Making Social Networking Work For Local Radio

     Two years ago I was the Marketing Director for my college's student run radio station, WIDB.net. The problem with working for a college radio station or any radio station really is the budget. Everyone wants to do promotions and marketing but it can be expensive and lord knows college radio stations are not rolling in cash. So I spent the better part of my year as Marketing Director coming up with promotions for the station that cost us zero dollars. I found the best way to do this was to utilize the tools already at our disposal in a more creative way. For instance we had a lot of art majors working at the station, so I gave them chalk and told them do to some creative drawings on campus. This wasn't revolutionary, lots of student organizations did chalking but one of the brilliant students that I worked with took creative to a whole new level by chalking our logo and name in enormous letters right across the entrance to the student center... that got us noticed.

Drawing by Allison Huber

    Now I work for a commercial radio station and I've been trying to think of ways to translate what I did in student run radio to commercial radio. One of the things that I think could be better used for promoting radio stations is social networking. Now I know, I KNOW you cringed a little when you read those words but I swear I'm not a "social networking guru" and I'm not going to throw a bunch of shiny spin words out for the rest of this article. Most radio stations use social networking, but they use it like a corporation uses social networking. They create a Facebook page, get people to like it, and then they use it to advertise contests and promotional events to them. I've always believed that the key to having a successful radio station is to be as local as possible. I think this idea can translate really easily into the world of social networking.
     What if when someone wins a free pizza from a morning show, their favorite DJ writes on their wall and just says "hey, congratulations on winning that free pizza, I hope you and your family enjoy it." When the radio station has a really big promotion or an amazing give away what if they made an event page for it and invited some of their Facebook friends to the event? Of course we don't want to be constantly throwing event invitations at people to the point that it's annoying but a few times a year for really big events and giveaways, people would like to be reminded. One of the things the station I currently work for does that I think is a really good example of making social networking more local is posting weather alerts. We get tons of comments from people on their laptops telling us where power lines are down and which towns don't have power, etc... it's a great way of putting ourselves into the community through Facebook. I also think people are really curious to see what the station looks like, why not post a few pictures of DJ's doing their shows in the morning or a video tour of the station hosted by a popular morning show host? These are just a few simple ideas, they're free, and they're not that hard for someone to implement. Facebook is not the only thing stations can use social networking wise. A funny morning DJ with a Twitter account could tweet some of his jokes and get a small but loyal group of followers going. DJ's for pop stations can re-tweet the best celebrity tweets throughout the day and incorporate that into their show.

     There are very few downsides to putting a little more effort into social networking. It takes one organized person to be at the forefront, with the support of some DJ's who can help provide content. Really what it comes down to is: do you want people to think of your radio station as a corporation or as a local business with proprietors that they know and care about? Some well placed campaigning over a social network can make all the difference between those two things.