Wild Card

  

    For the last four weeks, I have been volunteering at the KZHE radio station in Magnolia Arkansas. This station plays classic country hits. I have loved volunteering here, and I love being on air. This is something that I was not originally used to. However, throughout my time here, I have analyzed lots of details around this station. Throughout this paper, I will be giving some PR suggestions about how they could potentially grow their brand. 

    The first element that I noticed about the station were the times in which they have their shows. There are currently 2 live shows. They have a morning show every day Monday through Friday from 6-10 AM. They also have a live call-in show once a week at noon. 

    Typically, because their most popular live show is in the morning, their target audience is people who wake up early. According to Huff Post, older people typically go to sleep earlier. This time is also very purposeful, because it is drive time. People typically play radio while driving to their jobs in the morning from 6-10 am. Also, the music that this station routinely plays includes old-school country hits, hymns, gospel, bluegrass, and some quartets. Their music is catered towards an older generation. I would also say that their music is also probably catered towards more men too. All of the employees and hosts at this radio station are men. They know their audience. 

    The only recommendation I would have is to expand this audience. I would want to not only cater towards the audience they already have, which is older males, but I think it would also be cool if we were to get more of these individuals listening. Currently, they have a website and a Facebook page. 

    Their website right now is nice and interactive. However, there is lots of outdated information on it. I would not want to completely redo it. Instead, I would just remove the information that is no longer current, and replace it with correct information about events. I would also make sure that each of the photos fits the page. Right now, the photos are very small. Because their audience is mostly older adults, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make the text and photos larger so that it is easier to read. I would also include a tab about how to contact them if you want to purchase an ad read or contribute to the show. There is currently a tab here showcasing some current staff contributors, but there isn't a section about how to start contributing. The only other critique I would have concerning the website, is that some of the tabs do not lead to a working link. The main thing that would need to be fixed on the website to grow the brand would be an update. 

    KZHE also has a Facebook page. Their Facebook page gets updated quite often. This page seems to be the place to find information about shows, events, and news. The only thing I would potentially change her is, I would want to add more interactivity. For example, a friend of the radio station crocheted a sasquatch plushie for the host and owner of the station; Troye. He then made a poll on Facebook asking what the stuffed animal should be named. This got a couple of people involved and participating in naming him. 

    According to Meltwater's blog, there are 8 current steps in creating a good PR strategy. Each of these steps have been paraphrased, and they are; 

1. Goal Setting: Define clear and reasonable goals that you want to reach that also align with the organization's current brand. 
2. Audience Identification: Know your target audience(s) and their likes, dislikes, and interests. Share your messages, but also make sure to cater your message to your desired audience. 
3. Message Development: Make sure to develop your desired message. Know your brand! 
4. Media Relations: Make relationships with journalists, bloggers, and other media outlets. Try to get some sort of attention from them to get your name out there, and to make sure that there is not any negative stories being published about your brand.
5. Content Creation: Create content surrounding your brand. This will help you get your messages out further!
6. Crisis Management: Be prepared in case any potential crisis' arise. Make sure that you have a good reputation.
7. Monitoring and Measurement. Look at your analytics regularly in order to make sure that you are reaching your goals in your desired timeline. 
8. Adaptation and Improvement: Continue to fix and alter your PR strategy based on feedback, potential problems, and/or changes.

Let's dive a bit further into each of these steps!

Step 1; Goal Setting

    Our goal would most likely be to grow our audience to a specific number by a specific date. It would be nice if we could grow both our listeners and our Facebook followers. I do not have access to the amount of listeners of this station. However, there are currently 6.5k followers on Facebook. I think a good goal would be growing the follower count to 7000 followers in 9 months. I think that this is a reasonable goal, and provides enough time for us to actually reach this number. I would also like to grow our listeners to maybe an average of 30 more each week. This seems quite achievable. 

Step 2; Identifying Your Audience

    I think KZHE does this well. I do not think there is anything that needs to be altered here. They know exactly who their audience is, and they reach them pretty well! 

Step 3; Message Development

    I think they convey their messages extremely well on air and through Facebook. However, they could improve this on their website. By looking at the website, you would have no idea what events are going on. They update the weather daily, but other than that, you can't see really see what goes on at the station. 

Step 4; Media Relations

    This is something that KZHE could improve on. I think that if they were able to get some media engagement, people would be extremely interested! Radio stations are really captivating. Honestly, whenever you step into a station, you get transported. The equipment, and random man-cave-esque decor inside of the KZHE recording studio is an entirely new experience. 

Step 5; Content Creation

    This is also something that could be implemented very easily and would help them grow their brand. Any sort of short-form content would be cool! It would be great if someone did a TikTok showing a day in the life of a radio host, or answering common radio questions, or even a TikTok tour of the station. 

Step 6; Crisis Management

    I think the only way we could work on step 6 is just by watching the social media pages, and by making sure that everything said on air is okay and represents us well. 

Step 7; Monitoring and Measurement 

    This would also just include us monitoring and watching the analytics to see how and if we are improving through our predicted timeline. 

Step 8; Adaptation and Improvement

    This would just be us making sure that everything is going to plan. If it isn't, then we would need to stop and figure out what else we could do to reach our goals.