Radio's Missed Opportunity

Radio Ink

by WAYNE ENS

1-15-2014

I’m afraid radio’s history is repeating itself. There is no question that the Internet has changed the way people buy, and the way businesses sell. As the Internet is replacing all previous forms of print, radio is still missing the boat.
In the old print-media world, every radio station let Yellow Pages take more local ad dollars out of their market than all of the radio stations in their market combined.

This, even though research proved time and time again that consumers were more likely to call on a business they had heard of, rather than the first business in the Yellow Pages section or the business with the largest ad, if they had never heard of that business.

As the online directory, social media, and search engine optimization folks capture former Yellow Pages revenues, history is repeating itself.

These new media now siphon local ad dollars into SEO (search engine optimization) or accumulating “likes” or “followers.” The research proves being heard of trumps SEO and likes. There is no question that SOM (share of mind) is the best SEO on the planet.

Internet guru Seth Godin says, “It is better to be sought, than to be found.” The only sure way to be sought is if consumers search for a business name rather than search for the product it sells.

If consumers do search for a category generically, SOM is still the clear winner.

Our research in 126 local markets of more than 25,000 consumers confirms that 82.6 percent are more likely to click on a business name they recognize rather than the one that they’ve never heard about that might be at the top of a search engine page.

SEO enthusiast Jesse Quist says, “Updates to Google’s Penguin and Panda algorithm, along with changes to the way the search engine processes search queries, have made it tough to ensure you’re setting your site up for maximum traffic. Google moved to encrypt all searches performed with its search engine, which means companies no longer have access to the keywords customers are using to find their websites. On top of all this, Google made the biggest change to its algorithm in a decade, code-named Hummingbird, affecting 90 percent of search queries.”

The pursuit of likes and followers is even more futile than SEO. Assuming consumers will prefer your business because of its alleged popularity is pure folly. Yet many businesses spend thousands of dollars buying false likes or followers to appear more popular.

A recent Associated Press article revealed “Celebrities, businesses, and even the U.S. State Department have bought bogus Facebook likes, Twitter followers, or YouTube viewers from offshore click farms, where workers tap, tap, tap the thumbs up button, view videos, or retweet comments to inflate social media numbers.”
BuyPlusFollowers sells 250 Google+ shares for $12.95. InstagramEngine sells 1,000 followers for $12. AuthenticHits sells 1,000 SoundCloud plays for $9.

“It's a lucrative business”, says the president and CEO of WeSellLikes.com. "The businesses buy the Facebook likes because they're afraid that when people go to their Facebook page and they only see 12 or 15 likes, they're going to lose potential customers.”

Consumers are becoming aware of these false likes and online reviews, but radio isn’t telling the SOM and branding power story effectively. Creating credibility, awareness, and preference for a business with the intrusive power of radio has never been more important.