Spring is looked at as a time for renewal. That's why people do 'spring cleaning' during this season.
The highly-important Spring ratings period also begins during this season, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share some ‘spring cleaning’ tips with you to handle yourself, to help improve your show and the brand.
Don’t always wait on your Program Director to call you, text you, email you, or set up an air-check session to go over your talk breaks. Be your own coach and critic every once and awhile.
Air-check yourself and make sure you’re executing the basics
• Listen intensely you your talk breaks and give yourself some honest feedback.
• Ask yourself if you’re executing the basics: properly identifying the station, and including the positioner. Are you getting in and out, not talking too much? Are you keeping talk to one thought per break? Are you inviting listeners back to the station? Setting appointments? Creating more listening occasions?
• Listen for your delivery. Are you talking too loud or too low? Are your talk beds too loud when you talk? Do you even need to use a bed for certain breaks? Probably not for short breaks. Are you too close to the mic? Too far away? Are you popping your p’s?
• What about your transitions during music sweeps and into stop-sets? Are you stopping the music between songs during music sweeps? If you are stop it. That kills momentum and causes tune-out. What about your transitions into the stop-sets? Any dead air? Are you letting your talk bed play too long after you talk? Stations are venerable at every transition. Do everything in your power to make sure every talk break is a smooth transition, weather between songs or talking into or out of a stop-set.
• Are you talking over songs? Choking up too much on the end of songs? Some of the best parts and riffs are at the end of the song. Talking over the best part will only piss your listeners off.
Freshen up your talk beds
• How long have you been talking over that some old bed? Would you use the same bed for every commercial you voice? Imagine how crazy that would sound. Freshen up your beds every spring to insure you have an updated sound to keep listeners attention.
Review your features and your regular content
• Listen to see if your features sound fresh, entertaining, and engaging. If you were a listener would you turn on the radio to listen to it? Do your feature intros need freshening up (If you have any)? How about the talk beds for your feature? Does it need freshening up?
• How about your other content? Are you talking about timely issues and news? Are you talking about relevant information for the format?
Check your blogs and social media accounts
• Is your profile picture on your personality page old and outdated? How about your cover image? Make sure the links to your social media accounts are working. Are they linked to the correct page? Are we missing some accounts you would like to share like YouTube? YouTube is a social media platform and is the second largest search engine behind Google.
• Look at your social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. How often do your promote yourself and the station? Do you share stories from your blog with your friends and followers?
Use spring as a time to renew, freshen up, and critique yourself to get ready for the spring book. Be proactive and make the necessary adjustments. Worry about the things you can control. Do some ‘spring cleaning’ on your show just like you do around your house.
Lj
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