Stephanie Winans

Business & Marketing Strategy Consulting

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Adding Social Media to the Digital Revenue Menu… Side dish or À la carte?

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The news broke in late 2009 that Kim Kardashian is paid $10,000 per sponsored tweet.  While some followers were amazed at the price tag, most were disgusted that they couldn’t tell which of her tweets were real and which were just paid ads. This got companies thinking about their own policies.  Is social media a great opportunity to build digital revenue or territory better reserved for building the company brand only?

What about your NTR strategy?  Do clients belong on your station’s Facebook and Twitter accounts?  If your Sales and Programming departments haven’t had this conversation yet, they will… so get ready.  Clients are frequently pushing Account Executives to promote their businesses on Facebook and Twitter.  National clients send us written commercials for status updates, and local clients want all of their business events and radio remotes announced.  Programming may make a convincing case that clients don’t belong in social media, but pressure to increase digital revenue pushes radio managers to consider ways to sell it.

Revenue from social media should be viewed as a side dish to your client’s entrée of spots, sponsorships or web advertising, and not as an à la carte option from the digital menu.  The goal is to make clients happy by giving them results, not by giving in.  Using social media to reinforce the client’s message in their spot schedule or web advertising will be more successful than using social media to create that message.  Making social media buys available as an add-on will increase revenue, while providing a filter to ensure your social media accounts don’t become a dumping ground for client ads.

Here are two scenarios to explain the difference.

À la carte scenario: Burger Castle just placed a buy for 2nd quarter. Included in the added value notes are dates for a Facebook post with the copy “Hungry for lunch? Stop by Burger Castle and try their new bacon cheeseburger.”  You make the post and receive backlash from your fans.  “Gosh, I know you need to keep the station running, but a Facebook commercial, really?”  “Thanks for the ad, WABC. Not why I like your page.”  The comments are more in disgust of the “sell-out” than excitement about the brand or product you were pushing, which is not in the best interest of your client.

Side dish scenario: When Burger Castle’s 2nd quarter buy comes with the Facebook copy, you make suggestions to improve their request.  You ask for coupons for the new bacon cheeseburger.  You upload a picture of the burger to Facebook before lunch, with the post “Doesn’t Burger Castle’s new bacon cheeseburger look delicious?  We’re giving away lunch for two at Burger Castle to the next five people who comment ‘Yum!’”  Now your comments are from fans who are excited to win lunch from Burger Castle, will visit their location, and hopefully have a positive experience with the brand and the new product.  You have given your client a positive result.

The side dish strategy is about weaving clients into your station’s social media tapestry without diminishing the integrity of your brand.  Do it successfully and Programming won’t mind, and your listeners will be responsive.  Here are five quick ways to use social media as a side dish, giving clients the results they want without bastardizing programming territory.

1.    Offer your fans something and you will have interested people opt-in without annoying the fans that aren’t interested.  Listeners love to win, so if the prize appeals to your demo, give it away regardless of the monetary value.  Set your contests up for success by keeping them simple for less-valued prizes.  Timing the giveaway during the client’s spot schedule reinforces their marketing message.

2.    Have your client sponsor an on-air promotion and agree to mention their name in the tweets and posts you make on Twitter and Facebook. “Listen to win free gas in ten minutes from WABC and Mercedes.”

3.    Draw your next promotion’s winners from your Facebook fans or Twitter followers.  Just be specific when writing the liners.  There is a fine line between saying “Please like us on Facebook to win” and “We’ll be drawing our winners from Facebook, so if you haven’t become a fan yet, no big deal.  You still have time to do so before Friday at 7:35.”  The key is to sell the inside scoop for our Facebook fans or Twitter followers, not we’re desperate for more online friends and this is the only way we can get them.

4.    Have listeners upload fan photos that relate to the client’s brand.  This requires more participation, so make sure the prize is a big one.

5.    Send your Street Team on a Scavenger Hunt, posting clues to their whereabouts on Facebook and Twitter.  Sell the stops to clients, and predetermine the copy for the clues.  You have provided a fun game for listeners to win their favorite concert tickets, while reinforcing the brand for your client, and providing foot traffic to their business.

 

How to Launch and Maintain a Successful Facebook Page

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After launching a Facebook page for 97.5 WABB/Mobile in 2008, we currently have over 22,000 fans- 15,000 more than any radio competitor in our market. Our success is based on a guided team effort that involves constant participation and respect for what our listeners want.

Getting it Launched the Right Way
Whether you’re starting from scratch or evaluating your existing Facebook presence, don’t overlook the basics.

Your page should be a fan page and not a personal page. Personal pages are made for people, not businesses. Facebook will cap personal pages at 5,000 friends, and will sometimes shut down personal pages set up for business use. Listeners are also more likely to “like” a business page than “friend” a personal page, because their information remains private.

All business pages must be linked to a personal Facebook account. I suggest linking your station’s account to a non-searchable dummy account, not an employee’s account. The original account is forever tied to the station account, and you don’t want to set your page up for failure in the case of termination or a disgruntled employee.

You should also have an assigned page name, your station’s logo as the profile picture, and all info fields completed. Include a linked Facebook graphic on your station website, and you’re ready to roll.

Successful Maintenance: It’s a Guided Team Effort

Assign one employee as the social media manager. This person, usually the Webmaster or Promotions Director, should check the Facebook account several times each day, including weekends. He or she will make compelling posts, track progress, and respond to listeners in the “voice” of the station brand. Choose someone who writes well, is witty or fun, and understands how to “speak” to the demo.

Have your social media manager assign trusted talent and promotions staff as page editors of the station account. This will allow them to make posts to the station page while logged into their personal accounts, but will not give them password access to the main account. If you need to revoke access at any time, you can do so with the click of a button.

This guided team effort ensures that both programming and promotional content are represented, and that no listener question goes unnoticed. Facebook is a social network, so be social. Interact with your listeners, answer their questions, laugh at their jokes, ask their opinions. As the manager of the WABB Facebook account, I am constantly entertained and enlightened by what our listeners have to say. I share their input with management, and our DJs use their comments to reflect on their own show content. If you want to know what your P1s think, take a glance at Facebook for their input on show benchmarks, music, and more.

Getting “Likes”

Take care of the fans you already have, and the growth will come. Use a filter when making posts by asking yourself if your demo cares about what you have to say. Post organic content; too many apps that do the work for you take the personality out of the posts. Don’t sell your Facebook page to clients- your listeners are smart and can tell the difference between a sponsored station promotion and commercial copy.

If you don’t see the numbers you’re looking for, consider launching a promotion that focuses on Facebook. Get creative. Have a scavenger hunt for tickets and post clues on your page. Announce that the winners of your next promotion will be chosen from your Facebook fan base. Do simple promotions for smaller giveaways on Facebook frequently; you would be surprised how many people would love to win that old (fill in the blank) from your prize closet.

If you give your listeners the content they are looking for, respond to their questions, and make them feel like their opinions matter, you will succeed with social media.

-written for the April 18 issue of Radio Ink

Converting Friends to Likes

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If you started a personal Facebook page for your Morning Show before Pages was available, or because you didn’t understand the difference, Facebook now has a solution to convert your personal page to a business page without losing the fans you already have.

Why Convert?
-Facebook personal pages cap you at 5,000 friends
-You won’t lose the fans you already have; your friends will be converted to likes
-It is against Facebook’s terms of compliance to use a personal page as a business entity
-You can accumulate likes without manually approving them
– You can use apps that allow you to run contests, create content for fans only, and more

Although we feel you should make the switch, there are a few cons to prepare for beforehand. For example, wall content and photo galleries from your personal page will not be transferred.  Click here to read this article on Inside Facebook for more information.  You can also use the Facebook Help Center to guide you in making the switch.

 

-written for The Randy Lane Company at randylane.net