The Personalization Bubble

As we work in our Broadcasting world and the ever increasing Social Media and Web world that we interact and build our audience's with there are some important lessons here in this presentation by Eli Pariser at a recent TED conference.

His thought here is that in our web and digital world we are living in such a personalized bubble that is filtered constantly analyzing everything we read, share, click on, and interact with that we can end up living in our own world.  Very interesting thought - and the more you think about it - very true.

We come from Broadcasting where the only filter is - changing the channel to another station.  It does give the audience a community.   Eli's view here is that in the Personalized web world we could be turning into individualists.  

The other thought to take away is 'how to work and interact in the individualistic world the audience is building - with the help of the Social Media sites and Search Engines.  

The New K.I.S.S.

We all heard the catch phrase - K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid.  In the Radio Programming world it's become one of the most overused catch phrases to justify all kinds of 'rules' in addressing and engaging the audience.  As we look ahead at Social Media a friend (Jeff Vidler) linked an interesting article in my Facebook feed on Brian Solis' book - The End of Business as we know it.   If you are a Programmer or Brand Manager the thoughts and findings here are very important.  


A couple of notes from the article really stood out on my screen: 

• 'On a basic level, consumers need to feel that they are being heard, that action is taken on their behalf'  Take a good look at your Brand's Facebook page and notice the requests or comments from your audience - were they just ignored by your team or did you follow up?  It's more than just answering their questions (Where is the closest Springsteen concert?).  Join in on their conversations and respond when they comment.  Just sitting there and going 'ok' isn't enough to get them engaged with you.  
• K.I.S.S. (Keep It Significant and Shareable) This should be your new mantra on Social Media.  If it doesn't stand out or if it isn't relevant it's a wast of your time and space in their world.  You won't make the top of their new feeds unless you can be relevant.  And the real measure of importance is if they feel it's important enough to 'SHARE.'  

As you develop and grow your Social Media presence and use these important tools more and more to bond with your audience take a look at all 14 tips Brian Solis' brings out here.  They may take a bit of thought and planning to build into a usable platform - but it's a very important exercise if you want to take full advantage of the potential.   

Traditions Are Changing

Perhaps it's the holiday season or the excitement of a new year approaching, but I've been thinking about the some broad stroke perspectives.   

As we enter 2012 we are in the middle of celebrating some anniversaries.  We will soon have around 20 years of the web under our belts -- the first Nexus browser came out in 1990 and the Mosaic browser (far easier to use and the template for what we have today) in 1993.  It was around 10 years ago in 2002 when High Speed Internet access was only in 10% of the homes - now it's well over 70%.   And when you really look back to around 30 years ago we saw personal computers move from being a hobby to a full fledged industry with Apple- IBM squaring off and Microsoft starting to brew software.  It was also around 20 years ago that we saw the first portable cell phones that could actually be carried around without a bag or a being the size of a brick - those 1980s lug-able phones are nearly 30 years old now.

These evolutionary anniversaries signal some big changes in all of lives here on Planet Earth.   Look at some of the random examples that seem to stand out when you step back : 

• Christmas Cards - Notice that you are getting fewer and fewer every year?  Sending off a few Email cards, dropping everyone a tweet or a Facebook greeting, or perhaps a text will do. 
• Paper - We seemed to be drowning in paper 30 years ago.  So much of what we did in transacting our lives and creating content came from using paper.  While we still use a lot of the stuff - we can see a day when paper will be rare - sort of like stone tablets. 
• Physical Presence: In the 80s and 90s we began to see the potential of a world where we were able to have a nearly full communication experience without needing a physical exchange. 
• Telephones - It's clearly the all purpose tool of the future.  If you go back to the big inventions of 100 or so years ago it would have to be the mass acceptance of - Autos, Electricity, Airplanes, Phones and Radio/TV.   While all of these has evolved to some degree the biggest growth has clearly come in phones over the last 30 years.  It's been able to evolve and morph with so many other innovations.  
• World Communication - The planet has never seemed closer in a connected way, yet we also seem to be showing more division in beliefs and struggling to find common ground in many ways.  It's great that we can all communicate so freely but it also requires that we have open minds and be curious and tolerant of a planet that will pass 7 billion people early in 2012.  
• Demographics and Generations - We are moving faster in communication and information with every generation to a point where the gaps between various age groups is sometimes dramatic.  Look at all that has evolved and changed to a person who is in their 70s or 80s today.   We are moving at an ever increasing rate of speed that requires that you keep up or fall way behind. 
• Elections - It will be a big year for big talk.  The influence of the evolution of our communication abilities is having a huge impact on elections.  With all the discussion of issues and drama, that is so open and interactive, elections, and our expectations of the leaders that evolve from them, is something we will have to learn and adjust to.  Maybe we will realize that Superman was fiction - none of us on this planet is that good.    Maybe the people will regain their voices in a world that seems to be more and more influenced by commerce over community. 

I'm sure you have lots of examples to add here, but as we get set for 2012 the big point that  there is a lot to reflect on.   It should be an exciting year as we start to see economies recover, perhaps some hopes for a more peaceful planet as a number of countries/cultures are evolving and changing, and the ability to communicate so quickly and freely continues to speed up our evolution.   

It will also be a year when we will no doubt hear a lot about the Mayan Calendar which seems to end on December 21st by all of the calculations and speculation we can piece together.   While some have predicted the end of the world and cosmic events - perhaps we have been working towards a big moment in our evolution and that is what they foresaw. 

Sample Size Changes the Game

The recent news that an analysis of Facebook friends has shrunk the old 6 Degrees of Separation theory down to 4.74 world wide and 4.37 in the U.S.  You can read all about it here.  This is a significant finding to all of us in radio programming on a couple of levels:

1. The Audience is woven tighter than we imagined.  The real power to spread your reach and to gain more P1s really lies in the audience you already have.  If you can start a 'spark' in that group it can spread quickly.  The key is starting the spark.  
2. Social Networks are playing a huge role.  The ability to interact with the audience and grow it's size has never been easier.  
3. Sample Size does matter.   We've always lived on random sample world of the normal curve and standard deviations to predict the size of our audience, the music they like, the images they carry on our products.  The original study in the 60s that produced the 6 Degree theory was based on 296 volunteers who sent postcards to friends.  The Facebook 4.7 Degree theory was based on breaking down the 'friends' data of millions of users.  They had ample data from everyone on Facebook to see who they were connected to.  This is a 25% difference in the numbers here.   That is a pretty big swing from one study to the other.   Consider if you downloaded your next book and found the numbers swinging 25% up or down for no obvious reason.  The bigger sample size did show a significant difference in the result.  

The real lesson for us here are points 1 and 2.  If you start to visualize your audience as an interlinked group of people and start to interact with them on their level you have the potential to develop a huge reach.  Working from the 'bottom up' - one listener to another - is the path to building your reach.  

No Time For Social Media?

Just what the programming team needed, another task to accomplish.   Chances are your brand is trying to  keep up with the audience and the community while you seem to have fewer players on the team than you ever imagined a few years ago.

Now you've made the dive into Social Media in addition to your web site and of course keeping the content hot out of the speakers.  The Facebook Page and the Twitter worlds need attention if you are going to build and interact with your listeners.   Having just 2,000 likes when your on-air cume is 100,000 doesn't make Facebook very effective.   Just posting some pics on the page and pushing the air staff to 'post some stuff' won't help you develop a conversation with the audience or build the size of your fans in either Twitter or Facebook.   It has to be topical, entertaining, unique and clever if it's going to have an impact on the audience.  Obvious self promotion can be a big problem in building you brand - this audience is pretty marketing savvy and doesn't enjoy boring tricks.

The key to making Facebook and Twitter work is having an organization or a system so you can start to get a view of what is working and what is not.  Just like we have Selector to help us play the HITS more often and control the music  you need to have some kind of system to manage the posts on Facebook and Twitter.  Having a system that also makes it easy to create in is also a big plus.  Being able to post videos, pics, audio, flash, links, and with a system that is simple for everyone to grasp.  You can't spend hours messing around with training or complex computer systems.

We also need to know what is working and what is being ignored or damages our brand.  Just as we used charts, sales, call out, research and requests to get a picture of the music we play we need data here on how the audience interacts with the posts.  

Then there is monitoring the pages.  Keeping the language under control, making sure no one is spamming you and your audience and also being able to follow up on any questions or complaints from the fans.  You can't spend your life with Facebook on your screen 24/7 to be the site police.

Lastly you have to use all the features of the page.   Making up contests, building tab pages, linking the stream, promoting events, directing them to the website, adding them to your database, and biggest of all getting them to listen to the station more.   You also have to do all of this within Facebook's rules.  Forgetting to use their contest rules and follow their regulations can cost you your page and all of it's fans.

Opps almost forgot you also have to keep up with the Facebook and even Twitter news feed scoring systems.  Appearing on your fan's news feeds with the new system of top stories is even harder than it was.  You have to have relevant, vibrant and topical content to get in their club today.  The only way to improve is to keep an eye on your progress and measure what is working and not working.  You need constant feedback to keep up.

To get all of this you'll need a lot of sources.  There are publishers and some include some analytics.   Facebook also tells you some facts about how the fans are using your pages in their metrics.  You can go to your graphic/web team to try and get help designing Tab pages for contests etc.   Facebook does some monitoring for you, but it may not keep your team from needing to watch the page.  Lots of jumping around for the facts here.

Then, of course, you have to manage the team.  Teach them how to use all these tools and how to entertain the audience in a medium that nearly everyone is still learning about.   It's also a world where Facebook or Twitter can change the rules at anytime or one where new tactics can pop up and change the game quickly.

The big brands are hiring whole teams to manage their Social Media presence.    Look at the Gatorade Social Media HQ!!!

There are programs to help you get it all organized.  There are system developing here, if you want to know more contact me.   dlange210@att.net

RIF is really Re-Invent

The recent lay offs in Radio now known as a Reduction In Force is sad especially for those with a pink slip.  The news stories and comments all over the web/social media lament the loss of our brothers/sisters in radio and much of the content is pretty negative on the bigger broadcasters and also on the state of radio.

Many wonder how radio will become a strong local force with fewer bodies in the building.  How will they create local content when much of it comes from programmers or computers or air talent in far away places?  Isn't 'Local' radio's ace in the hole with internet radio?

Radio is re-inventing itself and the priorities are different than the model we built in the 80s, and earlier that we all seem to cling to.  Some of it comes from consolidation, some from computers being able to do the work as well as network, there is new competition, new ratings systems, and new opportunities to distribute on new media.

We have woken up on a different planet.  The gravity is different allowing us to move quicker and the communication has evolved.  Yet we still seem to move in an organization that lives on the old planet.

Radio has had opportunities to evolve in the past and in many cases we've made valiant attempts, but in the end the foundations of the industry seem to struggle.  The pressure has built and now we are at a point where the structure within the stations will be clearly different ahead.

While it may be very hard to find good news here - there is!!  Just as radio became a desperate media in the 50s as TV hijacked the audience we took on a whole new structure.  Radio re-invented self on a new planet.  That time has clearly come again - in fact it's way over due.  Really we should have been evolving a lot more over the last 10 years as the internet and new media world has evolved.

If you are on the hunt to get back into radio, build your career, or hang on to your job there are new worlds to conquer and explore:

• Social Media - A lot of our interaction and promotion within the audience will come from Social Media.  It doesn't matter if we can make money on it or not - we have to use social media to keep and build our relationship with the audience.  The good news is it doesn't cost much - but we do need more than just a bunch of random posts that the audience doesn't care about.  You need organization and a well orchestrated strategy.  'Commin up the new Blink 182 on The Rock' isn't 'interacting' with the social network.   
• Have a REAL Presence in the community - The days of the jock showing up at an event and hanging out in some back office doing cut in breaks - avoiding the audience - are way over.  You got to work the crowd and make lots of friends where ever you can.  You can see that Clear Channel took out a lot of air staff members that were not top 3 in their daypart or of a huge value to the station.  If you're just a nice voice on the radio that hides in the sound proof control room it's real hard to hold your value.  Work the room and build your fans.   Yes it may be harder with fewer staffers to build community presence but take a long look at the effort we put out now and even in the days of big staffs.  Really it was mostly a few events and some client remotes.  Even if you are down to the last DJ you can do better.  
• Understand the data - Just as Money Ball changed the baseball world with data in the 90s PPM is changing our world.  Even if you don't have PPM understand the new world of watching the real reaction of the audience to what we do on the air.   Also keep up on web metrics, Facebook interaction analysis, and how the audience is using apps.  We've never had so much data on the audience before and it's a lot to digest - but we'd better learn it or...... 
• See the Future -  It's a whole new world and everyone needs to learn how to build their team in it.We have to be 'geeks' on technology - falling behind can be costly. 
• Improve Management Skills - If you are a manager do your best to be organized and have a strategy.  Sending everyone out for a pass is usually a bad play and too often we just dive in.  It does take time but if you get organized and get your priorities set for every day you can lead everyone to accomplish a lot of the skills noted above.  

Yes, seeing the industry that we've all worked hard in and had lots of fun creating go through all these changes can be a struggle.   Is everything the bigger groups are doing in our industry right?  Maybe not - surely they will have some lemons.  But remember - the minute we stop changing and evolving is likely to be one of our last minutes.  

It's Sports Mania Season

It happens every Fall when we have 'sports mania' just dominating the viewing and listening habits of many a male.  It's so easy to fall into all the excitement as College Football builds in October with so many teams in the hunt and great rivalries nearly every weekend.  Baseball heading into the World Series with intense match ups of the best teams.  NFL Football in the middle of the season and the race to the playoffs in December building. Then you also have Tiger Woods returning to Golf (and failing again), the start of Hockey, the NASCAR season racing to it's championship moment and if we had NBA they would be opening up their season also.

You can see the impact by just looking at the network ratings from last Saturday night where the Ohio State/Nebraska game and the baseball games combined for 13 million and the rest of the network line up just cracking 6 million.

On Monday (10/10) you could wear out the remote moving from the Lions/Bears game to the Brewers/Cards and the Tigers/Rangers games.

It's also prime time for Sports Radio as they cover and discuss all the games and the ongoing NBA disputes.  Even if your team is out of it the discussion can be even stronger that the play by play - just look at Boston or Philly right now.   Boston is blowing up the Red Sox after wiping out in the playoffs.  Philly doesn't know what to do with the Phillies dream team - pick to win it all in April out of the action.  Or should they worry about the Eagles and all their problems?

Is it any wonder that male leaning music formats like Classic Rock, Active Rock, and Alternative have a tough time keeping the audience engaged.   We often see the shares for the Rock formats drop in the Fall and Sports is a big part of it.  But, do we focus on how we could stand out in this season?  Some stations have gone to teaming up with the teams like WDVE in Pittsburgh.  Others just take their medicine.  Take a close look at the situation in your market.  Are their opportunities?  Could you create more excitement on your own and help pull the audience your way? Can you join in the sports mania and suck in some of the impact?

Whatever opportunities there are you have to have a plan and that takes time to develop.  Now is your opportunity to take a close look at the environment in your market and look at your options. 

2010 Census End of 25-54???

A lot of the data from the 2010 U.S. Census is out and there are some surprises when you step back and look at the big demographic picture of the country.   I have built a comparison spread sheet of the 5 year demos from 2010 (on the left) and 2000 (on the right).  Also broken out are 18 year breakouts that roughly correspond to the 'generations' (Y - X - Boomer-Etc).  You can see that we really have 3 nearly equal segments here.  The under 19s are around 27%, the 20-39s are also close to 27% and the 40-59s are just over 27%.  The under 60 population is nearly equally split.

The Generations are roughly broken out below.  Since we are dealing with 5 year splits on the data some of the definitions fall in the middle and were 'rounded' from the usually defined eras for each generation.

Still the picture is pretty clear here.  The Younger Generation X, Y and the new under 19s that really have yet to be defined are taking up nearly 69% of the pie here.  While the boomers are still strong their percentage is shrinking.  You can see the boomer ages in the boxes for both 2000 and 2010.

So where will marketers target their campaigns and where should we be aiming our demo targets?  It's an interesting question.  The importance of 25-54s started in the 80s.  In 1980 the oldest boomers where 32 and the youngest were 18.  By the end of the decade they were all in their 30s and driving the 25-54 demo. That's why it became 'the standard' for targeting in advertising.  Well we've all had a few too many birthdays over the years and now that boomer demo is between 62 and 48 years old.

On top of that we can see a the X and Y generations at roughly the same percentages of the population.

It still seems like winning 25-54 is still the gold standard - and it still represents 41% of the total population in 2010 vs. 39% in 2000.  It's still a very important demo, but today it is NOT defined by one generation.  There are Gen Y, the Mellennials with there digital world, Gen X with a strong 80s orientation and the Boomers with their 70s era history all in the same demo.  Targeting something that wide in today's highly fragmented world is starting to look like no strategy at all.  We'll have to see what the marketing minds (today's Mad Men) cook up here.  But, we would be wise to take a closer look as we target and lay our programming strategies with the realities of the population.