Social Communication On The Air – It’s A Perfect Match

I came across a really good blog last week titled “Why Aren’t More Radio Stations Being Social?” by Justin Kings who is an International media consultant, trainer and broadcaster. He is also, like me, a radio professional who bemoans the way in which broadcast organisations and broadcasters themselves use Social platforms. It reminded me of a blog I wrote last year called “Why Is Radio Still Underusing Twitter?”

It was interesting to read the comments that accompanied Justin’s blog on the Radio Today website because they spoke of the “lack of visible replies” and that they only get “regular contributors”. This implies it’s the fault of the platform when in fact, as always, it’s the quality and creativity of the content and the way it’s sold on the air.

Listeners to a radio station are there to be enticed and teased, to listen a little longer when they really should be doing something else, to force them to visit that web page, to give that video one more view, to send that text to add a few pence to the coffers. Good presenters along with entertaining and creative content can do all of that.

Does that seems familiar in any way?

That’s exactly what Social communication does too.

When I’m talking to businesses and organisations about how they use Social platforms I use strategies and principles from three decades as a successful radio presenter because the parallels are obvious and valid. After all we are talking about “live broadcasting” in the most part. Social communication like traditional radio broadcasts is sent out to an audience (community) but at the point of contact is 1-2-1 so it becomes a very personal medium.

This where Justin and I speak with one voice when we talk about how poorly radio in general uses these digital channels to accompany and enhance their output. You would think that if any business would understand 1-2-1 communication it would be radio.

I discovered Twitter in 2009 and grasped the opportunity to use it straight away. It was the first time I could talk to my audience outside of show times. I was able to strengthen the relationship I already had with them, share extra content with them, take them behind-the-scenes (listeners love that) and give them stuff they couldn’t get just by listening to my show. I could also make someone who wasn’t already listening tune in, that’s as powerful as it gets.

Former BBC 5 Live presenter Richard Bacon’s once described Twitter as being like “the DVD Extras of a radio programme”. That’s a perfect analogy.

Of course radio shouldn’t only use Social channels to get material for use on air, the marketing possibilities are many and varied. You can talk about today’s show, tease ahead for tomorrow, highlight news items, showcase station contests and promotions, take people behind-the-scenes, post links to the station website and other Social channels, give the listener those “DVD Extras” and importantly…..have fun.

There is another positive to be gained from regular monitoring and engagement with Social Media platforms and that is the ability to provide gold standard customer service. There is also one thing you can do which doesn’t take long but will strengthen your customer service reputation. Justin mentions it in his blog, an American marketer called Gary Vaynerchuck has written a book about it and I talk about regularly in my sessions.

Just say “Thank You”.

Two words that acknowledge you appreciate that tweet or post or picture and will validate the time and effort the listener has taken to create and send it.

Having said all of that there has to be the urge and motivation to do it. The radio stations who are gaining most from their Social Media platforms are the ones who have developed a strategy for content creation and monitoring. They are the ones who have recognised that Social communication is no longer something to do if someone has time to knock up a Facebook post or two. It’s now firmly part of any communications business portfolio.

Social Media platforms are perfect tools for building and maintaining relationships and trust with a community. The fact that the experts in 1-2-1 communication are, in many circumstances, using those tools in a very unimaginative, ad-hoc manner is baffling.

Taking A Chance With Your Content

One of the terrific things about Social communication is that, by and large, it’s live and in-the-moment. It’s a shared experience but 1-2-1 at the point of delivery which makes it personal and exciting. I love the immediacy of it and the ability to become part of a conversation or a debate within seconds, leading you to…..who knows where.

We sometimes get so wrapped up in making sure we’re on the most effective platforms, that our content is as creative and relevant as it can be, it’s planned and scheduled according to our content calendar that it’s easy to forget how interesting and rewarding in can be just to “try something”.

I know why this is, or at least I think I do.

When you read about, or listen to someone talk about Social communication and interaction it’s a reasonable assumption that they have come from a marketing background. It’s been a very natural progression for marketers to move into Social as it’s a perfect fit into any marketing strategy.

However, marketers, I would dare to suggest come with a different mindset to someone, oh I don’t know, like me. It’s simply down to where our communication experience has come from.

My three decades in broadcasting have enabled me to create enormous amounts of content, I like to think most of it worked for me, but the law of averages suggests that some of it didn’t. It sounded like a good idea in my head, seemed okay in rehearsal, but when the red light came on and it was released to the world something happened and it didn’t live up to expectations.

What did I think when this happened?

IT DOESN’T MATTER

Simple as that. That is not to say I didn’t care about what I was doing, of course I did. It was simply that in a “live” situation I knew that in a few moments time I could create another piece of content which might fly. That’s the mindset I don’t think those who have a traditional marketing background  have.

This is why Social is so great, you are in that situation. It’s live broadcasting and you get the chance to just “try stuff”. If it doesn’t work then you just create another piece of content and fire that out.

As a business or organisation you will have a Social plan or strategy, you will know which platforms represent what you do best and which ones fit the content you have to offer. You will have looked at your analytics to see when and where you content gets most traction and engagement. I should say at this point if none of the above apply to you, you need to contact me we can put it right.

Having a cohesive Social plan is vital but there is no reason why from time to time you can experiment with your content. You will obviously know the style risks you can take but just having the freedom to have an idea and put it out there in seconds is very exciting.

When you think “I’d love to try that”………..TRY IT.

They Blinded Me With Science

Last week I came across a piece written by a Social Media coach which talked about the “Psychology of Connections” and a “Scientific Approach to Marketing”. It was a very well written piece, made some excellent common sense points and I thought it worth sharing with my own social community.

It also made me think, not about the content which spoke for itself, but the way in which some elements of Social engagement are dressed up in flowery vocabulary to give them a sense of being something special.

The key points this article made were that in order to build successful and effective business relationships you should –

• Smile
• Be trustworthy.
• Be grateful.
• Be positive.
• Be generous

What I get from that perfectly valid list is that there is nothing scientific about it whatsoever, they are all elements of basic communication skills.

As someone who, as a broadcaster, has been creating content and building communities for nearly three decades these are tenets that I followed and which, by doing so, rewarded me with audiences in the hundreds of thousands for many years.

Any form of media whether it be visual, print or social excels when it communicates successfully with its audience, and not just that, it works when those basics mentioned above are used effectively.

One of the reasons I found Social Media platforms to be valuable tools in my radio days was the huge crossover between the two forms of communication. When I’m advising businesses and organisations it’s those basics I learned while becoming a successful communicator that I use in the way I train and coach in Social engagement.

As consultants and coaches offering services to others based on our own knowledge and experience it is very tempting to over-egg the basic principles of social interaction in order to somehow reflect our own expertise.

I should say in closing that there is a psychological aspect to Social communication, it is endlessly fascinating and I have written about it previously.

However, at the forefront of it all are the starting points for any human relationship and the reasons we trust people and then engage with them, in life and in business, and among them are the ones mentioned above.

They are simple and straightforward and not in the least scientific.

Are You Content With Your Content?

You may have a number of social channels on the go, they may be picking up some decent traction but are you satisfied with how they are performing for your business?

Are you content with your content?

It’s a question worth asking yourself, maybe as part of your main Social Media strategy sessions or perhaps as a regular housekeeping function.

Whatever you are publishing, whether it’s mostly text based, photos, videos, other visuals, a mixture of everything, it is all content. Every single thing you create and send out into the social arena.

I’ve put together a small checklist that may help you to assess your current content.

1) IS YOUR CONTENT SUITABLE FOR THE PLATFORM IT’S ON

You may have a handful of social outlets for your business, each one will require a different approach. Twitter gives you the chance to create short to the point tweets which grab attention or point your follower to another location (your website, other social channel or link to content you want to share). Facebook helps you to go into more depth with the opportunity to add a visual to your status and to start conversation threads with your fans and customers. Pinterest is an excellent way of curating quality visuals as well as being able to provide links to other sites and content. Instagram is more “in the moment” and may suit your business perfectly.

2) DON’T BE AFRAID TO TRY SOMETHING NEW

You may have settled on a few platforms which you are happy with but something new will come along all the time. If you think a new platform that one of your staff or your Consultant suggests might work, try it. You have nothing to lose. If it takes off add it to your social portfolio to strengthen your digital toolkit. If it doesn’t, delete the account and move on.

3) THINK FOR A MINUTE

When you’ve created some content, stop for a moment and listen for the voice in your head. Sometimes it will ask you a question.

“Do you think that’s suitable content?”

In my experience if you have to stop and think about publishing content you probably shouldn’t. That little voice in your head is nearly always right.

4) BE HUMAN

It’s okay to use your social platforms to give your business a human face and personality; in fact that’s what they’re great for. Of course you have to strike the right tone but you should know what that is. It may take a little practice at first but it will pay dividends. People expect their social interaction to personable and human; the businesses who are using social most effectively understand this.

5) KNOW WHAT WORKS FOR YOU

If you are on top of your social analysis and metrics then you will know the types of content which give you the best engagement. You will be able to discover the times and days when your content ignites and this information will help you plan your content creation and publication each week. Of    course the beauty of social is being spontaneous but having a catalogue of detailed analysis will be the backbone to your function.

6) IS YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE GOLD STANDARD?

Your social platforms will now be the first port of call for many of your customers or clients if they have a problem. It is so much easier to call into a Facebook page and post a comment than searching out a website for a contact number or e-mail address.

I’ve always maintained that “Gold Standard” customer service shouldn’t be a target, it should be the norm. It is so easy to use your Social Media outlets to provide excellent customer service and that doesn’t mean waiting for something to go wrong before you engage and interact.

Just saying “thank you” when you get a positive comment will mean more to your customer than you think.

7) IS YOUR AUDIENCE CONTENT WITH YOUR CONTENT?

If your followers, fans and customers are not getting enough from your content to engage with it then that’s all you need to know that your content strategy is not working.  Social is sometimes hit and miss and it takes time to find your voice. The big advantage about social broadcasting is that if a piece of content doesn’t work for you, take note, understand the reasons why and try something else.

8) BE TOPICAL

If your Social strategy includes a content calendar then you won’t miss opportunities to tie in topical issues or events to your business. I feel that businesses and organisations whose social content shows their followers that they are tapping into relevant issues and stories stand out from the crowd. Of course that same approach also increases the amount of content you can create for your platforms.

Oh finally, if your Social strategy doesn’t include content calendar, it really should.

10 Social Media Myths De-bunked

This week I thought I would talk about Social Media “myths”. Words of wisdom in social communication that have been repeated so many times they become what people believe. However, they are also the same words that make you stop and question them.

When I worked in radio there were similar myths, mantras that had been trotted out by more experienced people for so long that as a newcomer you just accepted them, even though none of them had any basis in fact.

For example:-

• Female listeners don’t like female presenters
• Never play more than three female voices in a row
• Always put in an hour’s prep for each hour on air.
• Mentioning another radio station will make your listener immediately tune to it.

I could go on – as a young presenter I heard all these and just accepted them. As you gain confidence and experience in your profession you start to question these “myths”.

The same is true of Social Media; here are 10 Myths of the social age to question.

1) I SHOULD BE ON EVERY PLATFORM

Do you know how many social platforms there are? No me neither. One of the basic pitfalls of using Social Media is to try and maintain a presence on lots of platforms, see nothing happen and give up. The first step for every business or organisation is to identify the platforms that will work best for them and concentrate your efforts there.

2) I’LL JUST USE ONE PLATFORM

Just as spreading yourself too thin is not good, the opposite is equally as bad. By all means note the platform that gives you the most traction and make that your primary outlet, but remember that other sites can be complementary. Using a handful of social platforms also gives you the opportunity to cross-promote and link them together.

3) I CAN’T LINK TO MY OTHER SOCIAL PLATFORMS

You have a Facebook account, it’s doing fine, lots of engagement for your excellent content. So you set up a Twitter account as a complementary outlet and because your business is visual you think a Pinterest board would be good too. All excellent ideas. The problem is, you’ve read a few “experts” say you can’t link to them from your Facebook wall because………..well I don’t know why really.

It makes no sense to me. Just do it. The great thing about social is that you can tie up your social channels, your company website, your YouTube channel in a lovely chain of gorgeous digital content.

4) WALL-TO-WALL CONTENT

It’s quality not quantity, less is more etc. etc. Think about what you have to offer and the best way of saying it. What are your keywords, your important messages, how can you encourage your followers to share your content. Of course sell yourself and your services but do it strategically amongst your other posts. Make your channels ones your followers can rely on to be informed and entertained.

5) RE-POSTING

This is one of my bugbears. Someone once said you should never re-post content and it was taken as read. I still see some practitioners espouse this point of view.

I use the analogy of your wife or girlfriend who won’t wear a dress she’s worn before, even though there’ll be no-one at the event who will have seen it the first time.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with re-posting content. We would love all of our content to be seen by all of our social communities, but in the real world that’s never gonna happen.

Do it sensibly and creatively, choose carefully the content you recycle, make sure it’s still relevant when you re-post.

6) DON’T BE PERSONAL

Hang on, isn’t this what being “social” is all about. Of course keep your audience and your customers in mind but don’t be afraid to show off your business/brand’s personality. If it didn’t have one before your social channels give you the chance to create one. It’s 1-2-1 communication, it’s personal, it’s dialogue between you and the person looking at their screen.

7) IT’S A NUMBERS GAME

People still get hung up on numbers; obsess about how many likes, followers and friends they’re notching up. You’ll see people following you then unfollow a few days later when you haven’t reciprocated. You don’t want them anyway.

The sorts of fans and followers you need are ones who will find your content interesting, informative or entertaining enough to share with their own tribes. They could be your flag-wavers and brand ambassadors. 500 people who engage with your posts on a regular basis are far more important to your business than 10,000 people who clicked the “like” button once.

8) IF IT’S NEGATIVE FEEDBACK, IGNORE IT

No-one likes seeing negative stuff written about their business or organisation but the worst thing you can do is ignore or delete it. It’s important to have a plan in place when the situation arises so your response is timely and constructive. Remember anyone who sees the negative comment will also see your way in which you have handed it.

9) SOCIAL IS TOO INFORMAL FOR BUSINESS

I heard this at a networking event just the other week, what the comment says to me is that the person saying it doesn’t know what social media is all about. Social communication is for everyone, irrespective of business type, it can change perceptions of your business in a post or a tweet. When the CIA fired up their Twitter account they got it absolutely right with their first tweet.

10) EVERY POST NEEDS A HASHTAG

#Saving #the #best #for #last. #Dear #Lord #above, #save #us from #Hashtag #Hell.

Hashtags are great, they tie up events, topics, opinions and conversations beautifully but they are the source of more social evil than almost anything else (with serial re-tweeters a close second). They are not however, compulsory and will not guarantee you a trending topic but used carefully and creatively will help those following the hashtag to find your content.

I hope that if you’ve comes across any of those Social Media myths this blog has given you the confidence to take my advice and ignore them.

There a more of them of course, I have a feeling there may be a part 2 coming soon.

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Why Should I Hire A Social Media Consultant?

Social Media is now such an integral part of life and business that many companies and organisations believe they can steer their way through their digital communication platforms in the same way their employees and managers use it for their personal uses.

Of course using Social Media in business needs to be more strategic and measured while still maintaining the personal aspect of being “social”. This is where a good Consultant can help steer you and your content in the right direction.

I have identified several areas in which your Consultant can work with you to make your communication channels give you improved results.

IMPARTIALITY

Hiring a Consultant gives you the opportunity to have your Social Media usage audited and assessed by someone who doesn’t have a personal or emotional attachment to the content. If you’re involved in the day-to-day business then it’s easy to become so close to it that you can’t see the wood for the trees, sometimes you can’t even see the trees – we’ve all been in that position. Your Consultant will give you a new perspective through fresh eyes based on his or her experience.

One of my favourite parts of the job is looking at a client’s content for the first time, you never know what you’re going to find.

STRATEGY

One of the great misnomers of Social Media is that all you have to do is set up a few channels, stick some content on them and everything will be great, customers will start coming out of the woodwork and before you know it you’ll need an extension on the extension.

A social strategy is essential to identify the platforms on which you need to be active, the sort of content you have to offer and the ways in which you can make what you have to say stand out from the crowd.

Very often the first question I ask in a consultation is the most difficult question of the day to answer.

“What do you do that makes you different to every other business?”

It’s surprising how long it sometimes takes to identify the answer/s to that question but once you know what makes your business special we can work on the rest of the strategy.

CONTENT

Oh man we love content, we say the word at least a hundred times a day and if we don’t we get a headache on the way home. Your Consultant will help you identify the content you can “ignite” to make your social effort stronger and more successful.

I’ve heard from some people that they’re in the “wrong type of business” to use Social Media. This is another fallacy, there is no such thing. Every business or organisation has something they do which they can turn into digital content for their platforms of choice.

Very often companies and individuals don’t realise how much content they have to offer and it’s often this which holds them back from using social channels as they feel they have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

EXPERIENCE

It almost goes without saying that your Consultant will know more about Social Media usage and communication than you do. That’s why you’ve hired them in the first place.

Of course anyone can give themselves a label, call themselves a Consultant or an “expert” – I hate that word, or maybe a “guru – hate that even more, or if they’re very special a “ninja” – there are almost no words at this point, suffice to say if you come across someone who has given themselves the epithet “ninja”, a wide berth would be the best course of action.

I see people calling themselves “experts” only to find their own social channels to be disaster areas. My advice to anyone looking for a Consultant would be to browse across their platforms, in my opinion if they can’t “do social” for themselves then you can you expect them to do it for you.

Like any form of media, social is all about effective communication. You may have terrific content, fantastic ideas on how to ignite it but if you can’t communicate those things via your social channels they’re useless.

After nearly 30 years in broadcasting there isn’t too much I don’t know about the art of communication. It won me a daily audience of nearly a quarter of a million people and enabled me to build a social community in the days before Social Media. The advent of digital platforms merely helped me grow and strengthen the loyalty, trust and support I received from my tribe.

ANALYSIS

Success in Social Media cannot be measured purely in followers, likes and fans, indeed those numbers may mislead you into thinking your content is working better than it actually is.

Your Consultant will be able to analyse your activity and identify where your strengths and weaknesses are. Which types of content work best – at what times your posts get more exposure and shares – who are the followers passing on your content to their communities and giving it more traction and penetration.

INTEGRATION

When I first started using Social Media channels at Real Radio in 2009 they were very much seen as rival outlets and I encountered a lot of resistance while trying to promote the use of these new tools as part of an integrated marketing and communications network, tied to the company website.

Nowadays this integration is seen as essential to a successful Social Media strategy with platforms and websites working with each other to build and strengthen ties with clients, customers and fans. Your Consultant will be able to identify ways to tie-up your Social platforms and spot the ways in which you are missing opportunities to integrate social, blog and web content.

A good Consultant will give you an unbiased, honest view of your social activity and help you improve in the relevant areas. They shouldn’t tell you everything’s terrible or everything’s great and they certainly shouldn’t look for criticism to justify their fee. We get paid the same amount irrespective of the outcome although you may have, like me, been on the end of reports from Consultants who were clearly looking for faults because they thought they should.

They will help a business and its staff understand how their social strategies and plans work and what’s expected from them when they are publishing on social channels.

The services your Consultant will offer are many and varied ranging from a one-off consultation to a long –term association with your business’ social activity. One thing you can be assured of is that finding a knowledgeable, reliable Consultant will add enormous value to your Social Media usage.

Here’s where you’ll find me www.chrismooremedia.co.uk

Come on, you didn’t expect me to blog about the benefits of a Social Media Consultant without a plug for my own services at the end did you?

Are We Still Engaged?

One of my favourite podcasts is the always excellent “Marketing Companion” by Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster, a weekly broadcast about the worlds of marketing and social media. On the most recent edition they talked about the subject of engagement and how there seems to be less and less taking place in the social space.

Social media usage is ever-increasing, social platforms and mobile applications are seemingly appearing on a daily basis, we are becoming more and more reliant on social sources for information and entertainment yet, Mark and Tom argued, the engagement factor is on the decline.

They argued that though streaming video, infographics and podcasts are rising in popularity the engagement is not there as it once was. Top bloggers have eliminated their comment sections and Mark claimed that it was now hard to start a conversation on Twitter.

This may be a little exaggerated to encourage discussion but there may be solid reasons for these claims. It is plain to see that Social Media is becoming more and more visual, hence the increasing popularity of Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. Podcasting is becoming an easy way to share content and build a listener base of your own and in the last few weeks streaming video has received a boost with the arrival of Meerkat and Periscope.

Although it’s the latter which appears to have captured the imagination of the masses.

Maybe there is now an acceptance of content being delivered to our various devices merely for our own reference and interest, without the need to engage with it by way of comment and opinion. We may be happy some of the time to be entertained by someone or something.

I have enjoyed spending time with Periscope in the last couple of weeks, watching some behind the scenes feeds from radio stations (once a radio geek, always a radio geek) including some from the legendary Tony Blackburn, I took a car ride from the Swalec Stadium to a Cardiff hotel with Kevin Pietersen and Kumar Sangakarra, rode the monorail at Disney World in Orlando and watched some guy try and eat 8 MacDonald’s’ cheeseburgers in an hour. Not a vigorous challenge I’ll grant you, but it made me stay with it because the guy was really engaging. He was re-enacting an initiation from a firm of London share traders (I thought they were more creative than that). I watched for a couple of minutes and really liked him, so much so I went back late to see if he’d managed to complete the challenge. He had of course but he probably suffered for it later on.

However, during all the time spent with my Periscope chums I never felt the urge to comment once, I just enjoyed what I was watching. Maybe that gives Mark and Tom’s argument some weight.

We always talk about how you can increase the engagement your social content receives by using visuals and moving images and in my opinion that still is very much the case.

I think we will always have opinions and thoughts that we want to share with our communities, it may be the case that we are becoming more selective in the amount of participation we carry out.

Will there be a time when we will have to develop new ways of measuring how our Social Media activity is working for us?

Maybe – but one of the fascinating parts of thinking about Mark and Tom’s podcast is the way in which social communication is ever changing. While the main roads of digital interaction stay the same, the side roads are developing new twists and turns and on occasions the inevitable road works (usually on a Bank Holiday weekend).

A Social Media – motoring analogy. Come on, that’s worth a comment in itself, isn’t it?