keynote ?listen.? The Sound of Influence, Wednesday, Oct. 5th at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square, during Advertising Week. His speech, entitled ?The Universal Significance of Listening,? will be delivered in front of hundreds of marketing minds, creative giants and c-suite execs at NYMRAD?s Advertising Week event. Biz became an Internet entrepreneur in 1999 and went on to work for Google. Later, Stone co-founded Twitter, which launched in 2006. In June of 2011 with his long time collaborators Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, Stone co-founded The Obvious Corporation.
Last week NYMRAD announced the ?Creative Challenge for Change?. Alex Cameron, NYMRAD Chair explains, ?The dimensions the event will offer this year will be very dynamic and relevant weaving together the importance of digital media, sound, social and cause. Radio has been described by many as the original social media and has always been invested in causes its communities talk about, care about or need to know about. That now translates to the medium?s digital assets and audiences and we are very excited about all the fresh thinking this program will serve up?.
At the 2010 Radio Ink Convergence gathering a seat-of-the-pants session was organized when it appeared as if many of the attendees were having trouble understanding how to use Twitter. It was a sort of unplanned Twitter 101. At the 2011 event, no such session was needed. We had a live Twitter feed rolling on a big screen in the Microsoft theatre and audience members were busy tweeting back to their markets and followers about the show and what they were learning.
Radio Ink created what's known as a hashtag for Tech Ink as well as Convergence. Whenever someone heard something they liked or wanted to share with their followers they would type it on their Twitter page and finish the tweet with #CONV11. The hashtag allows everyone using Twitter at the convention to see what everyone else is writing, whether they are following each other or not. And as you can guess, being around all of these people you may not have known leads to more followers.
If you're wondering why you should be using Twitter, it's more than just people following each other nosing into their lives. if you use it as a business tool, it's a great way to find article links and other helpful information to help you in your career. Information you may not have time to research. Radio Ink Publisher Eric Rhoads says "Twitter has become a significant communications tool for millions of people and its one of the distribution points radio needs to include." There are enough people out there digging, it makes life easy when they provide you with a headline and a link. Of course you have to be following the right people and not get caught up in the gossip and needless mind garbage.
Here are just a few of the tweets from the Radio Ink Conferences last week in San Jose California.
@jimthomas1: Thanks to Radio Ink for putting on #Conv11. Good information and great people. Be Untraditional and Connect.?
@reecemcgregor: great conference. Suggestions for next year. Open forum panel for brainstorming ideas, promotions, and concepts for digital.
@jimthomas1: Thanks to Radio Ink for putting on #Conv11. Good information and great people. Be Untraditional and Connect.
@Shayna_RRC: Thanks all for a fabulous conference! #conv11
@JessicaNorthey: I enjoyed having the opportunity to participate in #conv11 it was awesome!!! cc @RadioINK
@NikkiMarra: I had a great time at Convergence and Tech Summit. Thanks everyone for sharing. #conv11 #techsum
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