Updates from March, 2009

  • New Websites Documentation Update

    Admin 6:45 am on March 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    Heya All!

    Joe and I are wrappng up the final kick-off meetings over the next few weeks.  If you have not heard our presentation, you have missed some good information on the content side.  Personally I get geeked out on the tech stuff, but I’m a nerd.

    The latest Template 2.0 Documentation has been updated.  If you have not seen it here it is (PDF).

    If you have any questions please contact Joe for content questions (jrosenthal@entercom.com) or me (nborders@entercom.com) for anything relating to the tools or technology.

    ~n

     

  • Hey Music 2.0 Sites – Pretty Up Yer Flippers Here

    Admin 2:39 pm on March 2, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    The quickest way to make a great first impression with any website – especially our sleek new 2.0 music sites – is by having clean, elegant navigation and a ‘first obvious click.’  For many of our sites, the ‘Flipper’ on the top left corner is meant to be that first obvious click.  If the Flipper graphics are lackluster or overly busy, they will not draw the user’s attention.

    For this very reason, our left coast Designer Dan Ermey has begun to create and stockpile original art specifically sized for the new 2.0 site Flipper area.  You can access the gallery here.

    Please use these as needed – adding clean, simple text with a distinct call to action – and if there are any other ongoing promotions you’d like Dan to whip something up for, please send him an email and request that it be added.

     

  • FlyCast, PODS and Voki (Oh My)

    Admin 10:08 am on September 15, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: FlyCast FlyTunes Voki PODS Content

    Hello,

    We are of course violating the first rule of blogging by not posting meaningful updates more frequently. So here’s our attempt to address that.

    Three quick updates have been pushed out in various forums, but seemed blog-worthy as well.

    1. FlyCast – FlyCast is the company that is enabling us to stream to the iPhone and iPod Touch (and soon Blackberry, FYI). Right now, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle are streaming on FlyCast. Several markets are coming up (based on bandwidth and Digital sales readiness), and we are proactively reaching out to markets as we slate them. The FlyCast app is now the #9 most popular app in Apple’s app store. Everything you need to know about FlyCast is here.

    2. PODS – At the beginning of 2008 we announced that we would be phasing out the seasonal PODS [Promotions on Demand] program in order to focus on station-specific content and BizDev/content initiatives such as 1Thing and Balance. That said, we are still supporting the current PODS if there are existing sales commitments. Nick Borders and the team need four weeks notice for these. More info here.

    3. Voki – Oddcast, our partner who powers the Voki avatar communities, is no longer offering free Voki communities as a result of changes they have made internally. If you have a sponsor interested in sponsoring a custom Voki site, you should contact Sandy for details and pricing. These are generally in the $2,500-$5,000 range.

     

  • Brightcove Documentation and More

    Admin 9:11 am on June 17, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    Heya all,

    First up, Dan Muzyka has done some great work on documenting many of Brightcove’s features relevant to our needs.  You can view his work on our Entercom Digital website.

    Second, we’re working hard to get ads integrated into Brightcove through 24/7.  The Brightcove and 24/7 staff has done this many times.  However, the challenge is dealing with the special circumstances of dealing with a company with many market accounts and inside those accounts multiple stations with different advertising requirements.  No worries, we’re getting it worked-out and we’ll be releasing this in the next week to WEEI.

    Finally, Have you seen the new Balance website?  No?  We’ll keep you posted soon with a link.  However, you can learn more about this here (pdf).

    ~n

    PS: Go Croatia!

    —————-
    Now playing: Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – Johnny Appleseed

     

  • Blogging Examples

    Admin 12:05 pm on May 22, 2008 | 1 Permalink | Reply

    Heya all,

    I thought it would be a good time and reflect and show off what others are doing in the blogging space.

    Sandy has been talking to many of you recently of reaching out to our users and giving the “unduplicatable” content (is that spelled correct?).  What does he mean by this in relation to Blogs? Well, blogs give end users input into the mind of our talent in a unique way separate from the website.  They can be less formal and more about creating a sense of connection between your talent and their listeners.

    Lets start off with InterTech blogs.  The benefit of their blogs is that they are designed to look like part of your station website.

    The InterTech blogs are run off of WordPress MU, with few plugins.  So their upkeep is very straight forward.  If you have a person in charge of the blogging, who is new to blogging or needs few bells and whistles, these blogs work perfect.

    Next RadioTown Blogs.  Those are blogs hosted on our own RadioTown servers (this blog is run off of it).

    You’ll see some diversity in these blogs.  That is because they are run off custom built templates that we upload into the RadioTown’s WordPress MU application.  If you’re familiar with WordPress Templates (also called themes) you can get your own or make your own.  For example, the New Orleans blogs, listed above, were built using this web tool.

    There are two reasons many of these blogs are run here instead of the ITM blogs within the station’s website.  First, they may not be associated with a single website (Kim or Alan’s blog for example).  So they can be independent in that regard.  Second they may require some more advanced plugins that are not available on the InterTech version of WordPress MU.  WEZB or WKBU for example.

    In both of these platforms you can get some good examples of how folks are using blogging to reach out in a personal way to their users.

    If you need to learn more about blogging, feel free to give us a ring.  Or just get started by going to the Blogging Implementation page on EntercomDigital.com.

    ~n

     

  • Random headlines from Advertising Age’s Digital Issue

    Admin 8:21 am on March 31, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: AdAge, Advertising Age, click-through rates, ctr,

    Weezie’s hipped me to this crazy RESET diet (five days of shakes and not much else) so in order to avoid eating (or sipping Scotch) on a nice Sunday afternoon I leafed through AdAge’s Digital issue. Here are some take-aways:

    • More than half of all Internet users conduct daily searches. For people who conduct daily searches, 23% of their searches are directly influenced by radio ads (iProspect, August 2007). [OK, TV and print influence is higher, but the radio stat sounds good in isolation.]
    • Borders is breaking their online store away from Amazon this year, and will need marketing partners to drive growth and sales – perhaps some of our Adult-leaning formats? Who’s got contacts?
    • Of the more than 100 million out there, 13 million blogs are actively updated. So as we move into the brave new world of blogging, we’d better be sure we’re posting about stuff our audience cares about – and frequently!
    • The click-through rate for standard display ads is 0.1-0.2%. For rich media (animated, interactive ads like video ads, Rovion ads, Spotlight ads, etc), the click-through rate is 2% at its “weakest.”
    • 95% of iPhone users browse the Internet on their device, versus 13% of average cell phone users.
    • This past May, American Express launched their Member’s Project, where they invited cardholders to submit, discuss, rate and vote on one charity project, pledging to contribute $1 per cardmember to the winning charity. 187K people registered, 7,000 project ideas were submitted, and 1.5 million uniques visited the site. AmEx ended up supersizing their donation to $2MM for UNICEF’s safe drinking water efforts.
    • On one Sunday in October, ESPN had more visitors to the mobile version of its site than its website. Good thing WEEI is creating a mobile version of their web site!
     

  • “Twitter is Blogging at Light Speed with a Little IM feeling Thrown In”

    Admin 7:28 am on March 26, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    I love that headline… I only wish I had come up with it.

    Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (SMS) on phones, instant messaging, or other third-party applications. Great so what?

    If you haven’t caught on just yet, my theme for 2008 is to find ways for users to “touch the studio in some way”. Blogging is a must for any radio personality speaking to a modern audience. Folks these days want to opine over a point of view.  Blogging gives a voice to your audience they know is there on air but cannot express.  Folks want to hear that.  It’s just a fact, can’t argue with that. So Blogging = Good.

    Twitter… hmmm… Well I’m not entirely convinced this doesn’t go into the realm of “white noise” in our daily lives. I mean, getting a 100 character message telling me that “Dave, is walking to the office in a good mood” is something to make me all of a twitter… sorry for the pun. So how can we use a tweet to get in touch with our listeners. Well here are some ideas:

    • Events. If you are sending a person to a huge event, lets say The Super Bowl, you can give folks feedback instantly on what is going on as an experience. I found this useful with a podcast I listen to regularly. This person was going to attend the January Apple Conference. It was exciting and brought me into the event to get a tweet saying “Steve Jobs is presenting a new mac, MacBook Air. More to come”. I tell you what, i was on this guys website so quick to see this thing I don’t think I took a breath in between.
    • Alerting users of an unexpected on air event. Tweet out your next unexpected guest to the studio.
    • Topics discussions. For you news/sports folks, giving a tweet of a great topic you want others to listen to would add value and direct users to the stream (or on air).
    • Promotions. If your promotions folks are at a location, tweet out the location. Heck give away something while you’re at it (clean out those cabinets).

    All of these things will remind folks of the great value your station and station website is and keep your brand in their frame of reference.

    One last thing… and this is important. Just like with email marketing, and probibly even more, MAKE SURE WHAT YOU TWEET IS A VALUE TO THE RECIPIENT. Got that? If not, call me and I’ll send you 20 emails today so I can remind you that folks are busy and don’t want to be bothered.

    Twitter may not be anything your station may want to jump into, but keep it in mind. It’s just another tool for us to use.

    ~n

    —————-
    Now playing: Beck – Beercan

     

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