Social Scorecard: Radio’s top social posts this week, plus Facebook Stories coming to Pages (and why you need to utilise it)

According to TechCrunch, Facebook announced that ‘Stories’ would be coming shortly to Business Pages. The feature is due to start appearing as a tool for all Pages over the next few months.

You’ll be able to play around with similar effects that you have on Instagram and Snapchat including animations, art, video content and filters.

Facebook users will start to see Stories from Pages they follow in the top section of the mobile app or desktop browser for 24 hours before the Stories disappear.

This is a massive win for radio, particularly live social media as producers will be able to curate more on-the-fly content to their fans on Facebook.  It’s designed to create brand visibility and gives radio folk the chance to directly connect with your audience in a more laid-back fashion.

Once again, the appeal to your listeners is that it’s fuss-free, impromptu and raw allowing you to interact with your audience easily and instantaneously.

So why should you start to use Facebook Stories in addition to your other live socials?

You’ve got more creative features to play around with

Stories gives you a chance to step away from your over produced content and have a little fun with all the effects, live streaming and filters.

Prime positioning

Facebook Stories will be sitting right at the top of user feeds ensuring you remain directly in eye sight.  You’ll also have the opportunity to appear in other feeds by switching your Stories over to ‘Public’.

Stories use amongst users is becoming more popular

More and more users are actually utilising Stories on other platforms like Instagram to communicate and interact. According to stats, half the businesses on Instagram produced an Insta Story in the last month, boosting its overall average use (From 32 minutes per day for under 25’s, and 24 minutes per day for 25+).  Facebook are clearly trying to reproduce similar success with Facebook Stories but also placing it in a handy position so that fans can easily access it.

Facebook organic reach is down

Brands are seeing a 20% drop in engagement with Facebook posts this year.  With audiences’ feeds being blasted with an abundance of content, visibility is getting harder within feeds. Facebook’s algorithm essentially determines what your audience may see based on what is ‘relevant’ to them.

The perfect tool to combat this? Facebook Stories. You’ll have more prominence over other content as it gives you the opportunity for your content to feature in more user feeds. If your Stories are interesting enough to your audience it could be a fresh way to increase your engagement.

It may also be a novel more enticing way to push station promos, events and competitions.

End of the day it’s all about experimenting and using all the tools and features across social media platforms to your advantage. This is just another way for you to illustrate your brand’s story.

What you chose to feature will ultimately determine whether you stand out – just don’t waste the opportunity to shine and generate interest with dull content.

Our top picks this week come from Collective Noun, The Hit Network and Nova 96.9’s Fitzy and Wippa.

1. Collective Noun: Facebook – ‘Finding the café bathroom’ (SCA)

Dom, Zach and Michael have tapped right into what NY Post claims is a ‘millennial lifestyle’ nightmare (Ok, I put in the nightmare part); brunching. What used to take us all a reasonable amount of time, is now consumed by obnoxious strangers taking aerial pics of meals whilst standing on chairs…just to show Insta followers their #BrunchGoals. It’s no wonder we can’t find the bloody bathroom at the local hipster joint. I love this and I love you three – for taking the absolute piss out of all this ridiculousness. Brilliant.

2. The Hit Network: Facebook – ‘We were warned not to go on level 3 at Pentridge Prison’ (SCA)

The reason why posts like this are successful is because it triggers an emotional reaction. We want to be moved in some way and when we do, we share it with our friends and family across social platforms – which is why clever content marketing thrives. This taps into the audience’s emotions with something that people are widely interested in. Great length and I’d imagine engagement was high with little drop off.

3. Nova 96.9’s Fitzy and Wippa: Facebook – ‘We got him a beauty’ (Nova Entertainment)

Business is business and at the end of the day, it’s not all fun and games – we are here to sell stuff too. So you might as well have a laugh while doing it right? Yeah it’s a sponsored post but its smart, funny and isn’t all about the client – it’s focusing on the shows brand and talent. It’s entertaining therefore listeners are likely to engage, share and… bingo… marketing plug achieved. Savvy guys, I like.

Side note: Big congrats by the way to Nova newsreader for Matt de Groot on his engagement to News Limited journo Bronte Coy.

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Social Scorecard is compiled exclusively for Radio Today by Jess Frangelli.