For his first Programming To Win column for FMQB, knowDigital President Sam Milkman delves into radio stations’ relationships with Facebook. What is the best way to engage with listeners on the massive social network? What works on the air vs. on the computer screen (or on the smart phone)? Milkman suggests multiple strategies to optimize your station’s Facebook page.
By Sam Milkman
knowDigital President
www.knowDigital.com
Sam Milkman
Facebook just turned 8 years old. Before sending them a “Birthday Wish” think about this: After all this time—and over 800 million active users–many radio stations are still struggling with how to best engage their listeners through Facebook. How do you really entertain listeners on Facebook, get closer to them, deepen the connection? That’s the way to make Facebook work for you, but most stations are just going through the motions, posting and pretending to be bonding while still amateur at best at communicating through this new medium.
Over the past few months, we’ve had a chance to sit one-on-one with station Facebook fans in pursuit of an answer to the question of how to really connect on Facebook. We’ve learned that many of your listeners live on Facebook, spending more than an hour a day social media-izing, well in excess of the average amount of time spent on Facebook. Hopefully a healthy percentage of your audience has Liked your station—but does Liking it really mean they’ve connected and that you both are getting something out of this new relationship?
Your listeners expect your station to be on Facebook. Indeed, they imagine your station is in trouble, about to change format perhaps, if you’re not there. But just having a page is not going to get the engagement job done. You’ve got to find a way to communicate there, and that requires throwing out a lot of what you learned “as a DJ.”
First, you’ve got to learn to speak the language. Speaking Facebook-ese requires that you take off the headphones and stop talking in your best DJ voice. The last thing people want on Facebook is a carnival barker yelling “comin’ right up!” and “win this!” (words we may hear a little too often on the radio as well). The native tongue of Facebook is much more subtle, understated, personal and non-sales-y. Yell a pitch on Facebook and you risk being thumbed past without a read, hidden in your listener’s news feed or Unliked, and worst of all, totally annoying your target audience and diminishing your brand. People don’t mind some sales-infused posts, but sponsorship cannot be your primary message.
You must learn to talk in a whole new way on Facebook, and at the same time, make sure you are also still speaking in the language of your station’s brand. Find your Facebook voice. Devise a strategy and continuously, consciously self-evaluate. This assignment can’t be delegated to the promotions department, sorry, and can’t simply be a re-hash of the station “liners.” If you’re only promoting “what’s coming up next” you’re acting like a DJ again and it’s not going to work. Just like you learned to write a killer promo over the years, you will learn to write posts in short, compelling bursts that draw listeners into your station’s world.
Develop two or three word “topic headings” that announce what your post is about, in the style of your brand. “Dirt Alert,” “Tickets Now,” “Hear It First,” or “Must Go” for example. These branded headings will condition listeners that your posts contain the content they crave.
Think 25 words or less. A good percentage of your listeners read their News Feed on a smart phone. They can only see about 25 words. Here comes the thumb–they’re about to flip right past—did you grab them, or did you blow the opportunity? Monitor your Facebook feed on a smart phone. See posts from their vantage point. Make sure your messages are readable and aren’t getting cut off by the …
To really connect with your audience on Facebook, however, you’ll need more than the ability to speak like a native. You will need to know what to talk about. What do listeners want from you on Facebook? Inside info on concert ticket sales, contests, music news, gossip, morning show guest updates, observations on life—are you sure? You’ve got to start by uncovering what the audience wants from you on Facebook and prioritizing those needs. You can guess, or you can poll your audience directly.
Next, think visual. Facebook is a visual medium unlike the audio-centric radio world we grew up in. Facebook users expect to see photos and videos, not wordy descriptions. Take advantage of the form. If Lady Gaga stops by for an interview, grab a video clip and a photo to post. The more interesting, original and share-worthy, the better.
Consider integrating your station’s live stream into Facebook. The last thing people want to do is open another browser window or turn on a physical radio to hear your station if they’re already on Facebook. Don’t make your listeners leave for the party; bring the party to them.
Do not assume lots of comments mean you’ve scored a winning post. Do your listeners really care that Sally Smith, a totally random person they’ve never met, is “dancing in her pants” to the song you just posted about? And do they want a hundred notifications that someone else commented on the same post they commented on? Annoying your listeners obviously doesn’t build your brand, so be careful that you’re not triggering a comment flood just to see how many comments you can get.
Do not use Facebook as a means of scoring appointment listening. Saying things like “Tune in tomorrow morning at 8:20 to hear a brand new Foo Fighters song!” is the quickest way to get people to do a search and listen to that new song on YouTube right away instead. Appointment listening via Facebook posts may occasionally work for things like a ticket giveaway contest for a highly sought-after concert, but generally, appointment listening is not what Facebook posts are good at. You are building a stronger long-term relationship with your listeners on Facebook. Don’t try to game or manipulate them with your posts.
Do not get lazy. Create fresh posts rather than borrowing copy from your other marketing materials and media. People do not want to read exactly the same thing twice. At the same time, not everyone in your station database or following you on Twitter has liked you on Facebook, so stay present in each medium and just remember to mix up your language enough to make it fresh for people who read things in multiple places.
Most of all, make it fun. Experiment, try things, let go of “what you know works.” You really are in the communications business again, not just doing things the way they have always been done in radio, and isn’t that what you always wanted? Go for it.
Sam Milkman has managed media-related consumer research companies for a number of years, including Music Forecasting and mediaEKG. Previously, Sam held a variety of leadership positions in the broadcast industry, including programming and operational positions at radio stations in New York and Philadelphia. Sam was operations director of WXRK (K-Rock)/New York, research director of WHTZ (Z100)/New York and PD of WMMR/Philadelphia. He can be reached at SamMilkman@knowDigital.com or 215-438-3826.
