But We’re AC (or HAC) … How Important Is Social Media For Our Brand?

I think most programmers agree that social media is an important component of today’s marketing mix for CHR, Rhythmic, & Alternative/Active Rock formats.  Hot AC has generally come along for the ride, too (especially brands with high profile talent).  But, I’ve recently talked with some programmers and managers who asked how much time should be devoted to social media on their AC, Country, or “upper demo” formats.  Quite simply, my answer was “more.”

Not only are “upper demos” the fastest growing cell of new Facebook users, but the psychographic profile of their most active users matches perfectly with the traditional Adult format target.

Adults with Children actually tend to be more active with social media, according to a recent study published by Media Audit …

Building Followers Through Contesting

You might see a few of your music loving friends posting this update soon:  “Tweet to meet @Maroon5 and @OneRepublic in Houston and win a trip to their show! #HandsAllOver #Secrets.”  One winner, chosen randomly from all of these identical Tweets, wins a flight to Houston with a friend, hotel, tickets for the 10/22 concert, $200 cash, and backstage passes.

The contest is promoted by Maroon 5 & One Republic (of course), Interscope Records (label for both bands), and Live Nation (concert promoter for national tour).  By using proprietary Twitter client “TweetToMeet,” fans are directed to a co-branded contest entry page that makes it very simple to enter – just click the huge red “Tweet” button on the contest page.  Contests that choose winners from a pool of status updates posted to Twitter, Facebook, etc are nothing new … but, the integration of this TweetToMeet app is brilliant!  It accomplishes two things simultaneously:

Guster Turns Video Production Over To Fans

Pop/Rock band Guster are helping promote the October 5 release of their new CD Easy Wonderful with a fan-produced video contest.  The band is producing a video for all 12 songs on this release and posting to the video page of their website … well, except for the video for Track #6, “Bad Bad World,” which they’re leaving up to their fans. 

This is a great way to get their fanbase interested and involved with their new music; however, by instructing would-be-music-producers to just email their video for the band to privately judge, Guster has missed out on a fantastic marketing opportunity with potential exposure to a new audience previously unfamiliar with the band..  User Generated Content such as this can be a very powerful marketing tool, and great additional content to drive web traffic.  In the case of Guster, simply by allowing fans to determine the contest winner instead of behind closed doors …

Poll Time

We all know we’re supposed to be engaging our audience through social media platforms.  It’s part of our marketing mix and a great tool for PPM … as I’ll discuss in a future blog.  But, let’s be honest, it’s a lot of work.  With that in mind, here’s a poll for this week:

The O’Reilly Factor

I wrote down this quote last summer and sent to all of our air talent:

“Go back and tell your personalities – if they are not on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and writing a daily blog two years from now – at the latest – they will be irrelevant.” (Leo Laporte at the Jacobs Media Summit XIII)

With all due respect to Mr. Laporte, I don’t think irrelevance is that far away.  It’s here.  Now.  I’ll even take his assertion one step further:  talent’s new media presence must include on demand demand – especially video – which is portable and compelling enough to be viral.

It’s 2009 and time for a serious review of your talent’s commitment to your digital platform.

Bill O’Reilly is a timely case study for the subject.  O’Reilly is leaving his nationally syndicated “The Radio Factor” at the end of February.  He claims that he’s too busy on the Fox News Channel for radio.  Tom Taylor notes on Radio-Info.com that Bill’s real plans are to spend more time working on his website and premium membership.  Here’s the posting:

How Obama used digital media and social networking to win the election.

Mediasauce, and Indianapolis-based digital strategies company, presented a great conference last week on the topic.  Now, they have posted a four part video recap.  It’s obviously not as extensive as the live presentation; but, still worth viewing.

Click here.