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You Reap What You Sow
September 16, 2014
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Sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate your station from others in the market that essentially play the same type of music you play. Many times, talent can be additive to your brand, but what are other ways you can provide separation in such a saturated marketplace?
Digital, social, and mobile platforms offer opportunities that can distance a brand from the pack, but all too often we see brands "pushing out" messages ("Concert tickets at 2:15," or "Like and share our status update").
But these tactics are far from being real and fully involving the fans.
And perhaps it's because the benefits of humanizing a brand (or simply being "flawsome," as you may have heard me use before) on social platforms haven't been realized. It takes effort to learn this skill and requires full time thinking on the part of staffers who participate in your station's social voice.
The first step is to define your brand's culture. What are the principles that even drive your brand socially?
Once you can articulate that, you will learn the way to communicate that resonates with the fans. It takes time to refine the narrative, but the perks of this investment outweigh the outcome of the common, everyday approach we see play out every day.
When there is real culture within your brand socially, the following things happen.
Your brand becomes:
1) Trusted
It's not easy to uniquely tell our stories -- day in and day out -- socially. (We even struggle to do this on-air as we allow for the same recorded promos to get played into the dirt.) So we have to always be looking for ways to reinforce our reputation. One way is to share personal sides of the station's history that evoke contagious emotion.
91X/San Diego often re lives some spectacular moments -- something their competitors can't always do:
2) Involved
Active, chatty fans are your biggest asset socially. There's not a greater compliment than fans using the trust and influence they've earned with their friends to talk about you and share your stories with them.
But it requires a commitment to be in the moment with fans. WMMR/Philadelphia's Preston and Steve are consistent with this. While they fully involve the fans by following them back on Twitter:
They also share their platform to showcase the audience -- the people who matter:
3) Anticipated
The secret to the success of a respected brand is that it leaves you wanting more. Stir up emotion with your presence. When you are true to one fan at a time, something Big D and Bubba often do, it breaks through and the people who care, notice.
When you change the approach to social from selling yourself to serving, your reach becomes meaningful and you stand out. And ultimately, you differentiate yourself from the pack.
This moment is exciting. There are so many creative avenues to explore. But you have to make a commitment to start being real.
Sow the seeds you want to reap.
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