The convergence of radio and social media fascinates me.  

Radio, unlike television or print, seems to have significant gains to make by learning to work inside social media and tap into their passive listener base.  Think about it.  From the user end, radio is a very passive form of media.

For years, radio stations have focused dollars, time and loads of effort on producing live events.  From live concerts and happy hours to on-location contests and parties, radio stations use events to connect with their listener base in hopes of creating loyalty.

Fast-forward to now.  Social media has made it possible for events to happen on the web.

Do you see the connection?

Social Blitz

What the 99.7 The Blitz is doing on Facebook is impressive.

If you visit their fan page, you’ll notice that there is no customization.  No special tabs.  No custom applications.  In fact, you won’t even find one any of the free applications that are available in Facebook’s application directory installed.

It’s bare bones – and it’s working really well.

What The Blitz (specifically, their morning show with Blazer and Mo) does have is the power of mass media, a targeted niche audience and solid engagement from their Facebook page fan base.  Win!

Lessons from The Blitz

I love this case study.  It highlights a critically important aspect of social media strategy: social media is more about sharing the right content and having active human users, rather than shiny technology.

Here are some lessons that we can all learn from how the Blitz is using Facebook:

Be Your Audience
Blazer, Mo, and most of the DJs on the blitz, are the demographic that they target.  They are rock fanatics, with active social lives, who share a sense of humor with their audience.  Being “one of us” is important in trust building.  Trust leads to deeper relationships.  Deeper relationships lead to greater engagement and participation.  All of this leads to retention.  Retention is worth dollars.

Create Conversation On Air
Since guys like Blazer and Mo are, for the most part, members of the audience they target, they know how to engage on the front lines.  Look at this example:

What’s interesting is that this conversation does not exist in a vacuum.  Blazer, Mo and the rest of the morning show crew has entitled this contest Facebook: What’s Your Amazingly Smooth Pick Up Line? The contest is announced during each break with a call to action for listeners to visit the Facebook page and post their best pick-up line.  Pick-up lines that are submitted and read on air serve to create more content for the hosts to riff from.  It’s a great way to engage the audience in the comedy.

Play in Real Time
One of the other topics of discussion from this morning’s show is this picture of Mo:

If you grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, you’ll probably find Mo’s classic digs (and ‘do) a bit funny.  Most of the Blitz target audience can relate, and may even have a few similar candid shots of themselves buried in a shoebox deep within their own closets.

Now look in the comments:

In today’s radio stations, DJs sit behind computers.  Within an hour of launching this bit on the air, Mo joined the conversation (via Facebook) in real time, as it was happening.  While some marketers and PR folks might cringe at his comment, it’s absolutely appropriate for the audience and the nature of the conversation.  In social media, being “one of us” and communicating in real time is much more effective than worrying about your brand voice.  Humans don’t speak brand.

Live Stream Your Broadcast
Drive time is huge for morning talk radio.  But what about when your audience arrives in the office?  How do you keep them engaged?  In my opinion, live streaming your broadcast via the web is an innovation that all radio stations should be focused on implementing.

Again, radio is passive.  As I sit and comb through email in the mornings, I typically listen to music or talk radio.  Streaming makes that easier, and, as a listener, it’s also very easy for me to keep the Blitz Facebook Fan Page open in my browser allowing me to participate in the live conversations during the show.  In a sense, this is a new kind of live event that listeners can attend each morning, at precisely no cost to either party involved.  Big WIN!

Things the Blitz Might Want to Do Next

A few months back, I tried this with WNCI and Dave & Jimmy.  Unfortunately, they either weren’t listening or didn’t really care.  Bummer.

Dear Blazer and Mo, are you listening?  If so, mad props for doing some good work in social media.  Here are three basic suggestions of things you might try next:

1. Determine Fan Page conversion points – What do you want your fan base to do?  Sign up for events?  Register for email updates?  Subscribe to a station blog?  Whatever the goals are, make them clear on the page.  You can develop customized tabs based on what those goals are and work to drive your fans to take that action.
2. Add in some focused, custom tabs – You might try using PollDaddy to get the opinions of your listeners who play on the page.  Having the ability to poll your fans would tie in nicely with the whole “Your Rock Station” position you’ve taken.  Think of your Facebook page in terms of it being an ongoing town hall meeting.
3. More video – There are so many opportunities for using video on your page.  I would start by installing the YouTube application from Involver (a freebie) that would allow you to create a YouTube tab and pull in video content from your channel.  From a strategy perspective, I think it would be fun to come up with contests that get your fans and listeners to submit their own videos.  You’d probably (obviously) need to screen some of these before putting them up, but the idea follows the same train of thought as your pick-up line contest, but is much more interactive.  And just about everyone has a video camera on their mobile these days.
4. Bring streaming to the Facebook Page – This one might cost some bucks, but I’d love to see a custom application developed that would allow me to stream the Blitz, right from your Facebook Fan Page.  While they are few and far between in Columbus, Ohio, there are a handful of developers who know how to code in Facebook Markup Language (FBML).

What ideas do you have on how The Blitz, or radio stations in general, could use Facebook Fan Pages?

nateriggs

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