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Tag: "Chris Miller Digital"

“I Knew You’d Like This, and that No One Else Would Show It to You”

| January 7, 2013

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS –People sometimes pooh-pooh the power of social media because of the relatively small number of followers we have.  However, did you know that you can turn a thousand Facebook “Likes” into a reach of a million over a year’s time?  That kind of reach can then deliver millions of impressions in a year, too.

Every good programmer has a solid knowledge of what tactics work to deliver better Arbitron numbers over time.  If you’re a PD, that’s just part of your job.  Well, Facebook has a similar set-up that you can take advantage of to create more engagement, which then drives your social media stats up … and creates more brand usage for you.  If you’re doing it right, that is.

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Social Media is “The New PR” for Radio

| December 10, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS — It may not cost you a dime when your radio station is Tweeting and Facebooking and YouTubing.  However, I’ll bet social media is a major ongoing project for some people at your station.  It’s probably costing you plenty of hours from your programming or promotions department.  Seems to me you’d want return on that investment.

Is there a possible return on investment from your social media efforts?  Maybe not the way you’re doing it right now.  The way to change that is to think of it as “The New PR.”

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Five Practical Digital Lessons Radio Can Learn from the Obama Campaign

| December 3, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS — Politics aside, Barack Obama’s winning presidential reelection campaign has some great lessons for us about how to use these wacky new digital tools we have.  There’s been a lot written about the campaign’s data-mining and information overlays and Facebook’s “open graph” and more.  However, we’re not going any of those places now.  Let’s stick to what you can do today.

Media All Fits Together

It’s easy to think about all the things we do as separate parts.  Our on-air broadcast, on-site promotions, website, social media, email and texts can all feel like different projects.  Meanwhile, our heaviest listeners and biggest clients want to use all those parts as interlocking pieces of a whole.

The Obama team didn’t start by thinking about what should go in a TV spot, what would be fun to do door-to-door and what might get some likes and shares on Facebook.  They thought about what they needed to do to get members of certain demographic groups to come out and vote for the president.  That goal drove what content was on each platform … and how those platforms fit together … and helped lead to their success.

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How to Get a Brand-Building Website

| November 19, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital        
SHAKER HEIGHTS — Maybe you have corporate people who have some control over the content and appearance of your website.  Maybe you’re the lone person at your station that really cares about the website.  If you’re in either one of these groups, you are not alone … not by a longshot!

I often hear digital issues spoken of in grandiose terms, so let me pass on a few practical website tips you can do at the station level, no matter what your corporate interactive people are doing.  They’re often brilliant experts on the web, but they’re not experts on radio.  They’re also certainly not experts on how the two fit together.

What’s the difference between your site and Google, YouTube and Facebook?  Those sites have a clear reason for being, and clean, well-organized content.  Get your page looking more Facebookish or YouTubeEsque, and you’ll go a long way towards building your website numbers.  Here are some nuts-and-bolts actions to get more people back more often and clicking on more stuff.

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Twitter Secrets Unlocked!

| November 12, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS, OH — I’m going to give Twitter some love, by telling you three ways to use that platform to help build your radio brand.

BULLETIN SERVICE

“Bulletin” may mean different things for different formats or situations.  On Twitter, you’re much less likely to get people to click on links than on Facebook.  However, Twitter is a good way to rapidly send out information of some value to your fans.  It might be a news or traffic headline, or when a new song will play, or when you’ll play a big contest next.  I’ve been increasing Twitter fans for one client by making their Twitter feed about one thing and one thing only, and promoting that on their Facebook page.

See, we often treat Twitter as the little sister to Facebook.  It’s not the same thing, and your opportunity is to make your Twitter feed clear and distinct from what you do on Facebook (or anywhere else).  That’s why one big way to increase the value of your Twitter activity is to make it about something in particular.  Many people are already using Twitter for information updates about things they’re interested in, so you’d be fitting in with their expectations.

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Start Doing THIS Right NOW
on Facebook – Part 2

| November 5, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS, OH — I was amazed by the high level of interest in my previous TALKERS piece, “Start Doing THIS Right NOW on Facebook.”   So here are a few more tips to help you get your radio station’s pages and posts right!

A lot of us radio folks see the value in social media.  Still, many could use some help working it in a way so you’re building your brand, instead of just spinning your wheels.  Many of the mistakes businesses make on Facebook have to do with how you write what you post.  We tend to speak in marketing-ese or like we’re scripting a promo.  That’s a huge error that may have people consistently hiding your content.  Here’s how to write a post that works for you.

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Start Doing THIS Right NOW on Facebook!

| October 29, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS — Over here on the digital side, it’s a common belief that Facebook has drastically cut back on how many people see our branded posts, so that we have to buy more advertising.  That may well be the case!  However, the Facebook folks are not only concerned about money, they’re also concerned about their version of time spent listening.  They want you to visit more often; and they want you to scroll further down your news feed than you do now.  They may limiting how much stuff people see from us commercial enterprises, so that it doesn’t crowd out what they see from their friends and family.

In any event, you’re lucky if 15% of your followers see any given post of yours.  REAL lucky.

So, here are the state-of-the-art techniques that will help you get seen more, and engaged with more often.  If you’re doing it right, that will then lead to more on-air and online usage of your radio station, which is the ultimate goal.

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Not All Web Hits Are Created Equal

| October 22, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS — I can tell that we radio folks are more stressed out than ever, because I’ve been in on a few conversations recently where the subject was how people out there don’t understand the value of radio anymore.  That’s a change from the previous sentiment, which was that we just needed to get more compelling content on our websites and in our social media.  The feeling seems to be now that we have to make potential fans and clients understand what we’re all about, and what we offer.

Then, I see here in TALKERS (10/17) last Wednesday that Bonneville in Seattle is putting one of their key on-air people “in the driver’s seat for bringing unique, local content to both KIRO-FM and the company’s digital space, MyNorthwest.com.”  So wrap your head around this.  Linda Thomas, who’s been part of KIRO-FM’s morning drive news block … that’s morning drive in the 13th largest market … is moving online.  That’s a real commitment on Bonneville’s part.

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Social Media? It’s Your Frequent Flyer Program

| September 17, 2012

By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — Lots of radio folks still don’t see the value in social media, and the way that most radio stations are Facebooking and Twittering, I don’t blame them.

The people who sign up to follow your radio station’s Facebook page tend to be your biggest fans. It makes sense that only someone who really cares about what you do would add you to their news feed, right? Now that you have all those folks in one place, what are you going to do with them?

Here on the digital side of things, we’ve studied why people sign up to follow brands on social media. Here are the big reasons:

  • To get the advantage of insider information
  • To get special deals and offers
  • To learn more about things you do that they like or are interested in