Testing a new app
You hear this term “share” from the moment that you start interacting with other kids at a young age. Parents teach you to share from day one and enforce it for the rest of your lives. It gets engraved into your being every single day. So why isn’t it a surprise that you want to share everything about your daily lives in the digital world? However, sharing your lives is not the topic of discussion of this article. We will instead cover the relevance of sharing other things that you find on the web with your friends and family through social media.
One of the greatest opportunities you have as a broadcaster is surrounding your radio station with brand ambassadors. There are always discussions in studios about who is discussing your brand with their friends. I am here to tell you that it has never been so easy to accomplish that with social media. Question: How many websites have you personally been to in the past week that you saw the “like” on Facebook link on it? Facebook has made it so easy to share content from other sites with your friends on Facebook. So does your website have a “share” or “like” tab on it? When you are posting about concerts, updates, and other things related to your station, there should be a “share” tab so that your brand ambassadors can click to tell their friends easily about what is important to you at any given time.
Let me put this into prospective for you. Let’s say that you have on average 1,000 people visit your website everyday. You posted a new TobyMac concert on your website and John Doe clicks that he “likes” it and shares it with his 300 friends on Facebook. Out of his 300 friends, two people on John’s website “likes” it. One of John’s friends has 110 friends and the other has 210 friends. Let’s say in the unlikely event that those two friends don’t have anyone “like” it. Than you just repost your event with your brand attached to it to 630 more people then you expected. That is a 63 percent increase in people seeing your event through the use of Facebook.
The great thing about that additional 63 percent increase on your event is that it came as a direct endorsement from a brand ambassador. If your friend told you about this really cool pair of shoes that went on sale, are you more likely to buy it than if you saw an ad for it on TV or radio? Of course you are. Your 63 percent increase came from friends telling friends to go see TobyMac which gives the endorsement more meaning and likely better results.
As the digital world continues to grow, “sharing” is going to become the norm on the web. We need to be implementing the same sharing strategies in the mobile app world as Facebook and Twitter have done in the social media and web world. This concept will continue to evolve, so figure out how you can utilize this tool to build up your brand and “share” away.
It is no secret that you are being pressed in the mobile world. Whether it's by consultants, staffers, media, or your listeners, everyone wants you to be aggressive in the mobile world. So what's holding you back? Why aren't you pulling the trigger? For many stations, its your budget, but for few its “why” and “what?” Why should I and if I do, what will it look like? Being interactive on a phone is not an easy thing to wrap your head around and for many programmers, its almost impossible. So let's start with the facts.
Currently, in the United States 31 percent of cellphone users are carrying a smartphone, equaling 73.3 million people walking around with those overly addicting, social media craving, textaholic machines. In 2015, there will be an estimated 43 percent of cellphone users carrying a smartphone. That means we know for a fact that there will be continued growth for the next 10 years in this area.
What if I told you that you could by a radio transmitter for $6,000 with the clearest sound in a town where I could guarantee growth by more then 200 percent over the next 10 years. You would jump on the opportunity. The mobile world is similarly no exception. You need to start investing resources into where your listener is, and don't believe that your listener “Becky” isn't carrying around a smartphone because statistics show that she probably is.
Now let's say you're ready. You want to jump on it and create the new coolest app. Being interactive on the phone can be tricky so what do you do to make your app “sticky” so the user keeps coming back for more? Figuring out what kind of things your audience is into is not so hard. Post it on your Facebook page ... wait, did I say Facebook.? Your audience uses Facebook? How can we incorporate something in our app that is interactive with social media like Facebook and Twitter?
Do you have a “Listener Party” or does your audience like to pick the music? Figure out a way where they can rate the music through the app so they can feel like they have some control over the music played on your station. Prayer centers, blogs, and other ways they can share their findings on your app with their friends – these are the things that will make your app stand out from the rest. You need your audience to be interacting with the app because if its just a music stream, then they can get that from one of a 1,000 apps in the market that play music.
You have a huge opportunity to be a leader and be innovative. Stop wasting time and start brainstorming and strategizing.
It’s interesting that we have a local promotions staff, local underwriters and sales staff, and local stream teams. But what about the other community? As the Internet radio world expands and more and more individuals are going to mobile apps to stream in their cars, Internet car radios, and other functions that take them away from actually turning the dial, we need to continue to concentrate at growing our brand in the digital community.
I have said time after time how important it is for you to set up your digital assets and hire a sales team that only concentrates on selling the digital real estate you have set up shop on. We even talked about the “Other Program Director” in an earlier issue of CMW. This is no different. Having someone that focuses on being your Promotions Director for just the virtual world is just as important as your Promotions Director is in the local community you reach. In some cases, that might even be more important. Some consider the role as “Brand Manager” the same as the Promotions Director, which is okay if set up that way. A Brand Manager does exactly what it sounds, manages the image of the station and how individuals portray it. The online community is continually expanding through the works of Social Media, Search Engines, and community involvement on your website, so it is important to have someone overseeing your brand online.
Marketing within the online community can be confusing and sometimes overwhelming, but it has never been easier to target a specific demographic for your station's individual needs. Using ad opportunities like Google and Facebook, you can target a demographic so particular that you are paying for exactly who you want to reach. You need to have someone on staff that is constantly running promotions and having “conversations” with your listeners and viewers on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure that your staff is consistently blogging. Have some “sticky” content on your website that you know people are going to enjoy
so they will be more inclined to come back for more. Once these things are in place, start targeting your demographic and invest into online advertising. The more your demo sees your brand, the more likely they are to try it out and if it’s “sticky,” you may just land a new listener, and they could be from any part of the world.
Terrestrial radio will continue to decrease as Internet radio and mobile apps increase. Someone needs to be in place on your staff that is going to do your online promotions. If you are part of a larger market station that has a promotions director, they are probably too busy working in the community to focus on your online landscape. So invest in someone that you can trust and is going to represent your brand and go for it!
Last week I discussed getting an interactive mobile app for your station in the new year. Now I'll cover social networks and what you need to do to maximize interaction here...
It's the social media world and we have learned its growing and not going anywhere. if you believe that your audience isn't active on any of these, if not all of these mediums, then you are mistaken or living in the dark. Each of these social media tools have their own benefits and figuring out how to use them this year that's going to help your connection with the listener grow. Many stations are utilizing the benefits of Facebook to be a place to connect on a more personal level with their audience by communication, and offering exclusive content. But radio just can't figure out the other social media giants and how to utilize them.
Myspace has a teenage demographic that we assumed had officially disappeared, but the site actually grew significantly in 2010. Myspace has become a mega hub for music. And what do you know, you work in music. More and more artists are utilizing Myspace to upload music and hope that it will result in larger sales - it did. Last year the average artist that was on Myspace selling goods, saw an increase in revenue of just over 6%. How can we utilize this music hub to our benefit?
Twitter continues to grow and most stations have a twitter account. But it is connecting with their Facebook and is copying the same updates across both platforms. Stations need to focus on how to use Twitter to communicate with an audience that might be completely different then your Facebook audience.
What is Foursquare? This website made huge leaps in 2010 and became one of the fastest growing smartphone apps across all mobile platforms. Foursquare is a location-based social media site that allows users to check-in at places and compete with their friends and users on who can check into more places. This past week, I received free chips & salsa from Chili's and a free french toast breakfast wrap at a gas station, just for checking in. Figure out how to connect with your audience using this location-based software by doing contest and partnering with local businesses.
The last thing that I want to do is touch base on your website. People still visit websites and it is essential to provide the content that your audience wants to see (or hear). Make it visually appealing, but also make it a content-rich site. Offer different options on how to listen to your online stream so you don't segregate your audience. On the back-end of your site, make sure that you are making it easy for your staff to update things without having to be a programming expert. This will keep content fresh and more interactive and help maintain the site with staff that don't mind doing it. Its 2011 and its time for innovation so start brainstorming and get out of your comfort zone. It's more fun that way anyway!
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