What radio stations shouldn’t do on social media

Social media is an essential marketing component for radio today. If you don’t have at least one platform where your presence is strong, then you’re neglecting your listenership.

As a brand you’ve got to be careful not to isolate the very listeners you are trying to attract.

After witnessing what some may have dubbed a not-so-nice ‘feud’ play out over social media and trickle into the news last week, I thought it was a great time to go through some of the common mistakes you should avoid when it comes to your social media accounts.

Don’t rubbish your competition

Going in hard to kick things off.  You don’t complain about listeners, so you should also avoid posting negative things about your rival networks or shows. The industry is so small, so stay in your lane and mind your own business! Why not turn things on their head and support others? It’s tactical – it gives you a chance to look gracious to your own listeners and fans, gaining their support and looking far more benevolent.

One of the biggest turn-offs for fans is individuals who are obnoxious, attack their competitors or are just downright offensive. Having a relaxed approach to social media is great, however it’s vital to stay professional and avoid the temptation to voice your grievances publicly.

Healthy banter is one thing but let’s face it, you’re bound to see everyone at the ACRAs or some other function. Resist the urge to vent on social media, walk away and go do something far more productive with your time.

Interacting with fans without strategy

Most of the content I see is a result of networks not investing any time or energy into researching and planning their posts. Like you would with any other marketing strategy, it’s vital that you get to know your listeners, watch what your competitors are doing and set some goals for your own platforms. But you also need to develop a plan of action in order to achieve those goals.

Social media is laid back, however it’s not necessarily so chilled out that you don’t have to plan and just pop content onto your accounts randomly. Once you have a solid ground plan or publishing schedule in place, it will dictate the types of posts and conversations you’ll be using social media to push. Once you have some clear objectives in place, create content around it. You should know how often you should be posting, what times and days of the week get the most interactions and the types of content that your listeners like to share.

Resist deleting negative comments or reviews

You can’t win everyone over – there are just some people that love to hate. So when someone posts something less than flattering about a show, announcer or network your first reaction is to make it disappear right? Deleting posts will make you look so silly, especially if that person goes on a public rant about how their post was deleted. Rise above, leave the post as is and respond in a gracious, professional fashion that not only aligns with your tone and brand, but turns a negative into a positive.

If all else fails, at least Facebooks gives you the option to hide a comment rather than deleting it – helping you to save face, as well as continue the conversation without a very public audience looking in.

Don’t depend on on automation

Avoid being so sterile that you lose that human connection with listeners – to the point where it sounds like a computer is speaking to them. Humanise your brand to make their interactions with you more personable.

The use of gifs, emojis and more relaxed language is the perfect place to start.

Avoid the constant self-promotion

Give listeners and fans content they are interested in. Balance station promotions with creative content strategy. This will make followers much more responsive to your promo posts and listeners will be more likely to share your promotions with their friends down the track.

Stop being boring

Please, stop sharing the same content as all your competitors. I’m honestly spotting some of the worst Facebook strategy going around, where stations and shows are posting the same kind of content every day. With so many different tools and toys at your fingertips, there’s quite simply no excuse.

You can use social media to poll your listeners, ask questions, upload videos, post pictures, run competitions – why wouldn’t you take advantage of every single aspect?

Time to get creative. When you push the same kind of boring content daily, you’ll just make your listeners overlook you when you pop up in their feed. It affects your engagement and your TrustRank score (which I spoke about in five ways radio can beat the Facebook algorithm and boost reach a few weeks ago) which determines whether or not you appear in your fans Feed.

If you really want to create a flourishing and engaged community across your social media, avoiding these points will get you moving into the right direction. Get your strategy down pat, create a plan or schedule and set it into motion. Once you’ve done that, it should be smooth sailing here on in.

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Social Scorecard is compiled exclusively for Radio Today by Jess Frangelli and is brought to you by Social News Desk.