Monday, April 18, 2011

The Importance Of Social Nets To Radio...

The importance of using social networks has been underscored once again. Although social networks have been around for less than five years, their impact as a traffic source has become a driving force for business and entertainment. Outbrain, a recommendation engine, conducted a recent study in which they "pulled a sample data set of 100 million sessions across more than 100 web publishers - defining a session as a series of page views within a website with no more than 30 minutes between one page view and the next." The results, according to Media Post showed that the top content viewed were news stories, entertainment and lifestyle categories. All of those categories received the most traffic from social sources. Surprisingly, sports ranked last...

Far too many jaded radio people tend to forget that radio is an entertainment source, but of course it is. Falling right after web searches for news sources, web surfers consider entertainment their second choice. That means that radio has to use the leading social sites, Facebook and Twitter as a magnet not only for station websites but for listening to radio itself...

Outbrain, in their study thought it was worth comparing relative traffic quality to see what differences exist between Facebook and Twitter. They found that both sites drive "similarly engaged audiences in terms of page views per session, bounce rates (those who bounce from one to another) and hyper-engaged reader sessions. The one difference was in their relative reach (defined as the number of unique visitors per 1,000 sessions." The results showed that "a session from Facebook was 40% more likely to be from a unique visitor compared to Twitter, whose audience was more likely to be made up of repeat visitors." However you interpret those results, radio needs to do a better job of convincing social network consumers to, not only visit their websites but listen to their station...

10 Timeline Memories:
1.1775] In the midnight hour: Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on their ride from Charlestown to Lexington (MA) to warn the colonists that those nasty Redcoats were coming. This is Patriot's Day in Boston which features the Boston Marathon and a morning game at Fenway Park...
2.1906] Shake and bake: San Francisco is devastated by an earthquake that takes 3,000 lives...
3.1923] Opening day: John Philip Sousa's band plays the national anthem as Yankee Stadium opens in the Bronx. The Yankees beat the Red Sox in the opener 4-1...
4.1949] Brits take note: The Irish Republic is proclaimed...
5.1956] Wedding Bells: Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco...
6.1978] Returning the canal: The U.S. Senate votes (68-32) to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control in 1999...
7.1983] Death at the embassy: A suicide bomber kills 63, including 17 Americans, at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon...
8.1999] The Great One bows out: Wayne Gretzky, the NHL's all-time leading scorer plays his last professional game at Madison Square Garden...
9.2002] Gotcha: Police arrest actor Robert Blake in the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley one year earlier. Blake will be acquitted but is found liable in a civil case...2003] Scott Peterson is arrested in the death of his wife, Laci, who was 8 months pregnant when she vanished on Christmas Eve, 2002. Peterson was sentenced to death and is currently on death row at San Quentin...
10.2007] Supes rule: The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling,uphold a federal ban on a medical procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion...

Music Memories:
Events:
The "IBS-Spring Palooza" is coming Friday & Saturday, April 22 & 23, 2011. The weekend of local, live music on member stations of the IBS Student Radio Network, helps local college bands get airplay, creates a buzz around your station and raises some money for local charities. For additional information contact Backbone's George Capalbo, gcapalbo@backbone.com or Steve Theo, Pirate! Promotions, steve@piratepirate.com

"Happy Birthday...happy birthday": America Ferrera (27), Kourtney Kardashian (32), Conan O'Brien (48), Jane ("Hot In Cleveland" & Frasier") Leeves (50), Eric Roberts (55), Rick Moranis (58), James Woods (64), Hayley Mills (65), rock critic Robert Christgau (69) & Barbara (Della Street on "Perry Mason") Hale (89)...

Timeline Countdown: Passover begins at sundown, 6 days until Easter Sunday, 10 days until the NFL draft, 19 days until the Kentucky Derby & 20 days until Mother's Day...