How do you promote your station on Facebook? On twitter? On Instagram?
Do you work up a post and then share it across all your social media platforms? If so then I have news for you friend.
Stop it.
The only way social media works well to promote your station is if you tailor the post for each individual platform to make the most of its benefits and features.
This is called making native content.
You already know how sharing identical content across different media works – just think of an advertising client who is insistent on using their TV ad audio as their radio promo. You know that radio has its own sets of rules for effectiveness. You know that they need a different angle to succeed. Primarily visual content will never translate well to audio.
And so the same is true for social media. What works well on Twitter will not work on tumblr, so it’s time to revise your social media strategy and begin creating native content.
Don’t worry, you already know how to do this easily due to your radio production background.
The trick is to use the skills you already have when you create a great radio program. Only in reverse!
Think about how you gather content for your station, you probably scour social media, news, entertainment websites and word on the street to find good topics. Then you edit and curate that information into a format that work perfectly in the audio radio format for your listeners.
So all you have to do is take your subject/program and deconstruct it into a post that will fit the chosen social media platform.
Here is a list of the common social media that you station should by using and how to best fit your posts to suit.
- Facebook– Local, friendly, general. Video & photo content both work well here.
- Twitter– Witty, short, concise. Great place to engage with your followers by using the @ function. A Be sure to share other users content as well as your own for best results.
- Instagram – Visual, artistic, the less words the better. This can be hard for radio stations but there is always a way!
- Snapchat– Visual stories use short surprising, entertaining storylines. Think creatively.
- Tumblr – Think young, users are usually under 25. Use humor, be wacky, repost other good content. All types of content are welcomed here.
- Youtube – Perfect for video, podcasts, station broadcast streaming.
- Google + – Users tend to respond well to informational or learning content. Explainer videos or industry led content may de well here.
Yes its more work, but it would be even more work to churn out uninspiring, unimaginative cookie cutter content month after month only to have no success with your fanbase.
Native content is where its at.