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B Gets A+ For Social Media Savvy
October 18, 2016
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It's more than the number of followers someone has or the frequency of posts that defines social media superstar status.
Often included in the desired attributes for a new hire in radio are the words, 'must be social media savvy.' But, what exactly does that mean?
For Twitter, the strength is influence and penetration. If you're posting, are people MORE than hitting the like button, but following in return? Also, if you're engaging with celebs, are they responding?
If you want to test your strength in this area, simply begin tweeting at celebrities or people in positions, with the hope to get a response, like or retweet. It will take a message of thought, creativity, or even psychology to get them to react, but if you do it, which isn't easy, can you do it again? Once you've done it more than five times, there is no doubt you're mastering the craft of creating reaction.
Why Our Brains Hurt
The same thought process that we use in creating effective radio content breaks can be used when attempting to get reaction in the Twitterverse.
For Facebook, having 5,000 friends is only cool if you're able to MOVE those 5,000 to high engagement with your videos, pictures and posts. While our fan and station pages should be striving to increase the numbers of people following us, to ridiculous levels, the real number isn't how many are following, but the percentage that engage when we are active.
How many things have you clicked LIKE on, that now sit stagnant? Exactly.
But beyond all of this, there is something bigger, better and a truth teller, when it comes to just how savvy you think you are, when it comes to influence.
Follow Through Not Only Good When Playing Sports
Have you turned your engagement into something that gets shared and shared and shared and shared, and then shared some more?
When I first met Corey B, he was doing part time on-air work in Tampa, but not long after, he was flying high in the night slot at B97 in New Orleans. And once he got that job, not only did he continue to work on his radio chops, but also his ability to work a crowd at live events, and oh yeah, there are also his videos.
The days of posting pics of all the places and events you're at or hosting and believing that this is the 'savvy' they're talking about when it comes to social media, has now been trumped by a young man and the camera on his iPhone.
The days of a creative post that gets people to react is a great one-off, but that doesn't make you the social media guru. Relating to a completely different audience than you reach on the radio, but also entertaining the audience that you reach through the airwaves with your creative videos...now that's something.
Caught on Video Goes Viral
This video titled "When Only Your Mom Can Find It" has the complete beginning, middle and end of any good story, and a GREAT callback utilizing lyrics from Adele. What this video is, is well thought out and written, with comedic timing, with a theme that we can relate to. On top of that, it's incredibly well acted, but most impressive is the follow-through of creating it, recording it, editing it and displaying it.
All of that by itself is enough for most of us to quit doing it after the first one.
Corey B didn't quit. And now, there are hundreds of his videos, and most of them have over 1 Million views.
The Facebook algorithms changed overnight and all of the things we thought were effective were now no longer being seen. But when Facebook started to give videos preferential treatment to attempt to put the brakes on the sharing of YouTube videos, Corey B was sitting in the driver's seat of an unseen momentum that was about to be multiplied like a gremlin dropped in a baby pool.
What Are You Looking At?? Yeah, ME too!
His videos are timely, so 7 months ago when he did this one about Facebook adding the LOVE button, this wasn't a video about Facebook or posting on Facebook, but a real life scenario of boyfriends and girlfriends all over this land.
'Must be savvy with social media' isn't just a couple of words to inspire you to step up your game plan when it comes to online reach, but a separator of those who took a morsel of an idea and worked it into something that was bigger than their stations, bigger than themselves, taking on a life form of its own.
And for that kid in Tampa - who I later ran into at a club he was doing the mobile DJ thing at in New Orleans - Corey B has now landed in the home of the 2016 World Series Champion Chicago Cubs.
The City of Big Shoulders has always been about work ethic. Corey B will have no problem fitting in there. Any issues he does have while he's there, will, no doubt, become viral videos on Facebook.
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