Does anyone have ideas as to how to counter clients putting more and more resources into social media.
I have already said that our radio can drive people to your website and social media, but budgets still manage to be dwindling!
That is a tough one! Businesses have been told that Twitter and Facebook are FREE advertising. BUT these ideas rarely work. People don't want your tweets about what is on sale, or to read on your Facebook daily updates that are sales messages.
go to Inc. magazine's page and search. There are a bunch of articles on failed Twitter and Facebook campaigns. The trick to this is to present this information BEFORE you get the objection. Take those sheets, put your name on em and hand em out, showing them ways to do it RIGHT.... and they will read all the doing it wrong stuff.
Find a business in your market that is pushing hard to get Facebook "Likes". Then go to their page and see how many people they have. Now, if you don't have ratings in your market... take your market size and hit it by 20%. Say to the prospect "okay, if we were the worst radio station in the market and hit just 20% of the people here, that would be X number of people. Now lets compare that with ABC vending who has been on a push to get Facebook LIKES. As of today they have X number of followers. And for arguments sake, lets say they reach those people every single day. So we take their FRIENDS number times seven (for seven days a week) and that is XXX impressions. Now lets do the same for me. Take my paultry 20% of the market times senev and you get XXX THAT is why so many people like using radio to connect. It's not free, but on a cost per impression <<if you do the math I'll bet you a beer you'll come up with a number of .7 cents per impression>>>.
Always kill an objection BEFORE its an objection. It;'s your job to keep them informed!
Thanks Chris!
I'll do jsut what you say and see if it helps.
Cheers!
Gerry
Holland Cooke has been proclaiming the combination of RADIO + website (station's, client's, or station-built-and-hosted client microsite) to be "the most powerful combination" in media today.
Here's a link to a phone interview with HC last year. Audio quality was pretty bad (we've since fixed the problem), but the content makes it worth putting up with. Might be something helpful here for you.
Best,
Rod
Thanks Rod
Some really interesting stuff!
I'll run this by my GSM.
Cherrs
Gerry
Gerry, you''re swimming up stream to knock anything digital today (web, email, social, daily-deal, mobile etc) The way to win is to discuss radio’s role in the electronic media age and to make sure that all of the online revenue comes at the expense of print (brochures, catalogues, yellow pages, newspaper). By far, more money is still spent in print.
It is the Electronic Media Age, and anything printed is a dinosaur and anything broadcast or online is much more cost effective. (remember the old days when advertisers paid extra for colour? How much extra is colour on their online efforts?) Maybe ask Dave to host our Selling in the New Media Economy sales workshop.
There are a lot of hucksters out there making coin by telling businesses that "social media is the ONLY advertising you need - and it's FREE!" I've seen them roll through town, and watched a bunch of local businesses hit Facebook to gain ... 6 likes. That's selling your product - when 5 of those 6 are the business owner and their family.
Social media as an advertising medium is a red herring. Yes, you should have a presence, but don't mistake that as advertising. Twitter, Facebook, whatever. If all you're doing is throwing sales pitches with it, you're wasting your efforts. If the client has a website, THAT is where they want to put their online efforts. Reality is, Facebook could (likely won't, but could) disappear tomorrow. Then what? What if Twitter floats a permanent fail whale? Where's your online presence? YOU control your business website. All the rest should just be a rich butter cream icing on the internet cake. Use them to get feedback - engage your followers - but do NOT use them as a sales outlet. Doesn't work.
The "social media hucksters" all like to point out how EVERYBODY is on Facebook and Twitter. It's almost true. What they fail to mention is that almost NONE of those businesses are actually making sales through those networks. It's about building customer loyalty, building your brand, showing your followers and fans what your business is about. Send them sales spam 6 times a day and they won't stick around long.
Thanks for your insight Wayne!
We are indeed being swept up by the new technologies, and I realize we must learn to embrace them or we will surely find ourselves irrellevant. Reg Fessenden's pioneering technology is still the most potent delivery vehicle to these new mediums. All we need to do is articulate that advertisers must see the forest not just the trees.
I will ask Dave about hosting your "Selling in the New Media Economy" sales workshop Wayne.
Cheers
Gerry
Great comment Chris!
Cheers
Gerry
Persuading advertisers that they used to spend too much cutting down forests and trees, supporting pulp and paper mills, truck drivers, lumber jacks, printing press operators etc. is the key. Everything they did in print they can do online for free or cheap, thereby leaving more money for radio when they drop print. Have a great day.
I concur, Great comment. You should also agree that is important but not the end all be all and suggest that they include these avenues in there radio campaigns. Run an online spot/promotion enticing your listeners to log on and "like" a page/product and be enterered to win...incorporate social media into your pitch and have the bes of both worlds. Good luck.
First - social media takes a lot of time and in some cases preparation. Few businesses can commit a paid individual to continue this over time and trust that the messages are managed. And that managment is probably you. Do you have the time?
Second - These messages are the image of your business - the content and frequency must be planned. Barraging people with irrelevant detail or multiples of the same 'sale' message will turn them off. And the people who 'friend' or 'like' you are really not your friends - they don't really care about your dog or home life, your political viewpoints, your business aspirations. This kind of content is irrelevant.
Third - social media works better for some businesses than others, for some demographics better than others. A local bar venue here regularly brings in live bands and holds events. They post it online and on facebook and ask if you are coming to the event - with a confirmation feature. They twitter a reminder on the day-of that the show starts at 8p but these drink specials start at 7p. They set up a free cover charge on Foursquare. This is a college bar and it works. The event manager spends a lot of time on this. A local gift-ice cream-fudge store as well as other local food and bar venues tried all this and didn't get jack. Think carefully about the regular users of the social media you choose. A local roller rink went all over on Facebook and Twitter thinking their audience was kids 6-14 - lots of complaints from moms on the constant marketing to their kids and lack of a website or answering machine for moms to check days, times, costs.
Fourth - get your clients to think of social media as part of the media mix not as an end all. Media enhance each others success when used optimally.
Fifth - don't tip your toe in the water if you don't want to get wet. Once you start a website, Facebook, twittering, Foursquare-ing you have to stay on it. A website with obviously dated info and photos, a Facebook page with the most recent post 6 months or more old - this is terrible for business. Makes people wonder if you are still open for business.
Final - Social media is not free. Time is money. Time spent on social media is time not spent on something else in your business - and your time as the business owner/manager is premium time. Design, content, maintenance all require man-hours that cost money. Social media is not advertising - it is really more promotional communication best used for events, specific price and item and realistically, gossip. It does not build brand awareness nor need for a product. Facebook and websites in particular require proactive participation on the part of the buyer. There are people who live on Facebook - those people are not there for sale info from businesses. The others need to be driven to your website and Facebook and nothing does that better than... radio.
I agree they should incorporate their online strategy with their radio pitch. It's one of the best ways to generate traffic. But if they have their own website, the move is to drive traffic directly to it - and make sure they have a Facebook link on that page ... even excerpts of their twitter feed. That way THEY get the traffic to their site, not to Facebook, which is pretty tough to measure unless folks actually click Like once they go there. Server stats for your website are measured whether they "like" you or not. Spike in traffic = measurable success.
Isn't our modern, tangled web of media great? ;)
Our station has incorporated social media into our advertising packages. Besides the on-air radio ads, we offer additional benefits such as a short story on our website and a posting on our Facebook page about their event. We don't charge extra for this, but tout it as another one of the many reasons they should advertise with Radio!
We get lots of requests for Facebook postings, but we will only do so if they are purchasing radio advertising. So far, it seems to be working. Embrace social media and make it work for you, not against you.
You can debate the value of Arbitron all day, pro and con, for radio. But it's right up front on Face book. I have a restaurant that believes the Free thing, but he only has about 7 Likes and 15 friends. That should tell him everything he needs to know about the marketing value of FB.
Maybe that tells him something about his restaraunt?
Heck, radio was the original social media (remember transistors).
Everytime something new comes along, people want to jump on board and it's going to be the death of radio. Yet, here we still are.
Those that think you can effectively advertise on social media only, beleive word of mouth is the best way to advertise. In other words, they don't beleive enough in their business to invest in it.
There are less than a handful of product categories that can point to real success with a social media only campaign...and those cases are all transactional. The only way the customer will continue to buy from the business is if they continue to remain the cheapest. Eventually, someone will be cheaper.
Thanks Chris
That's why they call it a web... and tangled it is!
Cheers
Gerry
Thanks Gerry. I had to look up Reg Fessenden because I'd never heard of him....very interesting!!
