Social Scorecard: Radio’s top social posts this week

There’s no doubt that live streaming on social media is ‘so hot right now’.

You should be working those social media platforms harder than ever to deliver engaging content to your listeners. But why is it so popular?

Users respond better to visuals rather than written content. With the rise in popularity of smartphones, videos are more accessible and easier to watch than ever before.

Your listeners love to experience events immediately and vicariously rather than recorded videos. In turn, you’ll see your user engagement and instant feedback spike, which adds a layer of interaction to the experience. So how do you nail your live content?

Create a clear strategy

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t be making the video all about your station or show. It needs to be about striking up a conversation between you and your listeners.

• Live video is a way to share a story, interview or event and whether your listeners think it’s worthy to watch.

• Think carefully about each social media platform and your audience on each. Check out your analytics for each and let it shape what you will be posting.

• Each platform has its unique features, so be adaptable. For instance, Facebook is ideal for longer videos that can be replayed, whereas Snapchat is about quick bites of organic content.

• Don’t cover the same thing on every platform. Give your audience to engage with you in multiple places by creating an array of content designed specifically for each channel.

• Ensure you only use live social media sparingly. Reserve it for special events; users will tire if you push out a stream of live content with no real purpose.

Safeguard your content from live streaming fails

We all know when you’re dealing with live media, there’s always a chance things can go wrong. From terrible WI-FI to background noise, you won’t be able to control everything that’s being broadcast; but the beauty of it is that it’s unstructured.

So try to control as many aspects of the event you can. Hosting a live interview with talent and want Facebook users to ask questions in the comments? Don’t. You’re opening your broadcast to trolls and too many variables.

Develop a great follow-up plan

Once you have created a kick-ass piece of live video, you should have a plan ready to go for collecting results and measuring the success of your event.

Take into account there may be a lot of trial and error before you discover the right format for your live content that works for your audience.

Our top picks this week come from Fox FM, Hit101.3 and Nova 96.9.

1. Fox FM’s Fifi, Dave, Fev and Bryon: ‘The Veronicas play The Floor is Lava’

You can either sink or swim when you try your hand at ‘The Floor is Lava’ videos. To be blunt, a majority haven’t been very strong. A Clever little piece of content, utilising talent and showcases enough to not drag on.

2. Hit101.3 Sea FM’s Bree and Gawndy: ‘Gandy’s Naked rig strikes again’

Well done guys – ambushing the boss’s Skype call, semi-naked for the sake of socials!

It’s spontaneous, raw and the reactions are real. This is the sort of content listeners want to see across socials and the team have hit a home run. It humanises people from an organisation and is essentially great marketing, without being obvious.

3. Nova 96.9’s Fitzy and Wippa: ‘Wippa’s performance from The Bodyguard Musical’

Firstly, it’s good punchy length – enough to maintain attention right through to the end. The production behind this is spot on; despite being professionally shot, it’s behind-the-scenes and shot specifically for socials.

From a strategy perspective, this hits all the right spots.

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Social Scorecard is compiled exclusively for Radio Today.