According to We Are Social, as of Jan 2021, 53.6% of the world’s population are active social media users, equivalent to 4.2 billion people, with the average person spending 2h 25m per day on social media. The world’s most used social media platforms (excluding messaging apps) include the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.

With that said, it is not a question of whether you should use social media as part of your radio station’s brand-building strategy, it’s a question of how.

Here at PlayIt Software, we’ve listed 10 tips to up your social media game.

1. Remember the Social Media Rule of Thirds

The ‘Social Media Rule of Thirds’ is this: 1/3 of posts should be spent promoting your brand, 1/3 should be spent engaging with others, and 1/3 should be spent sharing other users’ content. This rule is designed to help you avoid talking too much about yourself and your radio station, and instead switch things up by focusing on two-way communication with your listeners and other brands. It’s a simple rule, and remembering this will help you build a great community of listeners who will become loyal followers and listeners.

2. Keep an eye on analytics

Social media platforms are full of ways to measure the performance of your social media profiles. Additionally, be aware of social media management tools online that, when linked up to your accounts, will help you quickly glance at your performance across multiple platforms. Things to keep an eye on include Likes, Shares/Retweets, Comments, Mentions, Followers and Clicks. Use this data to track your social media performance and to inform your future strategy.

3. Share highlights from your show

Recording your live broadcast allows you to take snippets from the show for sharing on social media. The golden moments from your broadcast to look out for are moments that are funny, interesting or even full-on disasters, as these make great material for generating clips for sharing. Edit them so that they’re around a minute or less in length and show the highlights only. They should be designed to provoke interest and generate clicks.

4. Maximise the potential of your guests

Your show’s guests are very valuable and knowing how to squeeze everything you can get out of them is important to have a successful social media presence. Remember, cross-promotion is key. Your guests are very likely to have social media profiles themselves, hopefully with large followings. Get them to spread awareness of their guest appearance on your show using their own channels, share your posts, and make sure to tag names and brands, including your own, within the post.

5. Connect with other radio hosts

Engaging with other radio stations and their creators is a path to collaboration and to growing your listener base. By building a good network of broadcasters, you can provide each other with mutual benefits and promote each other across your social media profiles. Further still, arrange to make guest appearances on each other’s shows from time to time, and make sure to promote appearances across social media to attract new audiences.

6. Expand your shows into articles, videos and blogs

Producing a wide variety of content and sharing them on social media is an effective way of growing the brand and reaching new audiences. By expanding upon your shows and delivering your passion across written articles, videos and blog posts, you can recruit listeners who might not yet have come across your live broadcast but are active on social media platforms. The extra content that you produce should be completely relevant to your radio station and in keeping with the station’s general theme.

7. Use your audience effectively

Your existing listeners can help to promote your brand for you if you provide them with incentives, which can include prize draws, giveaways and competitions. These methods are very commonly used across social media by all manner of businesses, not just radio stations. For example, prize draws are used to provide an incentive for followers to drive attention to your profile (making sure the social platform’s t’s and c’s are respected) while competitions can involve getting followers to submit their own piece of work to be showcased on your broadcast and social media channels.

8. Tell listeners about upcoming shows

A frequent use of social media is to signal your listeners about upcoming shows and events. The best way to do this is to attach an eye-catching image that will attract listeners as well as inform them. You can also add icons for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, among others, onto the image to indicate your social media presence across other channels.

9. Let listeners see behind the scenes

Aside from posting content that promotes your brand, informing listeners and sharing interesting content from other creators, it can be a good idea to occasionally share a photo from ‘behind-the-scenes’. You could post a photo of your radio setup while you are getting ready for your next show, a selfie with a guest that has come into the studio, or even a photo of a pet that has come into your studio to keep you company. This kind of content is helpful for establishing rapport with your audience.

10. Use targeted ads

Lastly, social media platforms can be used as another form of marketing. Places like Facebook offer targeted advertising, which enables sponsored posts to be run for a fee and can be targeted at your target audience, with parameters like age, gender and location.

Make sure to check out PlayIt Software’s range of products which are designed to make your foray into radio broadcasting as pain-free as possible, including PlayIt Live, our brilliant live-assist and automated radio playout software. 

For the recording of content to create your very own content library, you can use PlayIt Recorder to easily produce sliced show segments which you can use for a range of sharing and social functions.