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AG News:
Monday - 6/22/2010
Working with Multi-Tasked Knowledge
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People love happy endings. Many times stories conclude with a euphemism for the white knight who saves the day. "And they lived happily ever after" was popular with the 1950s Disney generation, later came graduation ceremonies for sixth graders, and today we hear from some that "everything's going to be all right - we'll plug the hole."
The truth is that sometimes things don't work out, and the reason is simple. Tools available for solving problems are used in different ways.
People who run the radio industry visualize how the masses should use radio's online tools, but the masses don't necessarily agree. And we're not limiting this discussion to broadcast radio. Internet radio operators are failing to give an audience what it seeks by insisting on programming through song lists. Little work is done in either radio industry to identify ancillary items of an audience member's life to build a relationship. Use the example of a heavy metal radio station. Knowing the psychographics of its audience, I'd expect to hear many such stations featuring vignettes on computer use, but that's not the case.
If it has hopes of relating to its audience, a radio station must provide more than music for people to bite into. At the least, it must present music in ways that differ from the "one-song-after-another" approach. Songs are easily found online; it's what happens when the song stops that sets you apart.
Extend service, provide information, build out your capacity to reach people not by reaching more people, but by connecting to individuals on a personal level.
For advertisers (defined as those who fund a radio station), offer information they can't get from partnering with other stations, such as reports at a campaign's end outlining what ad-dollars purchased or the ability to ask questions of your audience.
Find ways of using your tools that differ from how other radio stations are using their tools. You then have a chance of surviving in the radio industry, online.
The use of multiple computer-related tools is missing. Not social networking, but the "back end" tools that require effort to understand, and which can produce huge gains in productivity once implemented.
Email management, surveys, ad-testing, and the introduction of indie artists in proportion to what the audience desires are all underused online. National concert listings, independent artist discovery, automative news (street rod for rock with muscle-car reports on oldies stations), and gaming updates are also examples of program concepts you don't often hear.
Delivering email updates that say more than "this station has great music", querying audience with advertiser-related questions, selling music on-site (not through Amazon), and creating an information-packed spreadsheet giving full metric breakouts on campaigns are other computer-related approaches the radio industry lacks.
"Build it and they will come" may work in the movies, but there's no guarantee online - which brings up search engine optimization techniques, all generated by knowing how to use multiple computer-related tools. To become proficient in SEO, you need a grasp of spreadsheets, analytics, site design, and web site folder management (drilldown). Each item becomes a "tool" once mastered.
Rapunzel let down her hair so a "white knight" could climb the tower. Sleeping Beauty got a kiss.
But those sixth graders who feel like grownups sooner than should be allowed will live with a false pretense that showing up makes you a winner. The "hole" may turn out like the war in Afghanistan. And the radio industry's "build it they will come" approach to being online will continue because efforts to understand are not being applied.
We expect that white knight to show up for radio online. But he won't be much good without an effort by radio stations to use computer-offered tools better than their competitors do. To succeed, the industry needs to let down its hair - getting far deeper into internet applications and how they are used.
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