Moneyball: The Most Powerful Social Channels for Radio Stations

Nuvoodoo: Leigh Jacobs & Carolyn Gilbert

Last week we drilled into the most influential marketing channels for likely ratings participants. At or near the top of every ranking we showed were text messages – an incredibly potent tool if you’ve been dogged about building and maintaining station databases.

Those text messages can alert engaged listeners to contest opportunities, special programming, airplay of new songs by killer artists, station appearances, and more. With some editorial care, messages from your station become welcome communication. And the cost is minimal and the effort from your thinly stretched staff is minimal as well.

Social media is a potentially free part of your marketing plans for the fall book that starts in less than six weeks. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat show up as influential marketing channels among likely ratings participants. We thought we’d offer a look at which social media channels get the most use among music format P1s across the 2,000+ Adults 18-64 in NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study 26.

We’ll start by looking at weekly usage of ten different channels. We were surprised to see such high weekly usage levels for LinkedIn among P1s of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) and Hard Rock. If you’re running a Country brand, it’s likely that you don’t need to spend as much time tending Snapchat as you do YouTube, Facebook, Insta, and TikTok.

X/Twitter remains at least a weekly check-in for over half the P1s in: CHR, Hard Rock, CCM, Adult Hits, Classic Hits, and Hip Hop. But the real power comes from understanding which channels listeners go back to over and over every day. To get our arms around that, we’ll look at percentages of music format P1s who say they check into a social channel at least four times a day.

YouTube, Facebook, and Insta are easy bets in almost any music format, but how hard to lean into TikTok, Snap, and X/Twitter depends on your station’s format. While there are some exceptions, the opportunities to connect meaningfully with listeners on Threads, Bluesky, LinkedIn, or Truth Social are limited.

With the fall book less than six weeks away, there’s still time to plan fall promotions. NuVoodoo’s marketing team can help get the word out to the right people for prices starting just over $4K. It’s true that your station’s marketing team can buy much of the same digital inventory, we’ve developed technology to make more potent use of Connected TV, enabling us to stretch station budgets. An email to tellmemore@nuvoodoo.com will get you a quick response.

If you’re worried about the outcome of the spring book, it’s a perfect time to review research options. NuVoodoo has library tests and tactical perceptual studies starting at $9500. We can still get you the answers you need before the start of the fall book. An email to tellmemore@nuvoodoo.com will get you a quick response.