Help! My Social Media Content Is Better Than My Radio Show
In our phone call, the morning show told me they were disappointed in the show that day. I asked why. Their response:
We were unprepared. We had great topics and a lot of things to talk about, but we hadn’t thought it through.
I thought that was odd, because each had been tweeting all morning and their Facebook page was active with a post every 20 minutes or so throughout the show. What about that?
The light came on! The show admitted that they’ve been spending more time managing their social media presence than planning their radio performance.
So we did some math.
How many total Twitter followers do you have? 8,214.
How many Facebook fans? 30,123.
Instagram followers? 1,691.
If there were no duplication in these accounts (which is certainly not the case), the total potential of the existing social media audience is 40,028. Add to that the incredibly limited reach of a post (maybe 10% of your fans) and the incredibly short shelf life of a Tweet (about 20 minutes) and you start to see the problem.
One more thing: This morning, you Periscoped four times. How many did you reach? 14, 21, 11 and 36. Total: 82.
And what is the weekly cume of your morning show (they had to get the program director to answer this)? Answer: 380,000.
And the daily cume? About 190,000.
And what is the station’s total cume? Around 500,000.
See the problem here?
This show, like many others, had taken the bait and fallen into the trap of spending so much time managing their social media presence that their show was suffering.
This isn’t an anti-social media piece. It’s keeping your priorities in perspective.
What is the role of social media as a part of your show? How do you use it to enhance your show, not hijack it?
The Solution
Here’s what I told the show. Maybe this can help you, too:
- Use apps, platforms and social resources as tools to enhance your ability to entertain and lead an audience. Make it work for you. If at any time it feels like it’s the other way around, step back and re-prioritize.
- Content on social media should enhance your on-air personality. You don’t have to share the latest video of a cat falling off the sofa. They’ve already seen that. Reduce your stress by focusing your social media messaging.
- Use free social scheduling tools so posts and Tweets can be released at various times. This takes the pressure off of managing it during your show.
- Your most loyal fans will love to watch you on Periscope or interact on SnapChat. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it every day. Use the tool when it’s appropriate and fits your content. Just because you can Periscope doesn’t mean you should. Or that you must. And when you do it, make it great. For Periscope ideas, go here.
My final piece of advice was to get help! To do social media right, it must be strategically integrated into your brand, not tacked onto it. It requires time, resources and expertise to do it right.
If you have the luxury of a larger staff on your show, make sure someone on the team is an expert in social and digital media. If not, consider hiring a consultant or agency to help manage your tools. It can pay off in building an audience and ultimately in generating direct new revenue.