Don’t have a radio show producer … get a smart phone

To all the web administrators, please pass this along to your on-air hosts.

So you are not the morning show … yet?  Don’t have a producer?  Working two-jobs?  No time to prepare?

Time for a smart phone with FaceBook and Twitter apps will help produce your radio show.  What’s better than one show producer?  Hundreds of producers.  You can build a community with a smart phone, Facebook, and Twitter.  When you get connected your show and your career will both move ahead.

• Smart phones will get smarter and smarter … will you?
• A community want to share enjoys good leadership.  Are you that person?
• Your online community will keep you connected with what’s important.  What’s real.  What’s worth talking about.

Why is CELLit Media posting this?  We know video is just a part of your community.  An important part but not the whole thing.  If you want to build a community, increase your ratings, move your career ahead then you need help.  We can be part of the solution.

Is YouTube Good for Radio?

Some radio website administrators reach out with YouTube embedded videos.  It’s actually a really smart start.  Video works, YouTube works, and your radio station website will see an immediate jump in time-spent-online.

So what’s the problem?

It’s a good start but you need more.  The “more” is reserved for YouTube.  Once your audience sees the first video they can be off to Google-land.   YouTube embedded video tools can be a quick slide for your audience to leave.

You have options.  There are many white-label video tools.  Many providers are free to use.  Some cost money.  The all work and let you keep your audience.

We think CELLit Media offers a powerful option.

1. Audience generated pictures and videos.  The real power is engaging your audience.  They want to participate, see themselves, and be part of your community.  Otherwise, they become part of YouTube.
2. You can post your own station videos and enjoy an immediate jump in web traffic.  You can be in control.
3. Posting by PC, email or cell phone.  With CELLit Media you your audience can post by email as an attachment, by cell phone, or on your PC.  It’ easy.   You can even forward email from your own station email address like Videos@Station.com Put the you back in your videos.
4. You can run video and picture contests with full control.  CELLit Media tools manage and report the results to you.  YouTube doesn’t have these tools.
5. You can moderate all your audience generated content … pictures, videos, comments, tags, and flags.
6. You are in charge.  You set the policies.  You customize the tools.  CELLit tools work for you.
7. CELLit is advertising supported.  Just like on-air syndicated programs, the CELLit video tools do not have any start up expense or operating expense.

Continue using YouTube if you like.   The Google-guys appreciate your hard work.  Or, take charge and keep your audience.   More information at www.CELLit.com

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Radio Website Traffic

There seems to be a common practice not to mention radio station web site traffic.  Just like the military “Don’t ask, don’t tell or you are out”.

You know how it goes at the station.  The GM never asks.  The web admin never tells.  The digital manager (the newly titled NTR person) knows but does not talk about it.  The sales manager and his entire team know and they don’t talk about it.  The on-air talent talks but they don’t know anything about the web.

We surveyed the top 100 radio stations and found only 6% of the listening audience visited the station’s website.    We did find two stations with larger online audiences than the local broadcast.

The issue is 70% of the broadcast audience has internet.   The web has a valuable place in their lives.  However, less than 1 in 10 internet connected listeners visits their station’s website.   How often do they need the station’s phone number?

Station administrators know the problem.  Unless you can get the broadcast audience to the website … nobody cares.  You cannot get the audience to the website without content.

It’s easy to point at others.  They need to provide more help, the PD doesn’t care, there isn’t enough time to keep the site fresh, it is too much work to post pictures, and videos … out-of-the-question.

If you are in charge of the station website here’s what you can do:

1. Keep the home page graphics fresh and current.   You must change the graphic at least once-per-week.   This is the minimum you should do.
2. Keep content up to date.  You know where to look.  On-air personality pages current?  Contest pages expired?  Contact information still real?
3. Delegate a page not the responsibility.  Got a sharp promotions person that wants to be more involved?  Invite them to help you.  Contest pages are easy to delegate.   Ask around and see who has a Facebook or MySpace page.  You will be surprised.
4. Invite the on-air people to email you new bio-information and a new picture.  Invite the new digital manager to send you weekly updates for the home page.
5. Add a few widgets to your web pages.  You’ll have dynamic, interesting, engaging content.  Don’t feel comfortable?  Talk to someone.  Call us.  We can help you.
6. CELLit Media provides easy to use video and picture tools.  There is no start up cost and no cost to operate.  These ad-funded (syndicated) program tools do the work for you.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, and eventually you will be tagged as the problem.

A few changes before Digital Revenue growth

New headlines from Radio Advertising Bureau about first quarter’09.

Total radio revenue down -24% to $3.4 billion while small but growing digital online revenue at radio stations is up 13% to $101 million.  Let’s be real.  That’s about 3% of the total.  Nice percentage growth but $12-million increase did not help when the total is off $1-billion (give or take a few million).

RAB leaders make a big deal out of radio digital platform growth, radio’s appeal to on-demand behaviors, and “primed for it”.  Maybe they are just a little … full of it.

Digital revenue can become an important business but a few changes are necessary:

1. PD Support is Vital. If you program director doesn’t care about digital then it will never work for you. If you PD thinks time-spent-online is time-spent-off air then your digital effort will fail. The audience has it figured out. Broadcasting is important at the right time. Online is important at the right time. Let the consumer choose their right time. Attempt to force them either way and you lose.
2. On Air + Online or O2 exponentially multiplies your reach. Use Twitter for instant feedback. Call out special video and picture support on the web. Follow up each broadcast with a short web cast, video diary, or what-you-didn’t-hear video or podcast. Your audience wants anytime-anyplace access. Let them have it.
   
3. Website administration is a team sport. Add widgets to show off your Twitter stream. Add video widgets with your latest and greatest events. Add Flash picture support. Connect to your FaceBook and MySpace pages. Let your promotion team add to the flow because they know what’s going on.
   
4. Trust your team and you will soar. It’s difficult but they get it. They know how to make online work better. After 10-years your website now contributes 3% to the total revenue flow. Maybe it’s time to let the team have a try.
   
5. Don’t hire a digital consultant. This is not about a website redesign. This is not changing your web hosting. This is about letting your team be creative. Let them show you how to make online work. You might be surprised that some team members have more personal Facebook traffic than your entire radio station website.

When you are ready to fly … point the team to CELLit Media. They will get it right away. Then stand back and listen, watch and learn how to really grow your digital business.

Digital Radio Revenue

Looking for more digital traffic, time-spent-online, and page views?   Look to your audience.  Tracking of the top-100 radio stations indicates less than 8% of their broadcast audience visits the station’s website while 50-70% of the audience is online.  That’s 1 of every 10 listeners … listeners that go online every day.  Nobody talks about the station website numbers but everybody knows.  It’s no secret.  Ask the sales team for more digital revenue and they ask for “better numbers to sell”. 

Dynamic content will bring your radio website traffic, the sales attention, and increase your digital revenue.

How do you get dynamic content?  Your audience and CELLit Media

CELLit Media provides the video and picture tools to engage your audience.   Videos and pictures are easily posted to pages with your station’s logo, colors, and display text.  You create your own channels; select how media is displayed; and fully moderate videos, pictures, comments, and tags.  CELLit provides these tools for shared advertising space.  No cash expense.  No operating expense.  Just opportunity!

About CELLit Media and dynamic content:

• You can add dynamic banners to your main website that update to the most recent postings, the most popular or the highest rated items of the moment 
• You can add a video player to your pages and display the videos of your choice for immediate viewing
• You can manage media based contests with start/stop times, special instructions, graphics, and system generated reports to judge the winners.

How do you get started?  First, recruit a digitally inclined on-air talent to post “their video and picture stuff”.   We promise the on-air talent doesn’t need much encouragement to get started.  DJ’s using CELLit Media dynamic widgets and video players will immediately boost your web traffic.  Second, start an audience contest.  Something very simple … best Dad for Father’s day, summer swimsuits, any pet contest, any baby picture contest, my office cubical … whatever.  You will increase your traffic again.  You will be a real hero.

For more visit www.CELLit.com.

Pics for Free Pizza Contest

Got a big hunger for pizza?  We can handle that appetite.  Ask your listeners to send in a picture of their pizza party or video describing how much they crave a pizza and receive a buy one get one free pizza coupon.  Listeners vote for their favorite picture or video.  The top ten participants selected by the listeners then compete at games during a station remote at a local pizza place to determine a winner.

Free Pizza Video Theme:

Pizza Pics Contest

Invite listeners to send in a picture of their pizza party or a video of them describing how much they are craving a pizza.  Everyone who enters receives a buy one pizza get one free pizza online coupon.  Listeners vote for their favorites who compete at a local pizza parlor for a year of free pizza grand prize.

Sponsors: Pizza Restaurants

Video Welcome Page

The media Welcome Page displays at the option of the local ADMINISTRATOR.  The page is cookie controlled to display one-time per day per visitor.  The page provides for the audience to confirm the terms of service under which audience generated media.  Second, the page can display a video or picture graphic.  Some media websites use the video/picture as part of a sponsor program.  The Welcome Page can be tuned off and all links go directly to the main video page or the targeted media posting.

Video Welcome Page

30% objective can lead to strong NTR performance

Non Traditional Revenues (NTR) can be a source of 2008 success.  How can you build the NTR business without major investments, new programs, and expensive graphics programs?  We suggest you look to the younger staff and help them apply their creativity.   Generally, one-in-three of your staff under 35 years old has a MySpace or FaceBook page.  Some might have more traffic to their social pages than your radio website.

We suggest you lead with an objective that 30% of your listening audience visit your website once a month. This may not seem like a large objective but it is way above the 5% of listeners we see visiting the average radio website.   Now, help your staff include information that attracts the listening audience.  The regular posting of contest information, special event schedules, concert lists, and program details will dramatically increase your web traffic.

You can help the team stay focused by asking for a daily report of site visitors and page views.  A simple report, everyday, will demonstrate your priority and help the team focus on the objective. 

Building site traffic is the sound basis for stronger advertising performance and business results.