Radio & Social Media

Social media has grown considerably over the past few years. Most people have taken the leap into Facebook to communicate with family and friends while others have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon.

I was reluctant to jump on the fast moving Facebook train, but I did about a year and a half ago, and I must say that I am glad that I did. For me Facebook has turned out to be a great way to connect with family and old friends. It has also proved to be a creative outlet for me for posting pictures I take with my SLR camera and for posting funny quotes. as far as Facebook being a marketing tool - it's not really the place for me. I'm against subjecting my friends and family to my business messages - there are other places for that - like my blog and my website http://www.radioadswork.com/

As for Twitter, I never really understood it or how I would use it or why anyone would want to "follow" a celebrity or care about what a friend is doing every second of the day. But maybe it can be use effectively as a marketing tool - maybe.

Last week, we had a guest speaker come into our sales meeting to speak to us about how big media (Radio / TV) and social media are here to stay and how they benefit from each other.

This was an enlightening experience for me and immediatly after the meeting I activated the Twitter account that I had set up a couple of months ago but never did anything with it. (Radioadswork1)

I have been working in radio for my entire professional career. I know radio is a powerful way to reach people. Radio can help businesses reach a target demographic and reach them on a very personal level. Most people have a favorite radio station, a favorite format, a favorite personality or talk show host etc. When these people hear advertisements on their favorite station or hear about a product or service their favorite radio personality talks about, they are more likely to buy or try that product or service - much like if your best friend told you about an experience they had with a product or service. - That is how powerful radio is and how it can be for your business.

Now...back to Twitter and Facebook. Effective marketing tools? Yes and no.

My feeling is that Radio - IS facebook and twitter. Radio raches hundreds of thousands of people each week - on a personal level. Radio talks about the things people want to hear. It's engaging. And people react to what they hear on the radio. When someone "tweets" it could be the equivalent to a radio host talking about a paticular subject. When a listner tells a friend about what they heard on the radio - it could be the equivalent of a "RT" or Retweet. To me THAT's social media. People talking to each other face to face, not through an electronic device. Talking through an electronic device is, frankly, anti-social.

So, how does big media and social media work together?? big media and social media compliment each other. big media can help drive the numbers of "followers" on Facebook or Twitter. It's another way for the consumer / listener to be reached. When a listeners favorite radio host says follow me on Twitter - they probably will. Then when that host Tweets - "I just had the most amazing stay at XYZ hotel" - the likelyhood of that listner/follower of booking a stay at XYZ hotel is exponentially greater. This is how social media compliments big media and makes it effective for an advertiser to reach a consumer on an even deeper personal level.


When Facebook and Twitter become Spam. A recent personal experience. I have a friend that is in real estate. Every one of his posts on Facebook is about real estate, mortgages, home prices, trends etc. For me, since I use FB as a social tool, not a business tool, these posts become annoying to me and I either ignore them or I hide them. Then these messages are not as effective because they are no longer reaching me.

On another note, I recently posted some pictures of my family and me at a place that allows visitors to jump on trampolines for $10 per hour. We had such a good time I posted a few pictures of our experience on Facebook. A friend of mine saw my pictures and took his family the very next day. It was not a solicitation, but the experience that provoked my friend to want to go as well. This is how big media and FB can synergize - not by posting 22 times a day about "what's happening", but showing a friend or follower your experiences and how they mught benefit as well.

Twitter on the other hand. Short messages that in most cases have a link to a larger message. Problem is that we live in a short message world and if we are following 15,000 people, we dont have time to read that many short messages. Which means we are going to be VERY selective about what short messages we read and even more selective about the long messages we read.

Honestly if someone is follwing more than 30 or 40 people it is almost impossible to keep up with all of the messages. In this case a "twitterer" would most likely follow only his or her top 10 favorites. So in reality if a company has 20, 30 or 40 thousand followers and then tries to monitize that relationship by selling the value of their posts to a potential advertiser - they really do not have that many actual readers - they will be lost in the twitter clutter. This is not to say that the messages won't be powerful - however the audience is much smaller than what it may appear to be.

So - moral of the story. If you want to reach people on a personal level - with a powerful social marketing tool - use radio - its the original FB and Twitter. and if you want to enhance your marketing to a select few "followers" use radio and market to their twitter & FB fan base and you greatly increase your chances for gaining a new satisfied customer!