Sourcing Your Show Prep From Twitter

I should be mad at social media & marketing goddess (and fellow WABB & Spring Hill College alum) Stephanie Winans for revealing one of my favorite secrets, but I’m not … I’m mad at her for doing it better!  Over the last couple years, I’ve recommended a few different ways Twitter can be used for self-promotion and show-prep.  Most recently, I set up @click1015 in Dayton with an elaborate set of Lists for this purpose … Lists ranging from Local Personalities, News Outlets, and Tastemakers to Bands We Play, Celebrities, et cetra.  It was easy to “click” a list and look for great content to use on our website and on the air.  Stephanie has taken it a step further by compiling a list of great all purpose show prep Twittererers to Follow.  She also “claims” to have written a How To about Twitter Lists more than two years ago; but, all we have to believe his her word and some date on a blog, so interpret that as you will

Anyway … Check out the list on her blog here.  

And, bookmark her site here.  She’s got something great to say every day!  I hate her for that, too.  :)  Kidding, Stephanie!

Follow us on Twitter @scottsandsmedia and @stephaniewinans
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• How to Create Twitter Lists Step-by-Step (community.constantcontact.com)

Thursday Morning Reading

I realize this is a lazy way to update my blog; but, I’m doing it to both share a few things which look great and I plan to read in the morning:

Who owns your friends?

By now, you know about the circumstances which led CNN to fire anchor Rick Sanchez.  [Sanchez made several controversial remarks about Jon Stewart, the “media elite,” even his employers at CNN during an interview by Sirius XM host Pete Dominick.]  Let’s skip over discussion about what he said, whether or not he should have been fired, and how the comments may have been handled better on either side … there’s a more interesting question of intellectual property ownership at play.  Sanchez essentially built his weekday afternoon show around a prolific social media presence; in fact, many people joked that all he did was sit around reading other people’s Tweets for a couple hours.  His Twitter @ricksanchezcnn has more than 146,000 Followers. 

So, now what happens to his Twitter account and all his Followers? 

This is quite a new dilemma for Personalities and Media Brands.  Let’s think about some of the implications:

Are You “Like”-able?

Facebook released new statistics on Wednesday that really showcases the power of the “Like” button.  The bottom line is that people who click the Facebook Like button are more engaged, active and connected than the average Facebook user … they have 2.4-times more friends and click 5.3-times more links to external sites than most Facebook users.  This means websites with a “Like” button through Facebook Connect get significantly more traffic, visitors, page views, and time spent online.

So, as Mark Ramsey pointed out on Twitter, why don’t more radio station websites integrate the simple plug-in?  For that matter, why doesn’t *every* website?

Facebook also claims engagement can increase by 100-300% by publishing compelling updates to those who “Like” you; citing ABC News +190%, Gawker +200%, Sporting News +500%, and deep site growth for NHL.com.

Action Steps:

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 …

Would you abandon 3.7-million people in your audience?

Well, that’s exactly what John Mayer has done by deactivating his Twitter account.  Now, to be fair, his ”[my] Stupid Mouth” in both interviews (i.e. Playboy) and online (i.e. Twitter-feud with Perez Hilton) have sent publicists scrambling … but, still, that’s an awful lot of people – mostly loyal fans – to leave so abruptly.  Mayer’s spokesman claims the end of his Battle Studies tour and more in-house recording are the reason.  At last count, Mayer had approximately 3.7-million following his Tweets (written by him personally, and often quite frequently).  Mayer plans to continue direct communication with fans through his blog.

Obviously, the first question you have to ask:  Is Twitter beginning to lose it’s cool, at least with the celebrity crowd?  Mayer joins Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Leeann Rimes, and Ricky Gervais in deactivating their accounts this year.  Or, perhaps like with Miley & Leeann, maybe John is finally keeping some of his personal life … personal.  He did launch a Tumblr account last week to keep his blog active in the social world (50,000 connections in his first week).  The social media strategy crowd will also start asking how to convert those Followers to his blog and speculate about how much such a big Twitter following is really worth. 

But, the point of my blog is to start a conversation about what such trends mean to our world.  So, let’s talk about it this way …