Welcome!

If you’re reading this, it’s likely you attended our panel at CRS 2011, or are involved in country radio.  We created this post to serve as an extension of the panel, and provide a continued discussion and exploration of how social media can help you.  We’d love to get your feedback in the comments section below!

At Strategic Blend, we view social media as an extension of your brand.  As you’re all aware the landscape for a listener’s attention has become extremely crowded.  Between the multitude of blogs, streaming feeds, tweets, facebook status updates, etc, etc … you really have to be dialed into your strategy to stand out.

This is accomplished through SEVEN fundamental points that have become our marketing theology:

The Message

There are several things you can do to help ensure that you engage your fanbase in a way that is effective, extends the conversation with your audience, and becomes a powerful and lucrative tool for your station.

Perhaps the most important of these is the message.  What are you saying,  Who are you saying it to,  and How is it being consumed?

#1)  Pull Don’t Push (more on this subject here)

We have a fundamental policy at Strategic Blend to PULL the audience in as opposed to PUSHING messaging to them.  Good messaging strategy will PULL an audience in, they’ll seek you out for their information, and you’ll become a trusted source.  The converse of this is PUSHING irrelevant messaging on an unsuspecting audience.  When this happens you are added to all the other “noise” generated by today’s technology.  Even if your message reaches its intended target it can be quickly discarded as SPAM, deleted as trash, or glazed over as irrelevant.

#2) P1 Listeners CARE about your station

So when engaging them through social media give them information they care about.  While contesting and give-aways are certain to garner initial attention.  You also have an opportunity to break relevant news, to become a place of music discovery, and most importantly gain their attention.

(there’s more here)

Frequency

#3)  Don’t treat social media like you do your email list (more on this here)

Don’t treat social media like you do your email list.Within the last few years there has been a shift from email marketing campaigns to engaging a fan through social media.  An important thing to remember is that engaging your fans through social media is NOT like sending them an email blast.  The greatest thing about the social media is the level of immediacy, connection, and communication you’re able to have with your audience in real time.  Unlike email campaigns, these don’t always have to be long form calls to action.  Sometimes the greatest social media strategies allow like-minded people to have a conversation.

#4) Expectations Are Hard To Change

Frequency of messaging is a delicate balance.  You don’t want to burn a list by over communicating.  Set an expectation for your audience so they know what to look for from you.  If you tweet out every song that is played on your station, that’s an expectation, and while not every listener will appreciate that communication frequency, it may have its place on its own dedicated twitter account (like @WSIXnowplaying).  Setting the expectation of communication frequency will keep your audience attention… which reminds me, if you’re going to use social media to communicate…. USE IT.  If you were to take a two week hiatus, you’ve broken the communication with your audience and they’ll be difficult to get back

Continuity

Now that you’ve reeled them in, and they know what type of messaging to expect from you… and when.

What do you say?

This is where a great deal of folks run into an issue, their messaging has no Continuity.  Their twitter account will be run by one individual, their facebook presence by another, their email and mobile by another…. Each with a different voice, each with a different style, and each one confusing the audience as to the voice of the brand.

#5) Speak with the same voice as you do on-air

Whatever you say… say it to your intended audience in the same voice you have on the air.  If you’re an irreverent station that markets to a certain demographic… make sure your social network messaging reflects that.

#6) Continuity builds a sense of community

What you’ll find is the social networks will become a community of its own.  It’s where listeners will go to engage likeminded people.  As long as your brand is continuous from the airwaves to the social networks, you’ll have the makings of a successful strategy.

Acknowledgement

#7) Let your listeners know you’re listening

Now if you’re following.. you’ve got a passionate audience who knows what type of messaging to expect from you, has a good sense when to look for it, and recognizes it because it’s congruent with your voice.

If you REALLY want to empower this audience ENGAGE them.  Have on air personalities read aloud the comments and tweets from the social networks, suggestions, contest winners from the social networks.

A couple of years ago Seth Godin spoke at CRS about Tribes.  Which he defines as a group of people sharing a common culture, a goal, a mission, and a leader.   Your audience is your tribe.  Social networks allow you to be the leader.   If you communicate with them correctly you’ll be able to grow your audience, strengthen those relationships, carry your brand beyond the airwaves, and be the influential voice in your market.

We want to hear from you!

Use the comments section below to tell us how you use social media, successes, failures and questions.