Our Social Media Tips For Radio
Here are some social media tips that you could use to up your online presence for your radio station, radio show or podcast. Izabela and I go through 7 social networks in this episode: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, Pinterest and Klout.
Start and setup a Facebook Page. Many people already have this. Many internet radio station have this and have many people following them. Music Radio Creative has a fan page. So if you haven’t got it you can set it up even for yourself as an online radio personality, podcaster or your own internet radio station. If you want to raise your profile but you don’t want all your listeners connecting to your personal account, set up a page which people can like so you can easily interact with them. To kickstart your Facebook page, invite your friends and family to like your page.
Why Would A Personality Need A Facebook Page?
Your normal Facebook account is generally you as a person. You may want to use your personal Facebook account to connect with listeners however it is not really designed for business or for branding. By having a facebook page for your own brand you can easily separate your personal life from your business brand.
Once you’ve setup your page, make sure to upload a nice looking logo or artwork as well as a background picture to make your page look presentable and professional. We’ve talked about the importance of having an artwork or logo for your brand in podcast episode #67.
Facebook Ads
Izabela suggested to use Facebook Ads if you want to boost your page likes and take it to the next level. I personally have used Facebook Ads quite extensively and I think they’re fantastic. It’s one of the most accurate means of targeting a certain set of users. It will allow you to choose your specific target such as the person’s gender, age, location and even their Facebook likes and interests. This is really a clever feature especially if you want to reach a certain niche audience. It’s also a good research mechanism so if ever you don’t want to spend an amount of money just go and look at the Facebook advertising interface and start clicking on different demographics, different ages, areas and likes for you to see how many people are on Facebook which can be your target audience.
This is Izabela’s favorite social network right now. She likes Twitter as it allows people to connect to anyone even people you don’t really personally know. She thinks that Facebook is for people she knows and Twitter is for people who she don’t know but shares similar interests. Follow her on Twitter @IzabelaRusell she has one of the best handles on Twitter and she posts replies that are engaging.
3 Twitter Tips For Radio
1. Twitter Username
I’ve got 3 Twitter tips for anyone who wants to increase the presence of their online radio station or brand. The very first tip is for you to complete your profile and replace the default egg picture with your own. You simply need to fill up 160 characters and tell people who you are, what your interests are and what you do. You can even put a link to your active and most current website so people can check you out. Most importantly setup a Twitter handle that is relevant and easy to share, you don’t want to have something like @radiomagic8159 as it will be harder for people to remember that when they want to tweet you.
2. Twitter Keywords
Second tip is to search by keywords related to the kind of audience you are looking for. In my case, I make Adobe Audition Tutorials so I search for people talking about that and try to help them if ever they have questions about Adobe Audition. Maybe you’ve got a radio station that is playing jazz music so you can search jazz music and you’ll find people tweeting about jazz music. Using those search results, you can start engaging with people and bringing them to your brand when they see your Twitter account. Twitter is also a great way to interact with celebrities so if you’re a radio station you can simply tweet “Playing right now @ladygaga..” and you might just get a tweet back!
3. Twitter Advertising
Looking at the Twitter Ads interface is my third tip. It’s been up in the US for quite a while now but has only started in the UK, Canada and Ireland. So if you’re in those mentioned countries you can go ahead and use targeted tweets and promote them to certain audiences. It’s quite fantastic you should try it by going to ads.twitter.com. It let’s you target keywords, country, location, and even target followers of another Twitter account.
It’s Izabela’s least favorite social networking site as she finds it a bit clunky. LinkedIn just recently released a brand new iPad app which makes it really easy to use. You definitely have to be on LinkedIn if you’re a professional. Even if you don’t think it’s important the business community are all on LinkedIn. Often they say that the highest spenders or the highest value people can be found hanging out on LinkedIn because it’s a social network where business happens.
Once you’ve setup an account in LinkedIn, I would highly recommend you to join groups. This is a kind of community surrounding a specialist subject for instance Radio Production and Adobe Audition users, which are specifically targeted into a couple of interest I have so I join in and try to contribute to those groups. If you’re a radio station or you’re podcasting about a certain topic the look for a LinkedIn group around that topic. If there isn’t one that exists then set one up and get it going.
Second tip is to post helpful content not only on your timeline but also in your groups. People are definitely going to comment in there as there is an active pool of users in LinkedIn groups. If you’re helpful in your timeline and in your groups then people would find you and your brand which is very important in building your online presence.
The third tip is to create a LinkedIn company page much like a Facebook page which you can create for your brand. People can then follow that and get updates specifically from your company. Another great thing about LinkedIn is people can endorse you. You can post a number of things you feel you’re good at and people can endorse you for that skill.
Google+
Why be on Google+? First of all is the ability to share stuff and be found in the Google search engine. Using Google+ would have a search engine optimisation advantage. You’ll often find that your Google+ posts will rank in Google search because it is Google’s property. I had this observation when I tried searching a current event particularly in technology and I could see plenty of Google+ posts rising to the top. If you’re posting useful content on Google+ and your post shows up in Google it will drive traffic to your page and even your website.
Instead of posting short comments on Google+ why not go ahead and post a paragraph or even an entire blog post. People would definitely read it as the growing community in Google+ are the people who really want to read and interact on a deeper level.
Another interesting feature of Google+ especially for audio and radio people is the ability to share a link to your SoundCloud. It will show up in your Google+ feed and people will be able to play it right there in the timeline.
Lastly, look into joining a Google Hangout On Air which is quite fun. Google Hangouts are live broadcast over video which is a great way to reach an audience. If you’d like to see a great use of Google Hangouts On Air check out the Podcasters’ Roundtable.
Foursquare
It is an app that you can install on your phone that allows you to check-in to places you’ve been. The thing I like about Foursquare is the ability to leave tips in various places like bars, restaurants and cafes. For instance, if you’re a local radio station, you can leave tips in places your listeners may hangout. You can either do this in your personal foursquare account or you can create a company page and link it to a foursquare account. Leave helpful comments on different local places relevant to you. Another good thing about this location based app is, as a locally based business, you can be found by people who visit a place near you.
Izabela likes Pinterest as she feels that it is targeted towards women. A good friend of ours Cynthia Sanchez is a big Pinterest advocate and has a great podcast about Pinterest and a blog as well. If you want to find out more about how Pinterest can help you with your business make sure to check out Cynthia! Pinterest allows you to pin different pictures from the web onto your own boards. You can also repin other people’s pins and enjoy pinning your own tastes.
If you’re a radio station what you can potentially do is pin a photo of equipment you would like to recommend and add a little description to it. The important thing is to make sure pins revolve around your interests and try to somehow find engaging pictures. It’s a fun place to be as it is not that difficult to maintain as other social media platforms.
Klout
Klout is not really a social media network but it is a place where you can connect all of your social media accounts and analyse your social influence score. Klout works with around 12 billion data points every single day to figure out how influential people are – it’s really accurate! It is definitely a great metric to track if your social media networking is working well or not.
A Challenge For You This Coming New Year
We want to give you a challenge! Review how you use social media and think about what you can do differently to make social media work better for you. In the comments section below share a link to one of your social media profiles and tell us what you’re going to do to improve your activities on that particular social network.
