In early March I read an article about the social media battle many musicians are fighting with their record labels over who owns their social media accounts. I thought, “I hope radio never gets to this point”.
Weeks after I pondered that article, three high-profile morning show hosts contacted me– they are fighting the artist/record label battle with the companies they work for. After creating the accounts on their own, and after years of building their own relationships with listeners independent of station time and resources, stations have begun taking “ownership” of their talent’s accounts by requiring that they meet certain guidelines.
Air talent should always support the station online- by driving traffic to the website, and upholding the station’s brand essence in their own presence and interactions online. It is in their best interest that the station succeeds- both on-air and online.
However, the recent corporate requirements for morning shows are counter-productive. There is a disconnect in what Management really wants, and what they are going to get with these mandatory “guidelines”.
Social media is about personal relationships- between two people, between a person and a brand or business, between a Morning Show and a listener. These relationships, like any relationship in the “real” world, are based on trust. Listeners trust that the Morning Show is going to provide content relevant to the show and in line with the on-air brand. They trust that by liking the Facebook page or following the show’s Twitter account, they won’t get spammed.
One of the requirements recently placed on Morning Shows are rightfully upsetting this balance of trust. Stations are asking their Morning Shows to include a link to the station website in EVERY Facebook post or tweet. Posting irrelevant links that lead listeners on a goose chase for related content that doesn’t exist doesn’t build a good rapport with them. It can also be counter-productive in that they may not click through to the links that do matter after many times of clicking through for nothing.
For example, if a Morning Show uses social media to develop personal relationships with listeners, the host may share things that happen outside of the show or station. A picture of their child doing something funny, a picture with friends on the weekend, a video of their dog at the dog park. It doesn’t make sense to include a link to the station website in a mobile upload of a personal picture. Yet this is what stations are requiring.
Another unreasonable stipulation is that NO link may be posted or tweeted that isn’t a station website link. While Morning Shows should always strive to provide links to the content hosted on the station website, the content may not always be available there. Does that mean it’s not of interest to listeners? Should a Morning Show not post or tweet the news of Whitney Houston’s death because it’s over the weekend when webmasters are off work ( and the news is too new to be posted on the station website, anyway)?
Management is smart to take advantage of the relationship between a successful Morning Show and its listeners. So hold them accountable for a certain number of posts/tweets per week that contain links to the station website. Hold them accountable for a reasonable standard of website traffic. Ask them to include the streaming link when they use social media to ask for opinions on phone topics.
Just don’t create guidelines that violate the nature of social media. That doesn’t increase web traffic or ratings- it turns a P1 into a casual listener by damaging he trust relationship between air talent and listeners.
-written for Radio Ink Magazine
I am passionate about this topic! I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think air talent (and I) have a right to be upset about these requirements? Or do you think they are realistic? Leave me a comment.
So disappointing on so many levels.
My story? I made a dot com website for our morning show, mostly because my co-host had little online presence and I was trying to bump up her google juice so if people searched her, they found our show.
The site was a week old with a simple bio and some aircheck bits when we got called in to the GMs office and told to take it down.
Head office had to have control of all station websites. (aside, I’ve had my own domains since 1996, so I was allowed to have those, but they found the new sites to be against policy).
I had to take initiative to start the sites because the online presence for the station was nil. Nothing more than an image of the jocks was on the home page – no bio, no blog, no twitter rss, no facebook link. To make matters worse, all the text was graphically created – not searchable.
So by taking initiative to forward station branding, I was deemed out of line.
Needless to say that morning show lasted barely a year.
As for your example above, it is an interesting debate to be had. Who owns the social media presence of the jock? I can see scenarios where non-competes extend to social media. Quit from our station? Well, not only are you off the air for x months, but you can’t use social to promote your new gig.
There’s also the debate of who gets to take handles when you move stations.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/case_over_who_owns_ex-employees_twitter_followers.php
If your show is “Me and You In The Morning” .. who owns @meyouam? The jocks or the station? If you switched stations, would you still be allowed to be called “Me and You in The Morning?” If so, then you get your social accounts, if the station owns the show name, you won’t be able to take it with you.
As for requiring each tweet / post to include a station link, that’s just folly. I know of one company that has jocks blogging their hollywood type stories on the station site, and then linking to that via social. So the station is driving track back to their domains from the social sites, I appreciate that effort, but it requires the jocks doing more than just putting one sentence links on the station site that link back out to Perez or whatever. You’re just click gating the content, and that’s not user friendly.
I was part of the team that launched the first radio station website in Canada, back in the mid 90s. It’s been more than 15yrs that we’ve been dealing with this online extension of branding. It’s a shame that the stuffed shirts haven’t let those who can see the future take hold of the ball and run with their vision.
Buzz,
As always your opinion is greatly valued.
I think your point about ownership of the show name is important. So in other words- when you create show accounts, leave the call letters and frequency out of it. You can include station branding in the graphics and bio sections, which can be changed if your show moves to another station.
The link you shared is an interesting story I have been following, too. Looks like the music and radio industries aren’t the only ones having battles over this.
You’re right about click-gating- it’s obnoxious and not user friendly. The way to go is to ensure the post contains opinions/thoughts on the story it links to… that provides the content, but is also characterizing for the air talent.
I also wanted to share this article from Scott Sands, which was written in 2010. He reminds air talent of an important point- moving forward you should all think about including social media in your employment contracts.
Read what he has to say here: http://radiopd.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/who-owns-your-friends/
Definitely a bad idea. I am happy to report that the stations I work with are not required to do any of these things!
Emily,
I am happy to hear that, too. Maybe that’s because you’re in charge, and you know what works and what doesn’t.