ALIENS OUT & ABOUT

Local Radio Stations On Facebook Face A Similar Quandary : How Can They Individualize What Is Fundamentally A Marketing Device?

You would not know it by taking a look at me, but I am an early adopter.
I might have been the first blogger at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, filing reports from the Cannes Film Holiday by email in 1997 that only appeared on the internet.

Right around then, I saw a Web address attached to a movie studio symbol for the 1st time. This can never catch on, I believed.

My reaction was related to my opposition to being sold something – nearly or door to door. But I have embraced Twitter – daft name and all – with gusto.

On TheDudekAbides, I faithfully tweet links to my blogs to increase traffic and retweet media or film items that folk following me might find of interest, and that I then occasionally later retool and put in the blog or the paper. During Comic-Con, I learned that I follow too many Sci Fi nerds. Now I follow too many sports nerds.

But the well-liked social media tool Facebook still eludes me as a utility.

I haven’t clicked a link, watched a video or found a long-lost friend there. I already have the email addresses of the people I usually need to attach to.

And though I have a couple dozen Facebook “friends,” I rarely accept new requests, since most of them are from folk I don’t know.

As a good digital soldier, I recognise the strategic importance of Facebook, but I cannot wrap my head around the separation of work and private.

Local radio stations on Facebook face an identical quandary : How will they individualise what is basically a promoting device? Some simply go through the motions, posting links and videos. But others have a specific voice and an engaged group of “friends” who banter with each other and with on-air personnel.

-At WLUM-FM (102.1), Facebook is “an chance to develop relations” and “create a community of like-minded folks,” said programme director Jacent Jackson. The alternative music station had 15,081 likes, or proponents, on August. 5. It links to videos from the 1990s as a method of “starting a talk among individuals that are into the station” and to “point folk to our ’90s lunch program,” Jackson said.

Friday’s wall included sports stories (“How does this relate to music?” one individual commented) and fans chatting music and bands.

-WLDB-FM (93.3) had 18,754 likes, and its wall included a link to a State Public Radio story about dogs, a caution to “turn on the B immediately,” a vehicle giveaway and a “treat your office to breakfast” discount you could buy at getmyperks.com.

-The WMYX page had 5,691 likes and was stuffed with links to getmyperks.com coupons and glam shots of Kidd O’Shea and Elizabeth Kay.

-The page at WMSE-FM (91.7) – “the best 30-year-old, all music, community powered, free form station in the whole galaxy” – was like a jazz funeral for the late announcer Cosmo Cruz. If I had been following the updates, I could have listened when they played “Cosmo’s mythical 1965 soul mix CDs.” WMSE had 4,226 likes.

-WYMS-FM (88.9) had 11,975 likes, and its wall was a collection of links, videos and chances to win concert tickets.

“Bring back jazz,” one individual wrote on the previous jazz station’s wall.

That is the problem with vox populi – infrequently they assert something you do not want to hear.

-On Friday, WKLH-FM (96.5), with 6,292 likes, and WMCS-AM (1290), with 554 likes, had comments or stories about events of “rampaging youths” at the Wisconsin State Fair the evening before. A comment on WKKV-FM (100.7) – with a market-topping 19,291 likes – advised the incidents “all started” on Facebook. The station expounded an announcer posted the comment based primarily on what a listener told him.

WKKV is controlled by Clear Channel Communications, which also operates WMIL-FM (106.1) and WRNW-FM (97.3).

In an earlier interview, Kerry Wolfe, Clear Channel director of programming for Milwaukee, expounded the group’s stations use Facebook to “increase listening appointments and brand commitment. We respond to each” comment and “if there is a hot song, we’ll tell you when it’s coming up within fifteen minutes.” Wolfe said the page for WISN-AM (1130) – with 1,590 likes – “allows folk to comment when they can’t get through or are not brave enough to call” Mark Belling’s show.

The Clear Channel station pages are updated by Wolfe, jocks, promotion director Omar El-Amin, “and, more recently, we’ve taken on social media interns,” Wolfe related. “We had more applications for that position than all of the other internships we offered.”

Clear Channel stations WMIL and WRNW had 12,703 likes and 6,086 likes respectively.

But at the bottom line, a station’s Facebook page is “about growing listening,” said Stan Atkinson, WDLB program director.

“If you announce (on Facebook) you are giving away $1,000 in fifteen minutes, chances are some of them will turn you on” as reported tagza.com.
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