Saturday Catch-Up with our man from McVay Media

Anstandig’s Digital Summer Reading List – Part 1

Every week in connected, we talk about the evolution of the media business. Together, we realize our industry’s future. My goal is to give you takeaways that help you to improve and evolve your approach to content and revenue development.

This week, an outline of some of the best connected articles that can help you to accelerate as a manager and leader in the digital space.

Building a Digital Strategy for your Station

 1. Digital A-Z Checklist for 2011: NOW is the time to prepare for digital audience and revenue success in 2011. The best place to start your journey to a new media breakthrough is a review of the basics. So this week, a review of the A-B-Cs, with valuable input from some of the industry’s greatest thought leaders.

 2. Nine Ways to Get More Traffic from Search Engines: For some websites, up to 50% of their web traffic can come from search engines like Google, Bing, MSN, and Yahoo. Optimizing your site for search engines is key to growing the number of visitors to any site. These are the basics of search engine optimization--nine steps you can take to increase the traffic you receive from search engines.

 3. Streaming Ads Increase Ad Recall and Ad Response: When used together with broadcast radio, streaming audio can improve the response rate and recall of advertising. That’s one of the key findings behind TargetSpot’s outstanding Ad Impact Study. Read more here.

4. New Ideas: Every week in Radio3D, my hope is that you find something “sharable.” This should be something so good that you’ll be a hero for sharing it with a friend. In this article, you’ll find a few new ideas from Interactive PDs around the country, including online Christmas cards, a football web content idea, and a Facebook promotional idea.

 5. Seven Lessons for Interactive Local Media: The local ad market is on a growth curve. The local interactive ad market is on fire. In this article, you’ll read seven lessons related to the SMB market, local buyers, effective digital business plans, and technology.

 6. Seven Digital Media Trends of 2011: The new year will be noted as the year that print goes to the tablet, the digital talent pool gets utilized by major broadcasters, deal hunters get digital service, mobile hits a tipping point, the audience drives the show, and marketers exercise targeting muscle. Read more in this article on the emerging digital trends of 2011.

7. 2011: The Year of Mobile Breakthroughs for Media: Mobile is instant, portable, and personalized, and in the new year, we will see some big breakthroughs for traditional media in the mobile world.

 8. Should We Drop Our Website and Just ‘Do Facebook?: I have been hearing this question often in my travels, especially from managers who are frustrated by their company’s unwillingness to invest in digital initiatives. The question is, “If we can’t produce a good Web site with good content and profitable advertising opportunities for local clients, should we just forward our dot com to our Facebook page? We seem to have more momentum there!” My answer is in this article.

9. A Slideshow for your Future: Here you’ll find four outstanding slide shows to share with your team that will challenge you to think about your company’s digital ambitions. Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start presentation is featured here as well as Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask and Answer—a thought-provoking presentation by Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley.

10. Another Perspective on Social Media: Cid Carver is not your average up-and-coming marketing professional. A senior at Suffolk University, Cid has a vision for how social media is changing the worlds of education, marketing, and technology.

11. The A-Z of Database Marketing: In response to the A-Z on Digital for 2011, Ruth Presslaff, Michelle Novak, and Steve Zielonka from Presslaff Interactive wrote an “A-Z for Database Marketing.”

12. The Blue Ocean for Radio: Why reinvent anyway? This article will give you helpful insights on how other industries and business have made pivotal (and highly profitable) changes to their strategies. If you haven’t yet read Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, it is excellent holiday reading!

13. Digital Media Strategy Checklist: These are fundamental questions you should ask yourself and your team regarding content, community, communication, commerce, monetization, movement / traffic, and management.

14. Your Reinvention Plan: A huge part of reinventing your station and business plan for the future is revising the jobs and expectations of key management. In this article, you’ll read our ideas on new job descriptions for every key management role in an average radio station.

Becoming a Better Manager

Everyone is a manager—whether you are managing yourself or a big group of people. This series of articles is for your self-development as must as your team-development.

 1. Rethinking the Role of General Manager in a Digital World: Now, managing a broadcasting P&L is more complex and demanding than ever. The brands driving a company ledger are no longer just AM, FM, or TV—and they require an entrepreneurial approach. Managers are forced to be creative about managing the growth of businesses day-to-day. Our industry is faced with increased competition and (in many cases) fewer people resources.

2. Five Tips on Hitting Your Goals in 2011: Do you have big goals set for yourself or your company in 2011? Good! Enjoy the growth opportunity of stretching beyond your current situation into a greater future. This article will give you five tips for accomplishing your goals this year.

3. Top Five Digital Excuses from Radio Sellers: Forty weeks out of the year, I am on the road visiting markets large and small to work with media companies that are making moves forward into the digital marketing space. Now and then, I'll encounter a Sales Manager or Account Executive who is being dragged along for the ride with the company's digital ambitions. I enjoy these encounters because the conversations they spark are critical to turning a "legacy" operation into a digital-age operation.

 4. Setting Audience Goals: Setting goals is arguably the most important part of your role as a manager. You have to know where you’re going before you figure out how to get there. I encourage clients to look at several key metrics when setting audience goals. In this article, you’ll learn about key metrics that we track on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis.

5. The Right People Make All the Difference: When you are trying to accomplish something BIG, like developing your radio business, whom you choose to surround yourself with can make or break you. That’s a simple truth. When managers bring in the right people, even the biggest most audacious goals can be easily achieved.

6. Reevaluating the Role of Program Director: The job of a Program Director has changed. Now, to be successful as a programmer, there is much more to do than manage a music/talent schedule, write imaging, and schedule promotions. For many, the role of Program Director has evolved into a multi-media brand manager—a position responsible for overseeing all manifestations of a brand, far beyond that of an AM or FM audio channel. It has also evolved into a more entrepreneurial position, where programmers are forced to be creative about “running the station’s content business” with few people and little resources.

7. Developing New Talent: The personalities you want to hire are now using much more than a microphone to communicate. Personalities are now empowered with new ways to reach the audience—including blogs, Twitter accounts, text messaging, and streaming audio/video. But, how will you find them? Read more in this article.

8. Encourage Everyone to be a Leader: Ask yourself these 15 questions for ultimate self-reflection that will help you to become a better team player.

9. Understanding the Next Generation: If you are finding that it is difficult to attract new (young) talent into your company, you might be interested to read these results from the 2010 Junior Achievement Careers Survey.

 10. The Top 10 Excuses for NOT INNOVATING: Excuses are the biggest block to innovation. Can you see your name attached to any of the quotes in this article? If you do, this is a great opportunity to reevaluate your thinking!

11. Can You Unplug for 24 Hours?: You may (or may not) be surprised to find out that the answer to this question among nearly 200 students at the University of Maryland, College Park, was NO. Read their accounts of the experiment and learn about the entanglement of social media among radio’s next generation of listeners.

12. Digital: Radio’s Third Silo: Is “digital” becoming the new third silo in your building? This is a trap!

Next Week in connected: Anstandig’s Digital Summer Reading List – Part 2, including information on the shifting of our audience and revenue. 
 

About the Writer

Future-minded and passionate, Daniel Anstandig’s experience includes developing digital business strategies for media companies, designing content strategies for broadcast and interactive, and coaching executives. He is President of McVay New Media, and editor of Radio-Info.com's new media newsletter, connected.