You spend time each day crafting on-air teases for your show. And why? You create strong teases to give listeners that “I have to hear this” feeling, to keep them listening through commercials or music breaks.
Social media teases are very similar to on-air teases. We want to give listeners that same feeling, except that with digital 
media it’s “I’ve got to see this” instead of “I’ve got to hear this.”
And instead of enticing a listener to stay tuned, you’re goal is to entice her to click the link you’ve shared or to listen to the station. Here are some do’s and don’ts for successful teasing:
– Do create fresh content on your website. Strong teases start with strong website content. Is each category of your site frequently updated with fresh content? If you don’t have a content strategy for your website, it’s time to create one.
Without a robust content strategy, it is difficult for Social Media Managers (or Promotions Directors, or whoever runs your social media presence) to find quality content that supports both the station brand and the social media strategy in place.
For example, having frequently updated jock blogs, show podcasts, music news, concert calendars and videos gives you a stable cornerstone in which to build your social media strategy. If your website is static, you are forced to curate relevant content from other websites 100% of the time. This is a missed opportunity as you are generating traffic (and revenue!) for other companies and not your own.
– Do use the 80/20 rule. Randy Lane and Angela Perelli, my colleagues at The Randy Lane Company, encourage talent to use this guide for on-air teases. It works online, too. Give the listener 80% of the information and withhold 20%. Leave just enough to create a mystery.
– Do consider your on-air tease on the topic. Often the same tease you use on-air works, if the post is related to a show topic, event, promotion or blog you’ve talked about on-air.
– Don’t be misleading. While your teases should be compelling, they shouldn’t be misleading. Think Huffington Post, not National Enquirer. The payoff must be worth it or that fan won’t click the link the next time.
– Craft appointment listening teases differently for each platform. Keep in mind that each social media platform is different, and post your information regarding the ‘appointment’ accordingly.
For example, if you post “listen at 7:35am” on Twitter, the immediacy of the ‘real time’ platform may elicit a response, encouraging followers to listen to the show. By the time 7:35 has passed, the tweet will be buried by other tweets.
On Facebook, though, the post may be visible in your listeners’ news feeds long after 7:35. The way Facebook’s algorithm EdgeRank works makes it impossible to gauge how long this post will be visible. It would be smarter to say, “Listen at 7:35am each day this week” so the post is relevant in newsfeeds after that time passes.
– Do keep it short. You’ll lose their attention with wordy posts.
– Don’t include irrelevant links to the station website in every post. The social media relationship between you and a listener is based on trust. When you attach a link that is irrelevant to the post content, you send your listeners on a wild goose chase to look for content that doesn’t exist. That goose chase might get a listener to click through once, but it probably won’t happen twice. You’ve broken their trust and next time they will know the link leads to nowhere.
– include a call to action (CTA). What do you want to listener to do? Tune in? Click the link to read more? Make sure you direct the action you want.
Happy teasing!
This is an excerpt from an article written for The Mouth magazine.