Radio Success Is Easy Compared To Social Media

ARB's Jacquelyn Bullerman on Social Media at Arbitron Client Conference:

Success is easy to measure.  Audience growth.

Figure out what's broken and fix it.

In social, it's not that easy.  No goal can mean random acts of digital.  There is no "experienced social media expert."  Everyone is learning.

Strategy = why are we posting?

Are connections and relationships developing as you post?

Success is the pieces becoming a "whole."

Data is not a report card on your actions.  It's a compass on what's valued by your community.

President Obama hugging Michele, biggest on social was use of social media at it's finest - Data + Content + Goal.

Look beyond Facebook insights categories go look at what types of pictures or videos you posted or status the type of pic matters

New hires aren't groomed in overnights anymore. Most radio hiring is in digital department.

If your content isn't strong, it won't matter.

A great spoken word pitch that sounds like a live read must be reframed to take advantage of the internet.  Trim "keep listening for your chance to call to call in an win" BS.

Repackage content provider syndicated content to create engagement and insert yourself into that content.  You're not an RSS feed.  You want a personal relationship with your listener via your social media which drives broadcast radio, streaming or your website usage.

Figure out a way to be smoother than just always doing ads in social tactics.

Post in a way that says I care about you.  Share this with everyone you know, because I care about your community.

Invest money in your goals.  Too few radio companies are doing this.

What Share Will Move You Up To The Next Tenth Of A Rating Point?

ROI Media's Mark O'Neill at Arbitron Client Conference in Annapolis:

How much is a tenth of a rating point worth?

Track "Persons Using Measured Media" (PUMM) vs Your Audience Flow

Example:  clean up a station's 11:45 quarter hour by eliminating a stop set and moving those units into other breaks resulted in rating point growth from a .5 to a .6.  Just doing this at a time when total radio audience (cume) is going up, got the station up to a .8 after several months of having done this.

Example #2:  5:15 pm.  Took commercials out of the 5:15 break and doubled the units in the 5:45 break.  Stopped only once that hour and within two months that quarter hour had almost doubled and the long stopset at 5:45 took down the rest of the daypart.  However, since the market's PUMM was also going down at that time as opposed to earlier in the 5 pm hour, they went from a .3 to a .6 in the daypart with just that one stopset change.

A little inside baseball from JA:  A&O&B "Post-survey Box Scores" reports routinely contain this info for both all our PPM and diary markets for this reason.  Clean out the highest/growing market audience quarter hours and place clutter into quarter hours with dwindling market audience to improve the entire daypart.
The goal:  even out the station's audience flow quarter hour by quarter hour and avoid extreme "up" and "down" quarter hours.

Revenue goes down almost immediately when PPM rating points drop, but can often take several months for the revenue to catch up with audience increases. 

Lesson:  it's worth money to do what it takes to stabilize and grow rating points. Look for opportunities within your cluster where a nominal increase in AQH would yield a move up to the next tenth of a  rating point to optimize rating point-driven revenue.  That's when the programmer and sales are on the same page.

Urban PD panel (Skip Dillard, WBLS; Jason Kidd, WPGC and Jay Stevens, Radio One) Music Insights:

More from today's Arbitron Client Conference in Annapolis:

• PPM = less "favors" for record promotion people.  There is no margin for error now.
• Songs last much longer than 12 weeks and off
• Fewer titles manage to cut through
• Some titles hold up and grow even with 2,000+ spins on them
• MScore, callout and online testing's larger samples can be apples and oranges.  As a result, sometimes MScore can offer opportunity for new things, but can also doom a song much more quickly than online testing methodology

PPM Five Years Later... What We've Learned

At the Arbitron Client Conference in Annapolis:

Doc Wynter, Urban Format Captain, Clear Channel:

Diary had us believing that they spent a lot of time with just us.  PPM provided a wake up call.  Now, we know they have been "unfaithful." 

We have to earn and deserve their time with us.

Today's audience is a lot different than when we were growing up and we need to not just understand them, but be compelling and interesting enough to engage them, involve them.  Talent's natural tendency is to use what they learned as a point of reference.  That methodolgy and content are often dated.  PPM underscores that listeners only use what's relevant to them, not relevant to you.

Due to emerging technology it has been much more difficult to get a message across than in the past.  Competition for attention is greater than ever.

Time spent per occasion, we now know, is 8-10 minutes.  Remember when we used to believe that they listened for 8-10 hours a week?

Experiment.  Challenge the established rules.  Maybe it's five powers an hour, not four.  Measure the effects of the changes.  Be strategic when you experiment.

If you get positive ratings results, know how your got there.

Bill Rose, VP/Arbitron:

Diaries:  you need to cut through perceptually and ultimate translate that changed perception into ratings.  It would take months and months.

Now, with PPM:  it's still driven by perception, the bigger picture.  What motivates them t tune in.  You have to win "the off" before you win "the on."

What cuts through?  "Positioning The Battle For Your Mind" and "22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing."  Two must have books, from Ries and Trout.

You must know:

What is your station known for?  Can listeners identify that?
Does the station have a leadership position in that category?
Do listeners know who the station is for?

Position = what your station is known for.  (75% of your ratings)
Execution = the sum of the little things does right (25% of your share)

Be 60% of "something."  FOCUS.  Don't become too narrow focused unless your sure that the "hole" is large enough to drive the cume you need.

Weekly reports have the same sample size as monthlies, so change comes FAST.  Just like reality.

And, just like with reality, you need to be prepared to react equally quickly.

Make a mistake in one week in diaries, it's 1/12th of the survey.  Every minute counts in PPM.  The good stuff shows us.  So does the bad stuff.  And, either way, it will show up in the ratings right away.

Balance selectivity vs stationality.  That's what programming judgement is about today.

When PPM first started, midday was the highest-rated daypart.  Now, five years later, it's afternoon drive.  Peaks at 7-8 am and 3-5 in the afternoon.

PPM rating generators:  61% of full time working (down from 69% five years ago)

P-1 listeners are still crucial:  42% of daily cume generates 59% of the AQH in PPM for the  country format.

PPM secret from the Urban PD's panel, which followed Doc and Bill's presentations:  "today, it's all about 'now and next,' what's happening now and what's going to happen next."