Utilizing Facebook

This week Facebook announced new “Business” pages, so now you can go on to Facebook and have a real “presence” for your station as opposed to having each one of your talents have a page and promoting your station on there.

Now that you can create a station page, I thought it would be a good idea to go over some of the ways to best utilize your Facebook page.

First, I cannot stress enough that the relationship between you and your “friends” needs to be a TWO WAY STREET! This is a crucial part to your success in creating a true social network with your listeners.

What do I mean by having it be a two way street? It’s ok to put a status message promoting something with the station, that’s fine, but when someone comments on it, “I can’t wait for the Second Chance Prom, I’ll see you there!!” comment BACK. They went out of their way to show their excitement for something you are doing…do the SAME!!

Ok, now how can you best utilize Facebook to your advantage and get the biggest bang for your buck?

1.) Treat it as if it is always ON, because it IS. Update it from the station, update it from home, update it from the library, get a smart phone and set it up to be able to post updates from that. The site is always on and your listeners are ALWAYS active on it, so you need to be the same way.

2.) NOTHING is off limits. Did you go shopping this weekend? Upload a picture of your purchases. Maybe you visited with a band backstage? Share those pictures. Are you watching a movie you really like? Update your status to say, “At Benjamin Buttons and it is VERY good.” Share Share Share. That’s what it’s all about.

3.) Reciprocate: Your friends are your friends because they care about what’s going on with your station, but you need to return the favor. Don’t let their pictures go uncommented on. If they post a video that you like, watch it and comment on it. If their status message says something you think is clever, let them know about it. If they come to one of your remotes, tag them in a picture of it.

I now give you permission to use Facebook at work. How do you like them apples. You need to use Facebook at work. Not to kill time, but to connect with your listeners. This is where THEY are living and this is where you need to be living.

Think of it this way, if I told you that EVERYONE in your demo from your market was going to be at the mall this weekend…would you go there? Of course you would. Now I am telling you, everyone from your demo is going to be on Facebook at one time or another throughout a portion of everyday. BE THERE!!

Oh ya and join the Conquering the Developing Marketplace group on Facebook.

Twitter: What’s All The Buzz

Everyone and their mother is on Twitter these days. From Newt Gingrich to Diddy and just about everyone in between is using this micro-blogging service to stay on top of technology. The problem is, very few people are using it correctly.

In order to fully realize the power of this new service, it is important to have some type of smart phone. I am not saying to run out and buy and IPhone tomorrow, but at some point you will need to be using a smart phone, everybody’s doing it. Using a smart phone to update Twitter on the go is the only way to remain relevant and truly leverage the power of the TWEET.

So, once you have a smart phone, here are a couple of ways to leverage the power of Twitter to actual help your station instead of using it as a promotional tool and turning off your followers.

1.) Saturday at the Mall: You’re spending your weekend doing a little shopping. You run into a pair of shoes that you really like, but they are pricey and you’re not sure if you want to spend the money on them and you need a little advice, but you’re all alone. What to do, what to do? Well, grab your smart phone and snap a picture of the shoes. Upload the picture and the price of the shoes to Twitter with a poll asking people what they think of the shoes and whether you should buy them. Invite your follower to tweet back their response. Once you’ve gotten a number of a responses, make your decision and make sure to tweet what you decided.

2.) New Music: New music discovery isn’t happening just on the radio anymore. People are discovering new music on their own left and right and they aren’t waiting for radio to tell them what’s hot, they are finding out on their own. Soooo…beat them to the punch. When you find a great new song you like and are thinking about adding to the playlist, don’t wait until your new music feature on the air, tweet about it now. Go find a link to the song and tweet that. Take a poll about the song. Give your audience a chance to interact with your decision making process about what music you’re going to be playing on the air. They want to be a part of the music discovery, so involve them in the conversation.

3.) Theater of the Mind: Theater of the Mind is dead. I know it’s an art form that many have mastered in radio and few want to let go of, but sadly it’s true. The IT Generation wants to see pictures of things, wants to watch video of it and read the story, soooo….give ‘em what they want. When you get the inside track and a backstage pass to one of the hottest shows of the year, don’t just talk about it on the air and paint the picture, share the pictures. Take snapshots of your every move and tweet them for your audience. Make sure you tell them what each picture is and why you took it. If your smart phone takes video, utilize a site called 12seconds.tv which integrates itself nicely into Twitter and take video of what’s happening. Tweet about what food is being served backstage, which artists you’ve run into, who was cool, if there were any groupies, everything that your audience wants to know about and include pictures, because trust me, they WANT to see the action.

When MSNBC uses Twitter, they use it like a news organization. It’s bland and boring. I’ll give them credit for trying, but it’s just not what the service is made for. The point is, here is a new, exciting tool that has a lot of buzz right now. In order to take advantage of it, you have to use it correctly. It’s not enough to just say you have twitter and that your audience should follow you, you have to engage them in order to gain their trust that you’re using it because you like to and not because you think you “should” because that’s what all the “kids” are doing.

And now…a cheap plug…for an on-going discussion on the best ways to utilize Twitter for your station, follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/cdm19

Waking up is hard to do

Now that for 90% of the country daylight savings time has come and gone, your audience is probably still struggling with adjusting…I know I am. So now is a perfect time to commiserate with them. You wouldn’t crack the mic and whine about the time change on the air, but online you have free reign. Here are some ideas as to how to connect with your audience online over the time change.

1.) Vlog daily: It’s not too late to do this. Get a webcam ($30 camera from Radio Shack will do) and shoot a daily update. I am up at 6:11a this morning and it should be 5:11 and I should still be in bed. Don’t take a shower…don’t brush your hair, do it all desheveled like you normally wake up in the morning and “report” how you are doing to your audience.

2.) Don’t feel comfortable with the vlog? (Sidebar: GET COMFORTABLE WITH IT) Write a daily blog about how you are struggling with the time change. Include in there some tricks on how to get more comfortable with the change. Set your coffee maker up to start brewing a half an hour early so when you wake up you’re welcomed by the aroma of fresh coffee and think of other ideas that will help your listeners out.

3.) One of the best things about Daylight Savings Time is the longer days…and one of the worst things is shorter nights. Take time stamped pictures in the morning and at night to compare when the sun is coming up and when it is rising. Create a slideshow of pictures and share them with your listeners.

If you haven’t gotten it by now, the Internet is no different then your station. It’s about a shared experience with your listener and unless you’re in a state that doesn’t have daylight savings time, this is one that everyone is sharing, so make the most of it on-air and online.

A Must Read

I normally don’t do this, repost others material, but in this case, Jerry Del Colliano makes such a compelling case, it’s a must read for anyone. If you don’t read his blog yet, you MUST. It’s called Inside Music Media, please subscribe to it and read it every morning. While you’re at it, please join our Facebook group. Here’s the article.

By Jerry Del Colliano

Facebook is exploding.

In an era where everything seems to be on the decline, Facebook is picking up millions of new users every day.

It is not only just the fascination of Millennials. It is becoming addictive to Gen X and baby boomers as well.

It’s simple and complicated at the same time, but I think it’s worth a discussion.

How big is the social network Facebook?

Over 175 million active users.

The fastest growing demographic is 30 years and older.

The average user has 120 friends on their site.

There are 3.5 million new users signing on each day.

It is growing while there appears to be a general downtrend for Internet radio.

The growth of the mobile phone is spiking the popularity of Facebook.

It’s more popular than radio or television or — you name it. Facebook has become a real growth industry — but with no proven business model — at least so far.

Traditional media has yet to figure out how social networking fits in to what it does. Radio stations think that asking listeners to text in for tickets is social interaction. If it is, it is the most primitive form. Radio thinks a website is the Internet and that carrying a terrestrial stream online is new media.

That is not the future by any means.

It takes some getting used to but to understand how transforming Facebook and in fact social networking will be in the future, you’ve got to first look at generational media.

Baby boomers
• Radio
• Raised on TV
• Newspapers
• Cell phones to make calls
• iPod as a fascination
• Social networking just breaking through

Gen X
• Radio (but it sucks — their words)
• TV and MTV
• Get their news online not in print
• iPods, Blackberries
• Social networking — frequently for marketing purposes and business connection

Gen Y
• Radio only when there is nothing else
• TV is better on a laptop or computer and even more desirable without commercials
• Forget newspapers
• iPods are standard equipment for this generation
• Mobile phones are built into their hands
• Text messaging is obsessive
• Spying on each other over social networks is a right of passage
• They want to be involved in their media
• Want to stop, start, time delay or delete on demand

In the early days when the only choice consumers had was radio, listeners actually sat as families around a radio set to listen to programs. Over the years this model was adapted to include in-car listening and transistor radio or Walkman-type portability.

When television broke through in the 1950′s, families again gathered together in front of their sets to at first basically watch radio shows. Then came development of various genres. Color TV. Sets in every room. Flat screens. But you watched it when it was broadcast to you — until TiVo and DVRs came along.

The Internet allowed young people to gather their own entertainment — at first in a rudimentary way — and add the dimension of interactivity. E-mail, chat, instant messaging and texting evolved as time for traditional media options became scarcer. Then video, music downloading and social networking. Watching shows on the PC or laptop. Who needs a radio or TV?

In all of this, the game changer — in my opinion — is Facebook, the biggest town meeting that takes place in perpetual motion.

Radio can’t be Facebook but it should have long ago formed its own social networks based around news, music, locality and the possibilities are endless.

In the future, listeners will not listen to broadcasts which is why I am not wild about business models that exclusively emphasize streaming radio at the expense of modular programming.

Podcasting will be the new radio because it can be compacted. It’s portable. It readily fits into social networking schemes. Can be monetized without on-air commercials (yes, it can). And can grow through viral word of mouth.

There will never be a Fagreed Suleman or Lew Dickey or John Slogan Hogan again to fire a podcasting star because they will own the franchise. They take 100% of the profits. The cost of doing business is minimal.

That’s why I try to ecourage radio people to build 100 podcasts — local podcasts, not national — that can be sold in packages and generate free cash flow almost immediately. Cluster managers hate the idea. They like the old way. (Here’s a YouTube preview of me explaining the compelling nature of the digital future here).

There will be no more morning drive — and I’m not just speaking about how the consolidators have fired some of their best morning talent. There is no such thing as 7:20 in the morning anymore (the most listened to radio time in AM drive) — at least with the next generation.

Future morning drive is when you drive — anytime. If you are interrupted by phone calls or text messages, you won’t miss a thing because you’ll stop and then resume play when you want to. By the same token if you want to skip, you can. Delete it — absolutely. You, the listener, become at the very least an “assistant program director”.

And back to Facebook.

If you don’t have a strong connection to a social network, you will not be a viable media business.

Period.

Inside Music Media, my own lab experiment, is not really a blog.

It’s a social network — interactive, two-way, spread by viral growth with the feel of a kinship to a cause and it’s unique. It is far bigger than Inside Radio ever was when I owned it. And whatever it is to become, it will depend on social networking.

Just like radio will.

And music discovery.

So, if you can separate the image of radio having to be broadcast programming and Facebook having to be just messaging — you can see where all of this is headed.

A new world, connected by a simple concept — organized by interests and needs — with video, audio and text available at every moment.

Radio people can create such content and provide marketing and sales and that is precisely the biggest miscalculation radio consolidators have ever made.

Not running radio into the ground — that’s bad enough.

But not budgeting to be part of a future that is ever so slightly beginning to show itself to us in the monumental growth of the world’s biggest station — Facebook.

Sample It…Just a Little Bit

There’s a new song out called Right Round by Flo Rida which “samples” a song you might know called You Spin Me by Dead or Alive. Sampling is hip-hops way of recycling old material and making it fresh. It’s a great concept if you think about it, take a hit record, freshen it up to match the “new” sound of today and how could it NOT be a hit. Calling it sampling makes it sound “sexy” not OLD. So, let’s “sample” promotions that we used to do all the time and make them “sexier” for online.

1.) Listen to Win: It’s the oldest promotion in the book…listen at 7:20a for the “cue to call” and win!! This one is simple to “sample.” You still want people to listen and they’ll listen if you give them something to win, here’s the new twist, your listeners must be a part of your database. Sign them up and at 7:20a announce a VIP’s name and give them X number of minutes to call back and win. Quick and easy sample.

2.) Remote: You’ve been there before, broadcasting live at a car dealership waiting for one person to show up and they NEVER do. Dealership remotes have long been the bain of your existence, but with digital you can make them sexy and you don’t even have to stand in the cold for three hours waiting for someone to come to see you. Do a virtual test drive. Take a video camera with you to a dealership, have your talent drive and talk about his/her experience. Post the video in your OnDemand section and have it as the pre-roll on your live streaming player. The impact for the client will be much greater and you won’t kill your Saturday at a remote that no one is showing up to.

3.)Requests: You undoubtedly don’t have live air staff anymore, but you can make it seem that way when you “sample” the request. Take requests on Twitter, on Facebook and on e-mail. Here’s the trick though, ACTUALLY play them. You’ll be held to it, because your audience can see everything that is being requested. You can even take video requests and run the audio online and direct people to your OnDemand section to see video of other listeners requesting their favorite songs. You might have to “doctor” some up at first to get people in the habit of doing this, but once their in the habit, it’ll transform how you do business.

Don’t look at the internet as something more to do, look at it as something to enhance what you already do…just like a rapper “enhances” what’s already been done, by sampling the song.

Short Staff…No Problem

Here it is week #3 of this benchmark bit and there is an overwhelming amount of information to bring to you. I am going to continue to limit myself to one or two different ways to venture into the digital marketplace with your station and limited staff.

This week I want to focus on creating web promotions that are light lifting for all involved and could really be buzz generator’s.

You’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day soon right? Oh come on, you’re audience doesn’t need an excuse to drink but they’ll be out in force. There might be some low key affairs, but for the most part we’re all Irish for one night in the middle of March. So you’ll be celebrating at a bar or a pub that night, but what about leading up to it. Here are a couple of ways to get your audience engaged with this holiday that is always fun for everyone involved.

1.) Turn your site green: How the hell are you supposed to do that? Talk to your web person (if you don’t have one, this one might not be for you) and ask him or her to create a green station logo, turn the background of your site green and you’re golden. In most cases this change is a simple code change that shouldn’t take more than five minutes.

2.) Create a Kiss Me I’m Irish badge for listeners to use on their Facebook/MySpace page. Make sure to include copy on the badge that says something to the effect of “I’m celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with XYZ station” (Here’s an extension of this that might take a little bit more work, encourage listeners to use this badge as their profile picture and if you spot them with it as their profile picture they will win free drinks at the bar you’re broadcasting at on St. Patrick’s Day.)

3.) You’re blogging on a regular basis right? Well if not, GET ON IT!! Here’s a perfect first post. You’re post should say something to the effect of, I’m celebrating Irish heritage and you can too, here are some links to check out for St. Patrick’s Day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick’s_Day  http://www.st-patricks-day.com/  http://www.blackdog.net/holiday/pat/ (and there are plenty of others.)

Put together these few things will connect your station to one of the most popular “holidays” of the year and you’ll get some good mileage out of it, rather than a one night live broadcast at McMurphy’s!! (shout out UMass)

Re-Runs are No Fun

As I sat down to watch my usual slate of Thursday night television, I realized that The Office and 30 Rock were both re-runs. Well, doesn’t that just ruin your Thursday night? This might be the same way people feel when they open up your Podcast section on your website and find that it is only a collection of rehashed bits from your morning show.

It’s fine to offer bits from your morning show ON DEMAND, but that shouldn’t be where it ends. Fans of your station’s brand are looking for more, so give it to them.

Most likely the people that are visiting the podcast section of your site, already heard your morning show and if they didn’t, they can get the podcast, but if they did…what else is there for them? Nothing?

I am here to change all that. I encouarage you to produce one of the podcast’s below. Just one. I know you have a short staff and you already have a lot on your plate, but try it.

Here’s the format:

Intro “sweeper” – I hestitate to use radio terms, because this should sound nothing like the radio we’re all used to. Should be very conversational and should promote the show and the station.

5-10 Minutes of content – Open and close should always be encouraging people to subscribe to the show

Close “sweeper” – very conversational promoting the show and the station

Now what to do for content? There are millions of things you can do, I will talk about three.

1.) ANYTHING you’re interested in. I mean it. Are you an avid cyclist? Do you like politics? Are you a crazed sports fan? This podcast will work if you speak about things you’re interested in. You’re not going to have the program director breathing down your neck, because online there is “infinite” space for all points of view.

2.) Daily Sports/Music cast – depending on format, sports might work best, but either way this should be an extension of what you are doing on the air – NOT a copy cat. You should take time to go more in depth on a story and even solicit opinions.

3.) I Like This Song – I wouldn’t call it that, but come up with something clever and feature the three or four songs you’re thinking about adding that week. Don’t give your audience some radio schpeel like, “we’re thinking about adding these this week.” Approach it like you were telling your friends about new music you just found. People will flock back for more.

Don’t make your audience sit through another re-run again. Start the process of building an incredible library of content and your audience will come back for more, over and over and over again. You can create this…it will take an additional half hour out of your day and I think that can be spared for the future of radio!!

Short Staff…No Problem

Here we are again for another in our weekly segment, Short Staff…No Problem.

The reason I love the internet and have a real passion for it is that it makes it easier for people in the media to do their job, really it does.

Think about it, before the Internet you had to get your show prep from the morning paper and even that didn’t have all the stuff you needed. You needed to listen to Casey Kasem or Rick Dees for the new music every week. Or maybe you were able to catch Entertainment Tonight a couple nights a week for celebrity dirt.

The internet not only makes it easier to get this information – Type into Google Rihanna and Chris Brown and see how much information you get. It also makes it more immediate, you can get the information and get it to your audience so much quicker than you ever did before.

One of the best things about the Internet is what it has done for music fans around the world…YOUR AUDIENCE. How do you take advantage of the fact that the internet is the BEST music discovery medium EVER. It used to be radio, it’s now the Internet, so let’s take advantage of that.

Here’s how to get your audience the latest music with minimal effort on your part.

1.) Link to hypem.com- this website has been my life blood for the last year. Here’s how it works. It surfs over 50 music blogs on the internet and aggregates them all into one site. You can then log-on to the site and listen to all of the music it finds from it’s searches. In recent weeks I have discovered the new Kanye, music from the Veronicas, the new Eminem song, before it was out. It’s an amazing service and one you should share with your audience.

2.) Tumblr – Tumblr is a blogging service, but it’s more than that, it allows people to quickly share music, photos, videos on their blog. So, how are you going to have time to search through all the blogs and find good ones for your audience? Don’t worry, I did it for you…well mashable did it for you. Hereis a list of the top Tumblr music blogs on the internet. More music discovery at your fingertips. You could get fancy with it and find a way to grab the feed from these sites and aggregate this music to your site or you could just link to your favorite ones on your site and let people start discovering music.

3.) PLAY THE SONGS YOU FIND!! I know I know, only play the hits, but the world has changed and the internet audience (YOUR audience) wants new music…they CRAVE new music. Take one song you find in both the above locations and feature it everyday. Have your jock that is talking it up talk about where he/she found it…ON YOUR WEBSITE and drive people to your site to do more music discovery. Trust me, they’ll come back for more and be talking about you in no time.

We used to be good at music discovery in the radio business…now we are afraid to embrace a new technology that opens up a world of possibilities when it comes to music discovery. Get on this bandwagon and people will be buzzing about your station in no time.

The Water Cooler

I am adding a new benchmark “bit” to the blog today and calling it the Water Cooler. There’s a good reason to call it the Water Cooler. In my first couple of years doing radio, I had a PD that would always try to get me to think about what people were talking about that day, “Around the Water Cooler” and if I could figure that out I’d be golden.

Even just a few years later, the world has changed dramatically, but that concept still holds true. If you can be talking about what your audience is talking about, you’ll get them every time. Thus, the new benchmark post, every Tuesday, called, “The Water Cooler.”

In writing this post, I am reminded of a story an old co-worker of mine once told me. He did radio when radio was “the thing.” He was a rock star in the community and everyone made sure to never miss his show. (Times have sure changed.)

Remember the show Family Ties? Alex P Keaton and his many girlfriends? Well, there was a moment where Alex and one of his many girlfriends were getting together finally and EVERYONE in America was on the edge of their seats watching this. The song playing in the background? Billy Vera and the Beaters – At This Moment. You may not remember the song now, but in it’s day it was a HUGE #1 hit.

The night the episode aired with that song in it, my friend had a gut feeling that the next day everyone would be talking about the episode and particularly that song. So, he ran his VCR on the show (yes his VCR, this was before DVR’s) and grabbed the song from the show. The next morning he had the song ready to go for his morning show and he was talking about what everyone else was talking about, but they all shut up and listened to what he was saying about Alex P Keaton’s romance.

The moral of the story? Times haven’t changed as much as we think they have. There is still a desire to have shared experiences in the world (even with 12-24 y/o’s.) The difference now is, how do we have those shared experiences.

It does make it a touch more difficult to figure out what those shared experiences are, because there are very few events now that EVERYONE is watching at the same time, thanks to OnDemand and DVR’s.

So this benchmark post is a way to talk about the Water Cooler topics that are on everybody’s mind and to figure out the best way to go about connecting with your audience about them.

Today’s water cooler topic is President Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress tonight. It is the first of his presidency and a very important one at that. So then, how do you cover it?

1.) Link to this website, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/ – This website lists all of the campaign promises that candidate Obama made and is now checking to make sure that President Obama is keeping them. Link to this page from your website and ask your audience, is President Obama keeping his promises. If not, why not? Do you think he is doing a good job? All of this can be done through e-mail or if you have a more immediate solution like chat or message boards, then use those solutions, but get the conversation going.

2.) Twitter: I know Twitter seems to be my solution to everything, but trust me it is one of the best tools around for keeping in touch with your audience. Most of the major news outfits have twitter accounts. Start your own and “Follow” each of them. CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews all of them and then there are political figures including the President, Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove who all have Twitter accounts. Imagine, your audience can directly connect to these power players through you. Start a twitter account and get the conversation going before, during and after the speech tonight. http://www.twitter.com

3.) Not a news station? Or your audience doesn’t care that much about this speech? Or it’s just an easy thing to goof on? Take the video of the speech and splice it together to make a funny video bit. Take the President’s words out of context. Cut them up and remix them to a beat. Have him in a conversation with Big Bird. Do goofy things with the video and then post it to your YouTube channel. Wait, what, you don’t have a YouTube channel? GET ONE. Then do this. Who knows, maybe your video will be so good it will be talked about around the water cooler.

These are just some of the ideas you can use to connect to the conversations around the “new” water cooler, the internet. There are so many more ideas though, so be creative. Think about how your audience thinks and talks about these Water Cooler topics and you’ll once again be golden.

Things have changed with how people get media and how they interact with it, but the principle remains, if you’re talking about what they’re talking about, they’ll check you out.

Short Staff…No Problem

The long awaited arrival of the second installment of this series. With Short Staff…No Problem, I am attempting to solve the age old excuse, “I want to work on my website, but I have such a small staff I really can’t.” I don’t want to downplay the problem of having a small staff, but rather highlight ways to get around having a small staff.

Today, I want to focus on content creation for the site.

Remember the good old days, when there were live jocks in studio for all dayparts? Remember when those jocks would take phone calls and solicit participation from their audience? Why does that have to change? Three ways now to solicit input from your audience without a love jock in any daypart.

1.) Take a topical story that’s in the news in your market (Rod Blago’s controversy in Chicago comes to mind) and run a sweeper that says something to the effect of, “XYZ station wants to try Blago. Is he innocent or guilty? You decide at XYZ.com” Run that sweeper for a week and report the results in voicetracks throughout the weekend and post the results on your website. Very quick, very easy.

2.) Even more hands off…Jump off of The Office on NBC. Every Thursday and Friday ask your listeners to submit their nightmare office stories. Encourage them to submit them anonymously or if they’re really brave to include their name. Then have your voicetracked jocks read them on the air during the day on Thursday and Friday. A simple email link will do.

3.) Requests: Encourage e-quests and ACTUALLY PLAY THEM!! This is a very easy way to get listeners involved. Make sure to read their names and where they are from…same as you would if you were taking their calls.

Add a weekend twist and encourage them to send in where they are partying on Friday and Saturday night’s and give them a shout out “during” their parties.

These are three very simple ways to include listener interaction in an age of very few live bodies in the building. These are very light lifting ideas that will help you keep the interaction at a maximum and the workload to a minimum.