Social Media has taken the world by storm. Businesses and individuals alike are feeling the need to tweet, meet up on Facebook, or blog about the latest trends. Traditional media has also jumped on the bandwagon with newspapers blogging and television shows inviting audience members to text in their votes. As new music companies are rapidly filling up the Internet airwaves and building their own music community, how can individual radio stations grab a piece of the social media pie?
Defining Social Media
In order to better understand how radio is poised to take on the social media scene, it’s important to understand exactly what social media is. According to Mashable, “Social Media is a term that encompasses the platforms of New Media, but also implies the inclusion of systems like FriendFeed, Facebook, and other things typically thought of as social networking. The idea is that they are media platforms with social components and public communication channels.” Radio, as a media platform built around music with public communication channels such as shout-outs, song requests and dedications is only missing one component: an intimate social network.
How Radio Can Tap Into This Phenomenon
As a mass media radio will have a difficult time scaling down to the social level craved by Internet users.
“The social web has allowed everyone to share, rate, recommend, discover and exchange music. The social web is a few to few environment; friends are influenced by friends more than anything else.” [Source: HeavyBagMedia] How can radio be utilized in a format that allows sharing between only a few people? One idea that radio could harness would be providing a limited way of sharing music. After hearing a song on the radio an individual could forward the song to a friend along with an audio or text message that promotes the radio station, “I just heard this song on Y92 FM, check it out!” Each individual audio share could be accompanied by an advertisement that sponsors the song, musician, or a specific listener demographic. In that way listeners would be able to share their radio experiences with others, radio would benefit from viral advertising, and specific song based demographics could be calculated.
User Experience Comes First
In order to participate in these opportunities radio must find ways to incorporate Internet technology into its broadcasts. Embracing new technology will allow radio to move its brand of quality music programming into arenas that are currently full of entrepreneurs who are focused only on making money. While new technology has provided the means and opportunity, many companies are failing to harness listeners and impress them the way traditional radio has. “Part of the reason is that mobile and music providers have focused on their business models first and the user experience second.” [Source: FMQB] Because Radio already has the market on quality audio programming – in commercial music, talk shows and sports coverage – it is well positioned to expand onto the Internet and achieve success. With solutions like ListenerActive, radio can smoothly transition into a hybrid technology model and concentrate on what it does best: provide quality audio programming that listeners can’t wait to share.
Social Media has taken the world by storm. Businesses and individuals alike are feeling the need to tweet, meet up on Facebook, or blog about the latest trends. Traditional media has also jumped on the bandwagon with newspapers blogging and television shows inviting audience members to text in their votes. As new music companies are rapidly filling up the Internet airwaves and building their own music community, how can individual radio stations grab a piece of the social media pie?
Defining Social Media
In order to better understand how radio is poised to take on the social media scene, it’s important to understand exactly what social media is. According to Mashable, “Social Media is a term that encompasses the platforms of New Media, but also implies the inclusion of systems like FriendFeed, Facebook, and other things typically thought of as social networking. The idea is that they are media platforms with social components and public communication channels.” Radio, as a media platform built around music with public communication channels such as shout-outs, song requests and dedications is only missing one component: an intimate social network.
How Radio Can Tap Into This Phenomenon
As a mass media radio will have a difficult time scaling down to the social level craved by Internet users.
“The social web has allowed everyone to share, rate, recommend, discover and exchange music. The social web is a few to few environment; friends are influenced by friends more than anything else.” [Source: HeavyBagMedia] How can radio be utilized in a format that allows sharing between only a few people? One idea that radio could harness would be providing a limited way of sharing music. After hearing a song on the radio an individual could forward the song to a friend along with an audio or text message that promotes the radio station, “I just heard this song on Y92 FM, check it out!” Each individual audio share could be accompanied by an advertisement that sponsors the song, musician, or a specific listener demographic. In that way listeners would be able to share their radio experiences with others, radio would benefit from viral advertising, and specific song based demographics could be calculated.
User Experience Comes First
In order to participate in these opportunities radio must find ways to incorporate Internet technology into its broadcasts. Embracing new technology will allow radio to move its brand of quality music programming into arenas that are currently full of entrepreneurs who are focused only on making money. While new technology has provided the means and opportunity, many companies are failing to harness listeners and impress them the way traditional radio has. “Part of the reason is that mobile and music providers have focused on their business models first and the user experience second.” [Source: FMQB] Because Radio already has the market on quality audio programming – in commercial music, talk shows and sports coverage – it is well positioned to expand onto the Internet and achieve success. With solutions like ListenerActive, radio can smoothly transition into a hybrid technology model and concentrate on what it does best: provide quality audio programming that listeners can’t wait to share.
