Friday, February 26, 2010

Finger Candy Friday: Meet KNIX's Matt McAllister(@BenAndMatt)

GET SOCIAL with @JessicaNorthey
THIS WEEK I caught up with KNIX Country's Matt McAllister and am excited for you to get to know someone I really admire.   I have followed the career of Phoenix's KNIX Morning Show Co-Host for awhile now.  He is dedicated to putting the highest quality programming on the air. Matt is a very talented On-Air Personality who is in tune with the Country Music audience.  I was really excited about reading his submission for SocialMediology.com.  He really has a great understanding of how to integrate Social Media into Traditional Media and enhance the relationship with listeners. I expect more great things to come from Matt! - @JessicaNorthey

HOW KNIX USES SOCIAL MEDIA
with KNIX's Morning Show Co-Host Matt McAllister
Using social networking to promote your show isn’t just something that you “can” do, it’s something that you must do! The whole face of the radio game has completely changed in the last 10 years and we are seeing the marquis shows that couldn’t adapt to this new world get phased out. It’s unreal but you look at a market like San Diego, and every big name show has disappeared in the last few years…shows that have been around for 20 years or more, and dominated the market.

Part of that is a result of the economy with radio companies no longer willing or able to spend millions of dollars on one show anymore. But I firmly believe that another component of these old school shows leaving the ring is the fact that some of them didn’t adapt to the way listeners want to interact with their radio talent nowadays. The old days of “listen from 6-10am” are over. In fact, the on-air part of our show is now about 1/3 of our total presence in our listeners lives. The other 2 moving parts to the equation are live appearances and social networking. These days people are so used to getting what they want instantly! You have to provide it or they will find it somewhere else. They want and expect total access and we, as talent should feel honored they want to share our lives with theirs.

We post quizzes on Facebook and Twitter every morning to compliment what we are doing on the air. We also make use of an in-studio webcam and post daily blogs and updates on our website. In fact, as I sit here writing this article I’m having 5 to 6 conversations in Facebook IM with listeners who want to know what I’m doing right now. I handle most of the communication online for our show, and it’s a full time job. My iPhone blows up all day and I’m always posting updates and pictures to keep our audience engaged.

Nowadays it’s not uncommon for me to watch tv shows with our listeners and share observations the night before we talk about the show on the air. It’s a great way to gather material and lines from our audience, there is also something comforting about staying connected all the time.

Or maybe it’s just a sick addiction and I need help. Either way…it’s the industry standard for us now-so we better embrace it or find ourselves on the sideline…

Matt McAllister
mattmcallister@clearchannel.com
102.5 KNIX
Phoenix, AZ



MORE INFO ABOUT BEN & MATT



twitter.com/FTCtweets
facebook.com/FullThrottleCountry

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