As stations plan for the next fiscal year, it’s likely that social media has entered the conversation.  Communicating with audience members via social media can be as rudimentary as scheduling posts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, et al, and deployment of contemporaneous content in reaction to daily and hourly events. 

Those are usually carried out as part of a staff member’s duties, or through a full-time social media marketing person or small team.  The impact of social media on brands and mission continues to grow by leaps and bounds, so it is now essential for public media stations to have a social media strategy.  Not merely a list of tactics, but an integrated strategy that employs multiple platforms and data sets, focused on improving all fundraising and content channels.

As you budget for FY2020, keep in mind a series of predictions from Business Insider Intelligence about the Top Trends in Social Media for 2019.  They include:

• Medium-length social video taking off in a big way.  Presently, short-form (under 5 mins) and long-form (+20 mins) video consumption on smartphones lead the pack.  There is opportunity in the 5-20 min category.  All stations, whether radio, TV or joint licensee, can engage audience with medium-length video content, as a number of for-profit media companies have demonstrated by excising segments from prior day’s shows and posting them on Facebook.

• Cord-cutting has increased dramatically, putting traditional cable operators at greater risk.  This bodes well for media that engage audiences frequently through social media platforms; increased mindshare can translate into a closer relationship with individual audience members and donors.

 The level of sophistication of viewer and listener engagement has gotten even higher through platforms such as Sprinklr.  Sprinklr allows stations to be in all the online spaces where your donors and prospects are, without having to be in 8 different places at once.  It’s a 360-degree view of your members that incorporates data from social channels to provide pinpointed communication that help grow membership, donation, viewers, listeners, and use of on-demand content.

You may have attended CDP’s webinar about Sprinklr recently and wondered whether it might be time to investigation the power of the platform.  We’ve negotiated with Sprinklr on your behalf to offer CDP Partner stations Sprinklr seats priced at special rates.  The first step is to learn about Sprinklr; then contact us about a 30-minute personalized Sprinklr demo.