Let Me Be the First to...

...Welcome you to the 21st Century!

Quick, someone list off all the social networking sites your child is on.

After years of watching the audience that you will later inherit and be targeting, we are all finally realizing that social media networks work. Amazing. Who woulda thunk it?!?!?!

I'm honestly tired of sitting through presentations, sifting through PD Forum emails and joining Facebook groups about radio stations and their involvement in social networks. My goodness. They are here. You need to be a part of them, and so should your radio station.

I guess the biggest thing that really sets me off about the whole social networking situation is that stations sat watching them, ready for action, but only when a consultant told them what to do. It's like a child waiting for a parent to tell them, "It's OK, honey. You can join MySpace now. I'll sit in the chair while you tell me where you want to go and then I'll decide where you should go."

Just plain dumb. I can hear what the discussion was when stations asked about social networks for the first time: "How dare you try to be innovative! How dare you be where a demographic that you're not targeting is!" Give me a break.

I've got an idea. How about you stand up and try to blaze a trail for once? Who cares if you're right or not? At least you did what your gut told you. You took a chance. And I respect that much more than playing it safe. You analyzed the data and your binary computation came up: "Play it safe."

And I bet most people that become successful won't ever tell you that they're always right. They just believed in themselves and what they were doing. Were they always right? Probably not. Stations take chances all the time on talent, songs, promotion ideas, etc. And most don't fall under.

Do yourself a favor this week. Take a chance. If it works, great. If it fails, at least you tried.