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Social Networking: New Ways For Radio To Communicate
SAN JOSE -- March 10, 2008: At Monday afternoon's "Social Networking: The New Radio?" panel at Radio Ink's Convergence conference, moderator McVay Media Assoc. Consultant/New Media Rockie Thomas noted that social networking --popular websites like MySpace and Facebook -- is about creating conversations, and said, "We're broadcasters. It's what we do." Social networking, she said, lets radio have a two-way conversation with its listeners.
Asked about how radio stations can use social networking, www.LoyalEars.com CEO Jimmy Risk said he sees it as "a natural for radio" -- particularly because "MySpace or Facebook cannot yell out every hour they have a social networking platform." He continued, "You don't need social networking in the next week or the next month, but you need to pull a champion out of your cluster and look at this opportunity."
Finetune CEO Martin Kay urged radio not to try to catch up "with where things are now or where they were six months ago" as it moves into social networking, but to "aim a little further out that that." But, he noted, "You have to be willing to take a real risk, and not look at it as just a way to prop up your terrestrial business, but as a new business."
ConvoCast CEO Eric Tulin said about radio, "I don't think you realize that you are the one medium that is most like social networking." He pointed to radio's interactivity, its relationship with the audience, and the "communities based on affinities" that form within that audience. With social networking, he said, radio can move from the "rudimentary" interactivity of listeners calling in and "create a much higher level of engagement with your audience."
Now Media Corp. CEO Kevin Bromber agreed that radio "really was the original social network." But, he said, "Your competition truly, online, is anybody who's in the media business," and added, "everybody's in the media business."
Bromber also urged radio to "give your listenres a reason to come to your website," noting, "The Internet is not passive. It's not about clicking on a 'Listen Now' button." He said, "In social broadcasting, people want to interact. They want to engage."
Tulin agreed, saying, "Nobody watches a player." "Rather than being just a background," he said, "you want to find ways to bring that foreground."
Thomas asked if social networking is going to remain a "35-minus" phenomenon or if there's an opportunity for older formats, to which Bromber replied, "It depends on the content," saying some of the shows Now Media offers attract older listeners. He continued, "The key is that it's proven that when you look across social networks, people want to interact."
He continued, "It's such a key point. Traditional media, for the most part, gets complacent, and this is not the time to be complacent. You still have those people out there, those dedicated ears. Steal them back from Facebook. Steal them back from MySpace. You can."
Thomas asked panelists to suggest a first step into social networking, and Kay recommended that radio first "figure out what is the strategy, what is is you're trying to achieve." He also said that if a station is going to have a "Listen Now" button, "the thing should play," with no registration, no sign-up, and no pop-up that needs to be unblocked. "If you can't get people listening to the stream," he said, "they're not going to care about anything else."
Tulin recommended that radio look to existing social networks to spread the audience's passion about its brands, and look at what other marketers are doing to engage people on social networks.
Risk noted, "This is a startup business for you guys," even though radio has been around for decades. "You need a startup, bootstrap mentality," he said, which means you try a lot of things, and you eliminate the ones that don't work."
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