Social Media 101

Let's get one thing straight. If your station does not have a FaceBook (FB) presence, you need to get on it now. And I'll do what I can to help you figure FB and every other Social Media website out, if you stick around and subscribe. But I have to tell you, some stations that are signing up for FB are going about it the wrong way. They have signed up with a regular user account! Why is this bad? For a several reasons...

• FB frowns on users having multiple accounts
• FB intentionally created Fan Pages for businesses
• Advertising your Fan Page is more professional than advertising your Personal Profile page
• Fan Pages have analytics! Helloooo! Don't you want to know the demographics visiting your page?
• You can manage multiple Fan Pages with one account
• You can import your Announcer Blogs into a Fan Page through RSS feeds
  
• You can send a message to all your Fans with one click

Let's take these one by one. FB has strict Terms of Service and will shut down anyone with multiple accounts. So, if you have assigned the FB account to an intern, and they get caught, you lose your FB presence. Then you have to go through a bunch of rigamoro with FB to get it reinstated. So, best to play by the rules and limit the surprizes.

Face Book anticipated people creating multiple accounts; one for personal, one for business, one for hobby, etc. So FB came up with an alternative solution: Fan Pages. Fan Pages are for businesses, public figures and anything people can be a fan of, like radio! They are similar to a regular profile account, but there are differences.

When you advertise your FB page anywhere, it is more professional for a business to have a Fan Page, rather than a regular account. It's similar to the ideology that it is better to have a Top Level Domain name for your website, rather than using a Geocities website. Also, on FB you can target your ads to members in your listening area! By having a Fan Page, you can then analyze the demographics of people visiting. If you are a station that targets 18-24 females in Scranton, PA, you can target your FB ads to reach that demo! The analytics is one reason to have a Fan Page over a Group too.

If you have a cluster of stations, it is easier to manage all the Fan Pages with one log in, rather than having multiple log ins for multiple accounts. This saves time and effort. All analytics are measured from one log in, for each fan Page you have. And it is easier to remove people you have given admin privileges to.

Since the Fan Page is similar to a regular user profile, you can add applications such as an RSS reader that allows you to pull in your Announcer's blogs. You are probably already doing this on your station's website (or you should be), but the advantage here is that when a blog is updated, it can post to the Fan Page status, which in turn will show up on your fan's profile page. And, should a fan decide to leave a comment to that status, your fan's friends will get a link in reference to that comment, which will entice them to also see your station's Fan Page. This is set up in your favor! It is made to help you get more "followers" which will in turn create more loyal listeners.

And finally, you can send a message to your fans with a simple click. So, you can send out contest remonders, sever weather alerts, and special offers from your advertisers to your Fans. And that can be appealing to your advertisers. You can also use FB Connect on your website to connect your listeners to your Fan Page. At a minimum you should include a standardized FB logo and link to your Fan Page to make it easy for your listeners to connect with you on FB.

One final word on setting up your Fan Page, which actually applies to all Social Media sites you set up: Make sure there are multiple "administrators" for your communities. Seriously, your business manager should have access, just in case you need to change the personelle in your programming and/or promotions department. But, you probably knew that already.

Stick around and subscribe! Next we'll talk about Twitter!

Follow me and if you need any help with your Social Media integration, fee free to conact me at 860-506-3768.

The Relevance of Radio

Sorry. I fell asleep talking about radio with a couple friends. There really isn't much to discuss so I had a nice snooze dreaming about the "good ol' days". We all know today's radio, in general, sounds horrible. Well, let's clarify: Most stations sound horrible. We should give props to those owners that do care, and didn't buy the cookie cutter formula. Listening to major market talent is always fun, but not when they are reduced to reading liners. It's so bad you can virtually predict when the stop set starts. And so much voice tracking leaves little to be desired. Add to that short playlists, you may as well put in for favorite compilation CD and put it on replay shuffle (wait, that's what people are doing with their iPods!).

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

But even Sirius XM, under Mel's leadership, get's it. I have heard several jocks on various Sirius XM stations that TALK to the LISTENER! What a concept. Anyway, I took a break right after starting this blog. Quite frankly I got bored with the industry I love because there isn't much to write about. I would be rehashing what you are already reading elsewhere.

However, I got a message today from a radio friend. He said "I just told 3,000 people about your blog. Two wrote back and told me it hasn't been updated since August." That was my queue, you know, in life we wait for our queue to do something we've wanted to do. So, I'm back.

Which leads me to today's topic: The relevance of radio. However, there is a twist. I don't mean relevance to the listener. I mean relevance to us, in the industry. How relevant is radio to you?

Some of you know I was a moderator for Radio-Info when the founder Doug Fleming was alive. And I accepted a larger role when his parents regained their rightful control over the site. I was very interested in discussing radio with other "radiophiles". I was very interested in the daily news. I was very interested in hearing of format changes and personnel changes. Reading about rumors that became reality was fun. It created many great discussions and friendships were formed. I was very hyped about the industry. All I did was eat, drink and breath radio.

However, I'm not much interested anymore. I still check out the major radio sites such as AllAccess, Radio Ink, and Radio and Records from time to time. Every now and then I'll check up on some of the more prolific radio blogs, many of which I link to on this blog. But I don't really visit the message boards anymore; Not as often as reading what notable professionals have to say. There is just rarely anything new or exciting to discuss about terrestrial radio. For me, it's like watching a beached whale die. There isn't anything I personally can do to help fix it, get it floating again, or breath some life into it. Since most stations will only hire cheap talent and with some of the experiences I've had in radio, quite frankly, I'm picky about who I would work for too.

Terrestrial Radio as we know it now is becoming irrelevant to me. I still love it. I still want to take a station from 0 to 100 in 10 seconds. But I'm finding it harder and harder to find a quality position at a quality station. That's not to say they don't exist, because they do. But there are so few of them anymore, and generally speaking, when you know you have the best job out there, would you leave it? Only for a better one, and better jobs are getting harder to find too!

So what am I passionate about then, you wonder? Internet and Satellite Radio, New Media, Social Networks and my own Internet radio show. There is so much to discover on the Internet as far as radio is concerned. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of radio shows on the Internet. Many are done by newbies, and sound horrible. But there are good ones out there. Some are better than what you hear over-the-air! Satellite radio, or more specifically Sirius XM has some good talent. I had an opportunity to listen to a couple channels (the 80's Channel, Classic Rewind, Hair Nation and Lithium to name a few) and I heard some notable DJ's/Announcers doing a bang up job. I was listening to real radio! Yes, I admit the localism was missing but that was eclipsed by the good content.

But now, in major markets localism means "appearances" or "remotes" and that's it. And who goes to a remote to see the station staff anyway? They should be going to see the customer, not the announcer! And I'm sorry, but I don't listen to the radio for traffic updates. As a matter of fact, I think traffic clutters up the hour with useless information. On most stations, the weather is usually done by the TV weather guy/gal which I can get from the TV! Or, if I really need to know the weather, I will check Weather.com (don't tell me you don't). In smaller markets, there is either voice-tracking or syndication so that the localism is limited to poorly produced spots.

New Media and Social Networking will eventually replace radio as we know it. While I can romanticize about the golden days of radio, they have come and gone. It is time to accept the future and apply some of the newest tools to the industry we love in order for it to even survive it's evolution! "Radio" will continue to exist, just not as we know it now. It will be more "social". More "open source". It will be created by the listeners for the listeners.

In the coming blogs, I will review a different social network each week, it's pros and cons, and will reveal how radio can best use it to reach it's listeners. In the mean time, why not check out Radio Twit, my Radio Professionals Guid to Twitter. It's free. You can also check out my radio show at http://www.charlieprofitradio.com.

Social What?

Social media, social networking, it's all about being social. Remember how exciting it was for your favorite dj to give you a "shout out". You would tell all your friends that you were on the radio! You probably delivered that message through a "party line" telephone line, or simply one friend calling another, who called another. Then the next day at school, it might have even been a topic of discussion in your circle of friends. Radio was a social medium for us!

Fast forward to today: kids don't need radio to be social. All this talk of social networking has radio executives wondering what happened, and how to claim their stake. But kids aren't just connecting with their own friends through Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, they are building up their own audiences. They don't need radio to entertain them. They entertain each other. I think that is where the radio executives fall short in understanding why the radio audience is shrinking. We think WE should be the entertainers, instead of just being a part of the entertainment. This goes back to my first point about the Shout Outs. Radio used to make the listeners the star, not the dj. I know, "we still do shout outs". But see, for the younger listeners, that's not enough anymore. With todays Social Networking, anyone can be a "star". Anyone can have an Internet radio station, or video channel. You have to do more than play music for this generation.

What can be done to get the younger demo to come back? Be a part of their Social Network! I think many stations have tried to be a part of it by setting up a MySpace page. The problem is that most stations just use MySpace as a "web page". A MySpace page should not just be another "web page". It should be used as an interactive function. But as has been mentioned in many places, MySpace is losing its appeal. However, if you have not set up a MySpace page for your station [even if your demo is 35-54!] you should set one up now. After all it's free! You know how us radio folk like free stuff! The next thing to do is set up a Fan Page on FaceBook. FaceBook is gaining momentum right now. Setting up a Fan Page is easy to do, but if you need a little help, let me know. I have my own fan page at http://facebookfan.charlieprofit.com. You can become my fan if you'd like! Again, this should be used as an interactive function with your listeners. Post bulletins, upload and share photos and videos. If you have listeners that attended a concert, invite them to upload the photos they took with their cell phones! Give the listeners some of the glory! Reward them for listening by allowing them to participate in your web community. Yes, you still need to have staff patrol the activity, but it will generate a buzz.


And we shall take this one step further. Get a Twitter account for your station. What is Twitter? Twitter is an application that allows "mini blogs". Take a look at mine at http://twitter.charlieprofit.com. [I use redirects, as it is easier for me to remember the url. If you don't understand those terms, don't worry, just click the link]. With these "mini blogs" people are able to update others in their network with what they are doing, thinking or experiencing at that moment. But if you think outside-the-box, you can not only use Twitter to give Shout Outs to your listeners, you can announce contest winners and live remotes! Imagine being able to tell your listeners where your station is at, even when they are not listening!. This is just one application that can bring back that interactivity that radio has lost over the past several years. If your station doesn't set up a main account, your jocks should set up their own individual accounts (if they haven't already)! There is also a way to have several individual accounts post to one main account. Again, just email me at charlieprofit@cabradio.com and I'll explain how.

So now you know how you can get GenY to incorporate your station into their lifestyle because you are doing what they are doing. And you will be sharing in their experiences too, because as you add your listeners to your station's Social Network, you will be able to know what they are thinking, doing, listening to as it happens. You won't need research anymore, because you will have it right there in your Social Network. Now take that money you saved on research and hire an overnight jock!