Abacast

Radio has always had a strong connection to and ability to connect with its audience. Radio is the local source for music and news and it is available in the home, car, work, gym, etc. People depend on radio to tell them about traffic and concerts, tragedy and comedy, and everything in-between. Your audience has always been able to tune into your station because radios have been fairly ubiquitous. But that’s rapidly changing.

 Don’t misunderstand, radios are still important, but they are being superseded by Internet devices including smartphones, tablets, and even Internet-connected televisions. The question then is no longer how are you reaching your broadcast audience, but rather what are you doing to connect with your digital audience? Is there a difference in how to reach and engage this audience? Unequivocally, the answer is YES. Connecting with your digital audience is more than just propping up a website and repurposing your radio signal; much more.

 In the broadcast world, you are competing for your audience with a small number of competitors, and only a few of those are in your same format.  In the digital world, your audience has the ability to pick thousands of stations, with no geographic limitation, and for free. If all your digital offering consists of is the same playlist as your broadcast, you will be in trouble as we shift towards digital consumption.

 In the digital realm, your audience is expecting engagement on many levels.  They are expecting an immersive experience. They want a rich engaging website, cool mobile apps, and the ability to see your playlist, share it, comment on it, and influence it. Most of all – they want it to be fun. Which of these should you invest in? All of them.

 The good news is that with the right partners, this need not be expensive or overly time consuming. We are over 15 years into streaming media, website design and even mobile applications, and smart phones themselves have greatly matured. Realistically, how many employees do you need to launch these initiatives? With the right partner: one. That’s not a typo. You need one technical management person dedicated to making these things work. They are not “run it and forget it” technologies. The change of pace is blisteringly rapid, so you must have someone dedicated who understands and appreciates new technology developments within the context of your programming and holistically, radio.

 Good programming is critical to winning a digital audience. This is where a program director who understands new media comes into play. They need to program the website, the mobile offerings, and the streaming just like radio used to be programmed. Static content is content that is guaranteed not to draw users. Boring content isn’t going to enable you to grow this audience, because they have no barrier to changing to another station. Therefore you must program. Instead of just repurposing your broadcast signal, why not provide other streams? What about a completely listener-driven stream?  What about sub-formats to your main format?  There is low hanging fruit and the capital risk is low.

 What about Facebook, Twitter, et al? These are tactics, not strategies. They can be powerful tools to help you grow your audience, but building Facebook page, for example, in and of itself, isn’t a real digital offering.

 In summary, if you aren’t investing in digital it isn’t going to grow. You need real programming to make it interesting enough to build an audience that wants to return. The good news is that if you execute properly, this audience isn’t limited to your geography, nor is it limited to a single stream; you actually have the ability to expand, grow, and monetize a larger audience then you now currently enjoy.