FM Stations in Pakistan started tapping into the community for news and updates long before Twitter hit the scene. Citizen Journalism sits at the heart of community radio. But unlike the social media which allows users to interact because of the power of its interactive media, radio, like other traditional media, has settled into a one-way street – you have an update, make a call and have your voice recorded so it can be streamed at the appropriate time to the listeners. Unlike social media where you are in control of not only what the update is and how you send that update out but also when you stream it out.
But this is all common and rather old knowledge. So why bother to bring it up now?
Well, I am an avid listener of Apna Karachi FM 107. Have been since the very beginning. If you want a traffic update about anything happening in Karachi, chances are the RJs and production team at FM107 will know because they have a loyal community that keeps them updated.
But that controlled delivery of information irks me. Despite the fact that their site finally went up online, listeners still have to wait until the RJ makes a traffic update announcement. Should the stations make use of GPS maps or citizen reporting sites such as See N Report to encourage more interaction amongst the community? Should FM stations use RSS feeds to push updates to user cell phones? Should SMS alerts be used?
For a radio station, what should their digital strategy be? Should they even have one?
What do you think? What advice would you share with the radio channels to make them more savvy of their listeners?
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5 Responses to Can FM Stations Be More Social?
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I also tune in for traffic updates and I agree that there is a lot more that they can be doing to encash on the niche they have. Even if they take the audio recordings and upload the mp3s onto their website, that will help people to keep going back. Making regular announcements on the radio letting people know that they can go to their website and download these audio files or ‘podcasts’, is also free publicity for their website.
Ads can be better optimized on the site. Not particularly attractive the way it is now.
Visually mapping audio traffic updates is a great idea. From a technology stand point, this should be easy enough to do.
Competitions are usually a great way to get people involved in any website. For any channel, publicising these competitions are so easy because they have the airtime. These kinds of competitive strategies keep people involved and engaged.
RJs like Wes Malik (FM 89, The Drive Thru), Khalid Malik (FM 89, The Breakfast Show) and Fizza Regularly use our Mobile Social Network Pring to send updates and interact with their audience. Here is Wes’s Profile: http://pringit.com/wesmalik/ As you can see, he not only does updates but receives responses from all over Pakistan. Unlike Twitter, the messages are threaded which reduced the noisiness over SMS. You can get updates from Wes by texting WES to 2323 (or 0305-555-5555 for Mobilink & Telenor). And here’s Khalid’s Profile: http://www.pringit.com/khalidmalik
i m happy to see this page…Actualy My Team ( Thinkerz) is working in Remote Area (Mandi Ahmad Abad Okara Punjab). for a long time it was my desire to launch a FM community.But i hv nothing any information to build this Station for None Commercial Project.we already orgaised a lot of programme on local Cable TV. like Mehfl -e Naat, Mushaera, Live Results (matric, fa) and eid competitions…..it is my dream also to built a fm station (minimum 5 km range ) in my area for providing healthy and awareness programme students debates , discuission etc…Ple Help me to built this station…..thanks very much .. 0314-4033440