Yesterday, we took a look at the importance of responding to consumers who visit radio’s social pages. Far too often, a cavalier attitude about listeners (“contest pigs”) has led to aloof, ambivalent, or even negligent policies in markets big and small.
For all those request line calls that blinked away and went unanswered, for those letters and emails that waited for a response, and for brush-offs that occurred at station events by egotistical DJs, the chickens are coming home to roost. On Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social networks where consumers are demanding respect, attention, and acknowledgment, there’s now a price to be paid for ignoring engaged listeners.
You’ve probably seen and felt it – consumers have a new sense of empowerment. They know they can go elsewhere for everything – personality, music, and entertainment. If they don’t like a move a brand makes, they can get very vocal about it.
They don’t have to choose between just NBC, CBS, and ABC. Nor do they have to pick from your market’s Country, AC, Top 40, Rock, and News stations. There are alternatives, and consumers have learned how to find and use them.
Today’s radio stations need to rethink the ways in which they interface with the people who carry meters and diaries, as well as those who walk into local auto showrooms, restaurants, and hardware stores.
As we learned in yesterday’s post, most people don’t even expect a reply when they interact with their favorite station on Facebook or Twitter. Yet, about a third expect a response within a day.
Among both of these groups, radio can do much better.
This is the time to surprise and delight radio listeners in ways that only few stations have made it a policy to do so. An attitude where every person counts and where the individual matters is radio’s challenge and necessary mindset shift.
Here’s the good news: When you think about radio’s new competition, social media interaction is typically absent or irrelevant. You don’t really connect with Pandora or Sirius/XM in a social way. On the one, there are no people, and on the other, their social media presence is often worse than what most radio stations provide.
Social media was made for a personality-based, local medium like radio. For all of those who continue to claim that “radio was the original social medium,” I ask you why it’s now so hard for stations to be truly social with its listeners?
I have sat in meetings where Lori Lewis has implored stations to institute a policy that incorporates this “one listener at a time” philosophy. This means asking a question and actually staying “in the room” to engage and respond with consumers who answer it. Or providing explanations to questions that come in via social channels. Or adding a comment to a listener’s post. Or at worst, responding with a simple “like” – even if that means clicking 20 of them in a row.
But for too many stations, everyone’s too busy to respond or there are too many van hits or remotes to cover – events that often attract handfuls of indifferent people. Yet on social media sites and pages, there are infinite numbers of listeners, all of whom have their own networks, tribes, and communities. They are worth your time and attention.
If radio is looking for a scalable way to connect with today’s listeners, look no further than your Facebook or Twitter account. The opportunity to serve, enchant, inform, and impress is there 24/7 – not just in emergencies or crises – but every day.
To be truly effective in this space, social media channels at the station level require a “captain” – someone who’s in charge and responsible for the messaging and how and when it is delivered.
When upwards of 80% of your audience are on social channels from Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest, the opportunities and challenges to have a smart, engaged presence there becomes paramount.
In an age when marketing dollars are at a premium or nonexistent, the chance to be able to connect with audiences in a casual, open forum is something radio has never had before. Stations need more than Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. The need for a strategy in this space is becoming as important as the content that’s coming through the transmitter. In a world that is becoming more personal and more about the average person, radio has the opportunity to step up and connect.
Every person counts. And if you still think that interfacing with individual listeners is a waste of your time, ask your friendly Arbitron rep about the impact that just a single meter or diary holder can have.
Your brand needs a policy of social response and validation. Now we have empirical data for radio’s most loyal listeners that says so.
Acknowledge them.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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