Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

I just posted a comment on RRW’s great post on 10 changes expected in Social Media for 2009 and realized my list of 6 needs to be on our own blog.

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CONTEXT OF RADIO AS FAR AS WE ARE CONCERNED…

Well… having attended more than a few conferences on social media, blogging and “what’s next”, as well as being a daily social media networker, my take is that in 2009, we’ll start to see the next group of early adopters from the mainstream and more traditional media begin to use social media.

This will produce the following:

1) Those that successfully experimented first to help extend their brand, like Hugh Hewitt’s twitter hash #hhrs, will see others flood in and withdraw somewhat, as the buzz subsides

2) Most of the newer adopters will bounce right off like they have been doing all along so far, as they are too out of touch with adapting to the new demographics of radio

3) Twitter, FF and FB will be gateways back to radio’s core audio content, rather than a distracting parallel activity.

4) Social media will be more about Mobile 2.0, and radio, if the leaders pay attention, will be able to score a win for a change!

5) The conversation leaders will again be those from other media that have finally come around and decided to really engage the listeners into the conversation. The value of UGC will max out at about 30% of the overall content, and UGC-based portals will lose a lot of their value.

6) The things talked about on Twitter and other such services will thankfully be less inward focussed, and more about the substantive contributions of the participants. Right now, it is such a freaking echo chamber of discussion about how everyone is doing social media, but really it is the few who promote media change that account for 90% of the activity.

More things come to mind now that I am posting this on our blog, and rereading the RRW post that triggered it. Namely, like we have been saying all along, talk radio as a form of media is a pioneer in interactivity and social engagement. Once the listeners were invited to call in and be part of the program, the conversational aspect of media jumped way ahead of the “letters to the editor” model. Now, radio needs to harness what is happening on Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed and realize that the audience can form a meaningful audio based community about the audio of the show.

But this is not going to happen from social media geeks pushing people in that direction. Radio programs need to work on ways to engage their audiences and nudge them into the new century as well as pick up new fans from younger demographics. Social media is radio’s strength, not weakness.. at least for a few more months.