The Last Social Media Advice Column You'll Ever Need

How many articles have you read in the past couple of years advising you that you must, MUST use social media for your show? Like, a million? Including in this very column? Yeah, like that. Me, too. And, frankly, I'm sick of it, because it's all "expert" advice accompanied by statistics that were produced from someone's backside that purport to tell you what works and what doesn't. Twitter's great, but nobody uses it, but everybody uses it, but they're all old. Facebook's effective, except when it isn't, and you're building a relationship with your listeners there, but they only care about Farmville and their elementary school classmates. You need a blog, but nobody reads blogs anymore, but you need it to rank high on Google when someone searches you, but they'll be searching you on Facebook anyway. LinkedIn is useful and useless. Look, here's a study to prove it!

Except, of course, that nobody's proven anything. You can't really measure whether Twitter or Facebook are effective marketing for a radio show. It's impossible to tell whether you're reaching anyone beyond the people who you already have, or whether that builds a stronger bond with them. You can have your suspicions to that end, but you don't KNOW what's true.

And here's the thing: It doesn't matter. I'm on all these things, and the way I look at it is practical and simple.

They're free, and they don't take much time or effort.

See, where I come from, that's a win right there.

Most of you already do the basics. You have a Twitter account, you have a Facebook page, you're on LinkedIn. Each has its value, but using them only to tell people what's coming up on the show is kinda lame. You want to project more of yourself in what you post; you want to give people an extension of both your show and your personality. You want people to feel like friends or family. (If you don't want them to, say, comment on personal and family things like your vacation pictures or your cousin's kid's bar mitzvah, keep separate accounts or pages for fans and family/friends) People don't want to be fed just ads for your show. Do a little more. Does it work? Couldn't hurt.

For me, Twitter's more of a great show resource than a promotional tool. It's where you can keep up with what's happening right now, and follow trends and comments to see what people are really talking about. (Follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at twitter.com/talktopics and you'll even get all the stuff I post, when I post it)

Facebook's more personal, and while you might find show material in your news feed, it's more useful to stay in touch with people, including those to whom you wouldn't want to be in close physical proximity. A fan page is a good idea to let your listeners have a place to gather and discuss show topics and things of common interest, but you (and by "you" I mean the host, not someone else to whom you delegate the job) should be posting enough stuff to keep the dialogue going. It's an extension of your show. And you can always just ignore all the Farmville and Mafia Wars stuff.

LinkedIn? You know, I'm on it, I have a network there, but I'm never sure exactly what good it is. If I was looking for a job in the tech industry or in aerospace or something, it would be great. Since I'm not, I don't get a lot out of it. But -- and this is absolutely critical -- it's free. I like free. You don't complain when they give you little samples of food at the Costco, do you? No, you do not.

A blog's a lot more work. Believe me, I know. (pmsimon.com) (Any opportunity for a plug) You can do it for free or almost free, and it's great to have someplace that YOU control, from the URL to the design to the content. And it IS good if someone Googling you finds YOUR content rather than the lame page on your station's cookie-cutter corporate website. But if you don't have the time or inclination to do much more than the very occasional post, you're better off just registering your name as a URL and pointing it to one of your other pages.

So that's the Last Social Media Advice Column You'll Ever Need, until the next one. The takeaway is simple: Free plus easy equal good. Resulte may vary, but if it's free and easy, so what? And as my father used to say, it couldn't hurt.

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It's the holiday weekend here in the United States, so I'll save the usual lengthy plugs, especially since I slipped a couple in the main portion of this column. I feel so dirty. Anyway, you know to check Talk Topics for show prep that anyone who talks for a living can use, and there's also "10 Questions With..." WTKK/Boston's agent provocateur Michael Graham and all the other good things you always find throughout the AllAccess.com site. And -- YES! -- it's all free. Free, I tell you!

Don't forget, too, that I'll be appearing on a panel at the Sportscasters Broadcasting Jobs Seminar June 4th through 6th at the LAX Marriott in Los Angeles, where they'll be talking about finding and getting jobs in sports radio and featuring speakers like Larry Gilbert of 710 ESPN in L.A., Bruce Gilbert of Red Zebra, and Shelley Smith of ESPN. You can find out more by clicking here.

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Please take the time this Memorial Day to once again remember and honor those who gave their lives in service to their country. I also observe a separate kind of memorial day this weekend, the fourth anniversary of my father's passing on Saturday, so allow me this space to say once again: Dad, I miss you. The NBA playoffs aren't the same without our nightly basketball conference call. You'd have loved Thursday night's game, except that the Lakers won.

Perry Michael Simon
Editor
All Access News-Talk-Sports
psimon@allaccess.com
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