With the use of radio and social media in tandem these days, growth is everywhere for radio if you’re willing to generate it beyond the standard expectations of talent at radio and radio itself.
If not, the concern is that radio will fall behind and fade like old black-and-white movies or the fax machine. Personalities are the key to this growth. While it is my belief that radio is always trying to hop on the phone or “jump into” environments where listeners don’t have a natural desire to hear them, radio is fun and (done correctly) has a ton of content perfect for creating different opportunities in social. These that can lead back to the assets your company owns on the air and in any way listeners choose to listen. If you are a personality that wants to stay in and invest in a market for a long period of time, you may want to spend some time with the things in this column today.
Even more important – in my opinion – is that today’s radio personalities must work to establish themselves and their local value more than ever. This means if you want to stay long term or simply build to move on to the next market. Perhaps today you have to establish your value beyond simply local. You have to take your talent from “value” to “a situation.” After all, a situation has to be addressed. If it’s a positive situation, that’s always good for the talent.
Think of radio as already being everywhere. As a personality, how can you help make it bigger? That’s what growth is, right? This isn’t a question of “give up because there’s no growth.” This is “change the headline” and “shift the dynamic” on people. You hear this all the time: We’re content providers. Be that. Just that. Think like a content provider and think about reusing content and repackaging it in a variety of key ways to give yourself more opportunity to enlarge your audience. Radio already has access to, and creates, content every day.
Consider:
- Imagine taking key interviews and turning them into podcasts and branding them as something different than the radio station. You can still use the podcasts to lead back to the station. New space can be used to develop new audience.
- Personalities – again, my opinion – should be looking for profile that matches the station brand and your personality brand in-market. This can be on TV, online, in print, or in another way your peers haven’t thought of yet. The bottom line is this: How can you create more value in your profile?
- Along with the above number 2, I believe we are long past a place in today’s world where personalities shouldn’t be also looking at opportunities to use their name in the market. This must always be addressed at the employer level first before trying to monetize or develop additional opportunities. However, if you’re smart today, you may be able to partner with a business in your market or develop something yourself, outside of your on-air responsibilities, that allows you to take advantage of your “name fame.”
Each of these three “developments” can be used in social media to explode who a personality is exposed to and to generate and develop new audience with each. A lot of this is career development, too. I know that if you are a personality today you do more for less than ever. But that also means that you have to be more inventive and more creative than ever. Your radio company doesn’t care much for developing your career – that’s your job. Your other job. You bring that to the table. You’re responsible for being noticed, for standing out, for being valuable. Being someone who everyone begins to see as “growth” is certainly a key to success for any personality.
Loyd Ford is the chief ratings strategist @ Americalist Direct Marketing. Reach out to Loyd anytime @ 877.475.6864 or check out his site @ BoostMyRatings.com.
