Tommy Kramer Tip #51 – You ARE Twitter

Dear friend and fellow Texas Radio Hall of Famer Randy Brown said something to me the other day that really struck home: In the early 70’s when our little rebel alliance was ushering in FM becoming dominant at Gordon McLendon’s KNUS in Dallas, we WERE Twitter. We were tightly edited, concise with our wording, and only made one point per break.

If you want to look at radio back then as social media today, AM Top 40 was Facebook. They had a huge following, with millions of listeners, and were the 800-pound gorilla—until we made those pukey, rambling deejays sound like they just couldn’t shut up.

Over and over, in market after market, PPM verifies what we knew then. If you’ll be concise (so you don’t waste people’s time) and offer something of real value to the listener every time you open the mic, you’ll be wildly successful.

And remember this: Just like Twitter is limited to 140 characters, the listener is sitting there, listening to you, with his foot tapping anxiously, waiting for you to get to the point. 140 really fast foot taps, then YOU’RE DONE—whether you’ve actually finished or not. The LISTENER decides.

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Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2014 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.