Public media is aware of it has an issue. Since becoming a member of the business two years in the past, the most typical phrase we’ve heard is “We have to meet individuals the place they’re.” They’re proper—now we have a distribution drawback.
However we’re skirting round a much bigger concern. You should buy attain. You possibly can put your present on social. However none of it issues if individuals don’t discover, care, or take into consideration you in any respect.
Public media, identified for its severe journalism and academic programming, desires so badly to be vital that it typically forgets to be participating and entertaining. The problem is, once we meet individuals the place they’re, we want them to wish to be round us. On this crowded media panorama, it’s too straightforward to get misplaced and unnoticed, even with one of the best of intentions.
In a research by Oracle, 91% of individuals globally want manufacturers to be humorous and 88% of individuals are searching for new experiences to make them smile and giggle. But, 95% of enterprise leaders worry humor in shopper interactions.
What if we tried being enjoyable? Being humorous? (I’d say, being human, however there are a whole lot of uninteresting people). And never simply in a small TikTok-sized nook of the group. We have to inject enjoyable into all the things; content material and occasions, interactions with donors, and advertising and marketing.
Listed here are 4 methods KCRW is assembly the problem and learnings alongside the best way.
Social-first content material is “vital”
When public radio thinks of hiring present expertise, we default to journalists. To alter it up, KCRW collaborated with social media comic Katherine Ellis, whose fictional character Concordia Shawarma McGraw gained fame with NPR voice impressions whereas explaining lyrics to in style hits like Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Sizzling” and Cardi B’s “WAP.”
The social-first, satirical information present “Essential Issues of Nice Significance” takes on LA tales in a goofy approach whereas nonetheless instructing audiences one thing new. Company embody a puppet fox discussing a wildlife overpass over the 101 Freeway, LA billboard icon Chaz Dean speaking about model consistency, and our personal KCRW local weather reporter Caleigh Wells on algae-killing nanobubbles.
