The World Is Unmoved By How Great Your Prize Wheel Is

In 2012, a year when Kodak filed bankruptcy while Instagram -- a photo/video sharing app -- became worth $1 billion dollars (sold to Facebook), two things became clear. Film had been replaced by the smartphone, and the social space was becoming more about visual storytelling.

Consider these stats, only two years later here in 2014:

• 60 Million photos shared on Instagram daily.
• Over 350 Million pictures uploaded each day on Facebook.
• 700 Million "snaps" on Snapchat are sent every day.

Not to mention how much time is spent looking at all of these selfies day in and day out.

Mark Zuckerberg tells us that people on average spend 21 minutes per day on Instagram, and 40 minutes a day with Facebook.

And while radio is becoming more visual, too, there's a concern about the amount of pictures posted with tickets I could win, station vans, prize-wheels and tents.

It's understandable that stations want to use social media to promote and market where you are, what you're doing, and what you're giving away. But think of it this way: when that's what radio does, it's literally screaming in fans' faces.

More and more people are looking at your "social pitches" with their phone screens right in their face. And they don't want to be sold -- they want to feel welcomed.

The entire premise of these platforms is to "elevate people's capacity to build and maintain connections." And that is exactly how your audience uses them every day of their lives.

People are recording their "timelines" and they aren't especially interested in what brands are doing or how great they say they are.

What they crave are things they can relate to.

Use Nike as an example. You'll never see them directly pitch their product to you. It's always a story -- something we either relate to or that moves us -- when they speak socially:

That is "what works" on social - pure emotion.

Liquid content filled with contagious feelings.

And there's nothing easy about creating it.

But if you keep working at visual storytelling, it gets a little easier.

One way I work at it is with my small group of radio friends who are willing to play around on Snapchat with me.

Our "snaps" may not be award-winning, but we all laugh at each other as we get closer to trying to be better visual storytellers.

Brook Stephens is one of those friends. She's on the air and Music Director for KZPK/Central Minnesota. Being silly -- or "flawsome" - on these secondary platforms helps us get closer to how and why the younger end of our audience enjoys social.

Visual communication is where it's at.

But we have to work at this every day. It's impossible to hone the skill of artfully using visuals when we resort to memes or by just winging it. There's such a thing as practice in the social space, too. And studying what sticks.

Perhaps author John Steinbeck said it best: "Only the deeply personal and familiar clearly resonates."

Social is such an opportunity to go beyond the ordinary and create meaningful fan experiences.

But we have to work at it to make it matter.

Reach out to me anytime on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Please enjoy MERGE archives here.