Does your radio station have a batch of DJ blogs?
Here are 7 reasons why they may be a waste of time, effort, energy, and resources – especially on music-oriented stations:
1. A blog requires a strong point of view, and many DJ’s don’t have one
In fact, in many cases a strong point of view may be exactly not what management wants on display on the station site – or on the air, for that matter.
The simple fact that you anchor a radio daypart doesn’t necessarily mean you have an audience that wants to follow your thoughts online.
2. Many DJ blogs have almost no likes or shares
Likes and shares are proxies for how valuable your content is to the audience. A great many posts from personalities on a great many stations have zero likes and zero shares. And this is true even of America’s most famous and largest radio stations and some of its best known personalities.
If it’s not good enough to like or share, is it any good at all?
3. Many DJ blogs can’t be subscribed to
It would be nice if your fans could easily get your content in their inbox, wouldn’t it? But that’s not possible in most cases. And having an RSS link is no substitute – just try explaining RSS to your audience, I dare you.
4. Many DJ blogs get little or no traffic
If folks aren’t reading your blogs, then what’s the point?
5. Many DJ’s don’t want to create blog content
“I do all my blogging on the air,” they may say, and they’re not entirely wrong. But resisting the demands of blogging and doing it with less than half a heart will only guarantee that the end result will be even less compelling, less worthy of liking and sharing, and less worthwhile at all.
6. Most stations don’t have a strategic purpose to their blogs
“We do it because it seems like we’re supposed to” are words you’ll never hear a broadcaster say, but it’s surely what many are thinking to themselves. What is the purpose of a DJ blog? If you can’t answer that question, why bother?
7. Many DJ’s don’t know what to blog about
As a result, they repurpose whatever’s in the pop cultural ether – that is, exactly the stuff fans get from a wide variety of other places already – places they go to specifically for this kind of information and entertainment, thus making the DJ post redundant at best and late to the party at worst.
So check out the blogs for your station’s DJ’s. Review your analytics. Are they being viewed? Are they being liked and shared?
In too many cases, you already know the answer, and it is “no.”
Later this week I’ll post about what DJ and station blogs can and should be.
In the meantime, if you have DJ blogs that get gobs of traffic and attention and likes and shares, share the link here – it’s your chance to brag and teach your peers a thing or two.