This post was planned since Monday, so despite some interesting recent events, I chose to go ahead and post it today. After further reflection, it is apparent that Kidd Kraddick in the Morning is lacking a designated show blogger / web personality to boost the show’s online reputation. With four hours of live broadcast each day and hours of show prep afterwards, it’s rather obvious that none of the show’s cast has the time to be that full-time web voice. Between show, prep, special appearances, and living a real life, your team is already spent. Hence the reason why everyone doesn’t blog every day and it can take days for regular fans to get a KISSNATION or MySpace response.
Keep your social networking site profiles going. By all means, keep responding to fans as much as possible. Obviously, I don’t know everyone’s job description on staff, so I hope I don’t step on anyone’s toes with these recommendations. However, despite the fact that your show is syndicated on 55 radio stations across the country, there is still sizable room for growth, both on the air and online.
These names may not mean a lot to the less than web 2.0 savvy folks out there, but Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox are perfect examples of what is needed for KKITM. Matt Cutts is the most popular face of Google. Vanessa Fox also performed this function on some level for Google. Robert Scoble did something similar for Microsoft back in the day. These two, especially Matt, have been the extremely successful faces of the two most important search engines of this decade. While all the SEO professionals out there debate on what Google is doing to rate the value of each website page, Matt and Vanessa keep their employers in good standing with the public. They attend conferences and schmooze with the thousands of search marketers out there. Their jobs are extremely important. They make huge corporations accessible to the little man.
KKITM needs an online personality, someone who blogs about the show each day, not just summarizing, but also adding their own opinions of the day’s show and other related topics. It provides a steady expression for the show without falling into the trap of seeming overly structured and stiff (i.e. micromanaged by the company). It’s that humanity which is so popular on the air, and carries over extremely well in many corporate ventures online. Heck, with all their success and acquisitions, Google must know what they’re doing, right? Granted, both Matt and Vanessa’s blogs are located outside of the company website. I think this lends a greater air of free expression and credibility to the individuality of their stated opinions. You don’t come away thinking that they’ve just parroted their boss’ boss’ boss.
Radio and web fans would have the opportunity to engage this online personality all day. Experience proves that blogs and websites with blogs retain more repeat visitors when they engage each customer comment and question. It’s that priceless human touch which makes a listener/reader feel like an active part of something bigger than themselves. Listeners/readers who enjoy engaging with a company become loyal visitors and brand evangelists. Positive reputation spreads by word of mouth and the listener’s own blog comments.
Those are my two cents for today.
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For those of you who missed Good Charlotte in concert this morning at Texas Bar & Grill in Las Colinas, check out the podcast on iTunes or the Kiddlive.com website. It was a fun time. I made my third visit to the show, and saw the whole morning crew plus Kinsey and Billy the Kidd hangin’ out.
The brothers from Good Charlotte had a good set and answered some questions from the 100+ early birds in the audience. All in all, it was an early morning well spent.