If you’ve ever done an Arbitron diary review before, you’ll know exactly where this post is headed. Back in the day, as they say, you had to fly to Arbitron in order to sort through hundreds and even thousands of diaries. Many companies and stations regularly scheduled these excursions to better understand how they were being judged by consumers.
Most found that it was worth the time and money to fly first to Beltsville back in the ‘70s, and Columbia today to take a deeper dive into the “why’s” behind the ratings.
And a funny thing would often happen during these long, mind-numbing exercises. Despite your best intentions to stay focused on how respondents were writing down and recording their listening, you couldn’t help but wander to the back of the diary and start reading the comments.
And they were riveting.
And oftentimes, you got lost in the comments because they contained stories and feedback about your programming that helped illuminate and colorize the squiggles, lines, and entries that diarykeepers made to describe their weekly listening.
So if Arbitron diary comments were so compelling, why is that so many companies don’t bother to pay much attention to their modern-day counterpart – comments, feedback, and posts on social media platforms?
Part of the problem is that they may not even realize customers are talking about them. A new study from Conversocial studied tweets about Costco, Kroger, Safeway, and Walgreens, and discovered that only 3% of the more than 11,000 tweets about these brands included the “@” symbol. That’s the conventional way that a brand would know that a consumer is talking about them on Twitter.
The other 97% of these Twitter users simply typed in the name of the store minus the “@,” thus making it more challenging to track down their comments, concerns, and complaints. That doesn’t make them any less important, and that’s the point that Conversocial is trying to make.
Big sophisticated national brands have the resources and tools to analyze chatter, comments, and feedback that waft around the social media atmosphere. Smaller companies may be missing out on opportunities to better understand what fans are saying – good and bad – about their brands and service.
At a time when consumer expectations are rising, and as they become more fickle and demanding, a strong fix on understanding their behavior has never been more important.
As many stations use Google Alerts to determine whether they’ve been mentioned online, the Twitter search bar and services like Twazzup can provide deeper information about how stations and personalities are talked about in that social space.
But perhaps the best explanation for why it is essential to keep a regular eye on Twitter comes from Conversocial CEO Joshua Marsh:
“A vast number of people are now turning to Twitter to engage in conversations about and with their favorite brands— presenting a huge opportunity for businesses to reach out to customers, efficiently identify conversations that need response, and prevent inquiries from escalating beyond repair.”
Monitoring consumer chatter about your brand is an essential way to learn how consumers use it and to identify how to best serve them. (And if you’re not keeping an eye on it, chances are your competition will.)
And the best news is that you don’t need to fly to Beltsville to get this information.
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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It sounds like there is a business opportunity for someone. A retained system of social media chatter search that does deeper than Google and Twazzup.
As for radio and its use of Twitter – well, I think that babe of the day picture needs updating. Better get too it 🙂
Brilliant minds, Bob. Thanks for taking the time.
Diary comments were/are a very under-utilized programming tool.
Never stop listening to the people who listen to you.
It is sometimes as simple as that. Those comments really brought the diaries to life for me as a PD, as frustrating as they could be. Thanks, Marty.
Thank you, Fred. I remember a CBS trip to Arbitron in ’79. Several huge trays were brought out for our Boston listeners. One diary really stuck out: A Male 25-35 checked the box on every page: “I didn’t listen to radio, today.” But going to the comments, he was very articulate saying, “Actually, when I do listen to the radio, I always listen to WEEI/FM Softrock 103. It plays music I like, The Eagles. Without the turkeys and “Joni. Without the baloni. Hillary Stevens is my favorite DJ.”
Net gain AQH & Cume from that diary? Didly dip point zero. Fortunately, we still managed a 5.1 12+.
Those are the types of memories many programmers and managers have – those inexplicable slices of reality that sober even the sharpest, most strategic PDs. Thanks for sharing, Clark.
I think the biggest challenge facing most radio stations now isn’t monitoring the virtual conversations that are taking place about them, it’s making a product people actually have virtual conversations about at all.
Yes, there is that issue. But I also look at it like I do people who call to complain about something the station is doing – they ARE emotionally invested even if they’re pissed off. They need attention and acknowledgment. Thanks, Jeff.
Nice Fred, remind me how I’m still waiting for ARB to release comments from panelists about our brands that they receive when they fill out their exit interviews.
Pretty easy, actually. At least on Twitter. Use this URL, replacing WYEP with your call letters:
https://twitter.com/search?q=wyep
And for an RSS feed of the results:
https://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=wyep
Never miss an “I love that song”…or snarky tweet…again!
You need to see it all – the good, the bad, AND the snarky. Thanks for chiming in, Mike.