What about you, Spoken-Word-Media-Guy?  Guy-who-makes-his-living-by-talking?  What are you doing to expand your “virtual brand?”  Here’s a tip: Use the freedom that podcasting offers to do something different from what you do on the radio. Surely, there is more to you than politics.  Right…. right?  Try using the podcast to tap into your other passions.

I know.  You won’t make money right away with a podcast.  Probably not.  But you need to consider the wisdom of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who tells his staff, “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”  Bring passion and hard work to your project and it will pay off.

Got an idea, but not sure how to proceed?  I’d love to talk it out with you.

Thanks to Don Anthony’s Jockline Daily for hipping me to the Mohr story.

1. Pick a group/person that resonates with your audience:  Patriots fans, the embattled mayor, wives, Democrats, Newt…

2. Post the question on Facebook a few hours before the show to start the ball rolling and create a stack of responses to use between calls.

3. Tease the segment aggressively so listeners can be thinking of clever lines.

4. Have fun with it.

One caveat: This schtick is close to burnt.  Use it soon.

As a power user of streaming, I agree with all of his observations. While many of the problems are out of a PD’s control, a good programmer can eliminate this one:

“Streaming more has made me very conscious, by the way, that six- and seven-minute stopsets very much still exist. And because some owners have made a greater recent effort to cover them with music (many Clear Channel stations) or at least fill them with real spots (simulcast with the FM signal or otherwise), one becomes very conscious of those streaming stopsets that are still cobbled together from hardsell PSAs, multiple morning show promos, and inducements to buy stream-only advertising.

“It often seems to be the case that the longer a station’s stopset, the less likely it will be covered in a listenable way online.”

When is the last time you listened closely to your stream?  Is it studded with stale promos, spots that play back-to-back-to-back, and dead air?

Based on my experience, it might well be.

IDEA: Do you have an APD, or an up-and-coming staffer who wants to learn the art of programming?  Put that person in charge of your stream. Let her own it, and hold her responsible for how it sounds and performs.

If you haven’t seen it, watch it right now.  If you are responsible for audio content creation in any way — news director, program director, podcaster — this could be the most valuable nine minutes of your day.  The lesson is simple: Writing is the be-all and end-all of great content.  This is an especially timely lesson in this day of limited resources. The words matter more than staff size, more than budget, more than the length of the newscasts, more than access to actualities. More than anything.

One great news writer can be a difference-maker.

I experienced this firsthand at WGST/Atlanta where I was lucky enough to work with David Hull, a former CNN Radio anchor with a gift  for  tight copy that was at once both conversational and near-poetic.   His newscasts were very often the highlight of our morning drive show.  I don’t have any David Hull audio handy, but here’s another powerful example of the power of pen and microphone

For our imaging and VO friends.

“Research indicates that our brains are wired to prefer [female voices] to male ones; that’s the reason robotic voices, like those in GPS devices, tend to be female. (This probably has an evolutionary explanation: fetuses in the womb, identifying with their caretaker, can distinguish their mother’s voice from others, a study published in the journal Psychological Science found.)

When it comes to credibility, however, research into the perceived believability of a voice — an important quality for the omniscient narrator of a trailer, as well as the spokesman or -woman for any product, which is the function a trailer serves — tells a different story.

“On average both males and females trust male voices more,” said Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford, noting some gender disparity exists in that women don’t distrust female voices as much as men distrust them. In one study conducted at Stanford two versions of the same video of a woman were presented to subjects: one had the low frequencies of the woman’s voice increased and the high frequencies reduced, the other vice versa. Consistently subjects perceived the deep voice to be smarter, more authoritative and more trustworthy.”

Read more HERE.

Thoughts?  I used a woman as our secondary imaging voice at WGST/Atlanta, and I thought she added a lot — youth, sexiness, energy.  The Clark Howard Show uses a female voice who has a very different effect, sort of motherly and reassuring.

“Radio has got to become more of an engagement vehicle. Engagement is critical for advertisers today. A lot of people listen to radio in the background and it’s not intrusive, and it’s not engaging. It is more passive. How do you make radio more engaging? So, I think return of investment proof and engagement proof is critical. If you can prove that, they will be buying radio all day long.”

No format is better positioned for engagement than spoken-word.  Is your show and/or station making the most of this advantage?

“Are you an award winning journalist seeking a new position? Do you have years of experience in a traditional newsroom? Do you have the training and talent to decide what people need to hear? Do you use jargon to demonstrate your competence in the language of news? Are you cynical, stubborn and committed to the playbook of traditional journalism? If so, you should send your materials to Michelle Komes-Dolge, News Director, WNEW-FM, Laurel MD.

“Are you willing to throw out the rule book? Can you write clear, colorful and interesting stories? Send something that blows us away to: Merlin@merlinmediallc.com.

“We are currently staffing Philadelphia, and markets yet to be named. Let’s reinvent the news business together.”

Zarrella says,  ”I looked at more than 100k randomly chosen active Twitter accounts and their Tweets. I analyzed the percentage of their Tweets that contain a link… [and] I found that accounts that had high link-percentages between 60% and 80% had the most ReTweets…If you’re interested in ReTweets, broadcasting lots of interesting content works much better than ‘engaging in the conversation.’”

The key there, of course, is “interesting content.”   Read his full report HERE.

Zarrella’s website is packed with useful insights on how to use social media more effectively, including writing and timing tips.  Check him out at www.danzarrella.com.

By the way, have you signed up for the Talkfrontier.com RSS feed?   Do it and you’ll get a steady stream of useful insight and advice for spoken-word media professionals delivered straight to your email box or RSS reader.

“There is a difference between passion and anger.  Passion is strength without anger.  It is the foundation of moral authority.  People are drawn to passion, they are repulsed by anger.”

Does anger have a place in talk radio?  Absolutely.  But as the Renaissance physician Peracelsus noted, “the dose makes the poison.”  Applied authentically, righteously and judiciously, anger can make for some compelling radio.  But when it is used as a core ingredient for a show, anger can quickly turn toxic and stunt or kill the program.

Any idea where this quote came from?  If so, please let me know so I can give credit where it’s due.  Email me at randall@talkfrontier.com

“If you’re chasing after positive reviews, demographic trends or a lucrative box office, Gervais said, ‘you’ve already failed.” But, he added, “if your only ambition is to get something off your chest and render it exactly as you wanted it, then you’re bulletproof.’”

That advice applies to radio personalities perhaps more than any other type of entertainer.

Read the entire NYT  piece HERE.