Use Radio to Drive Your Social Media & Internet Marketing

    • 13 posts
    March 7, 2012 9:04 AM PST

    Don't make the mistake of thinking that Social Media or Internet Marketing are replacements for traditional media like Radio. Each one plays a unique role in promoting your business and are most effective when used together.

     

    My latest article addresses how to Use Radio to Drive Your Social Media Marketing:

     

    The Internet sure has come a long way since the early 1980s when communication standards between networks were first introduced. In the beginning the Internet was used primarily by the military and educational institutions. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the Internet became more commercialized and wide spread. Today, technology aggregates my contacts from across a number of different platforms into a single list displayed on my smart phone.

     

    My contacts from Outlook, Facebook, Linked IN and Google + are all collected and displayed in one place. And I don’t have to maintain the list. Whenever one of my contacts makes a change to their personal profile, those changes are propagated across the Internet so I always have the latest contact information for my Social Media friends.

     

    The smart phone is a real media game changer. Nearly half (46%) of American adults are smartphone owners as of February, an increase of 11 percentage points over the 35% of Americans who owned a smartphone last May. The smart phone is affecting the way we use the Yellow Pages, newspaper, TV and direct mail.

     

    When was the last time you picked up the Yellow Pages to look up information about a business? I can’t remember when I last used a directory because I can push a button on my phone, say the name of a business category and it will list all of the nearby businesses that match my criteria. If I know the name of the business that I am interested in, my smart phone will generate more specific results. I can call that business or follow the turn-by-turn GPS directions. I can either type in the information or as I prefer, simply speak to my smart phone.

     

    I don’t need to wait until tomorrow morning to get a newspaper to read the news. I have customized news feeds on my smart phone that deliver the specific type of news I want as it happens. I’m a business news junkie. I have my phone set to sound a subtle little tone every time there is a new business story that fits my specific news profile.

     

    With an app on my smart phone I can control my DVR from anywhere in the country. I can actually watch live TV and videos on my smart phone. When consumers have control over what they watch, when they watch and where they watch, more than half of the commercials are simply skipped over to watch the program.

     

    The smart phone is even affecting direct mail. You don’t have to wait for a company to send you a coupon or a special offer. Now you can scan a Quick Response Code or a QR Code with your phone and instantly download information and special offers.

     

    But what I find especially fascinating about smart phone technology is the integral relationship between the smart phone and Radio. My smart phone has an FM Radio built right in. There is a pre-installed app that lets me listen to local FM Radio stations. It is rumored that FM technology is built in to the iPhone but Apple hasn’t released any information about it. Blackberry users were surprised to learn their phones had FM Radios built in when RIM sent out notification and pushed an app down the network.

     

    There is even talk in Washington DC of a mandate that FM technology be built into all new smart phones as a matter of public safety and national alerts. When the devastating tornadoes tore across the country, when Hurricane Irene swept up the east coast, many Americans were without power. Not for just a few hours but for many, they were without power for days and sometimes weeks. For those affected people, their battery powered Radio was their information life line until power was restored.

     

    iHeart Radio is a new app that lets you listen to hundreds of live Radio stations from around the country right on your smart phone. If you want, you can even create your own custom music stream. iHeart Radio offers you the best of both worlds in one simple to use app on your smart phone.

     

    Even with all of the new technology, Radio continues to be an effective and relevant medium for the local business owner and manager. Over 241 million adults listen to either an AM or FM Radio every week. By comparison, Facebook has about 150 million users in the United States. Satellite Radio has about 22 million subscribers. Pandora Radio has about a million average active sessions every month.

     

    Radio is especially effective and relevant for a small business owner or manager who wants to begin using Social Media and Internet marketing because all three play very different roles in a marketing strategy.

     

    Radio advertising pushes your advertising to the consumer. Radio advertising is proactive. Radio advertising can help you be known before you are needed. This is critical to business success because the vast majority of consumers say they are likely or very likely to do business with the first name they think of when they have a need or a desire for a product or a service.

     

    Internet marketing on the other hand is advertising that is waiting to be found. When your advertising is waiting to be found, you are just one of many unknown solutions to the consumer’s need or desire. Advertising that is simply waiting to be found is a contributing factor to business failure.

     

    How do we know that Internet Marketing is waiting to be found? We know it is by the name with which it is called, it is call search. The consumer must go on a search for your information. And Internet Marketing is far from free; Google sold more than $27 billion in paid search in 2011.

     

    Social Media advertising is neither free nor easy. Facebook sold $3.15 billion in social media advertising last year. If you don’t know what the open graph is or what a fan gate is, you will need to either hire someone to help you or spend your valuable time learning it on your own.

     

    Facebook has approximately 150 million users in the United States. Almost half of those users access Facebook with a mobile device. As of right now, Facebook advertising is not displayed on a mobile device so any Social Media advertising you buy on Facebook will only reach slightly more than half of the users until they sit down at a laptop or desktop computer.

     

    The important thing to learn about effective Social Media advertising is that it is a conversation between you and your fan base. You must devote time to communicate with your fan base through your Social Media channels. A lack of responsiveness can lead your fan base to conclude that you’re not very social.

     

    Fifty eight percent of business owners who are using Social Media Marketing say they devote six or more hours every week to their efforts.

     

    I am not trying to slam Social Media or Internet Marketing. I believe that a business should have a robust web site and current Search Engine Optimization. Social Media and Internet Marketing perform differently than a traditional medium like Radio. In other words, Social Media and Internet Marketing are not a replacement for Radio advertising.

     

    Radio advertising pushes your message to the consumer. Radio can help you become known before you are needed. Internet Marketing is waiting to be found. That’s why they call it search. Social Media Marketing is a two way conversation between you and your fan base. All three can work wonderfully in concert with one another if you understand their individual roles and how to properly deploy your efforts.

     

    For more sales articles, visit http://www.spikesantee.com.

    • 1 posts
    March 9, 2012 8:32 AM PST

    This is AWESOME...well said, well documented and very useful to me.

    • 13 posts
    May 6, 2012 5:47 AM PDT

    Thanks Larry for the kind words.

    Spike