Two weeks ago, my column focused on the idea that there is a generational split that isn’t driven by what content each generation likes but how they consume it. In our world Baby Boomers and Generation X are radio listeners while Millennials and Generations A and Z are more likely to stream their music. It’s not that the younger generations don’t have passion for Classic Rock music, we know that they do. It’s about what medium they use to consume it.
Evan Shapiro, who I interviewed for that column, said that the best way for Classic Rock stations to utilize the credibility of their brands to reach younger generations is to explore other media. Two that he suggested were podcasts, which I wrote about last week, and community building, which is the rabbit hole I’d like to go down this week.
In marketing circles community is a big buzzword these days. If you oversee a brand and haven’t run into the concept yet, I guarantee you will soon. And, while I have an excellent real-life example of building a community around a Classic Rock radio station to share with you, before I get into that, I wanted to start by exploring the concept and learning what it is and isn’t.
Seth Resler is the founder of Community Marketing Revolution. His goal is to help content creators, media professionals and event producers build communities. Even better, Resler is also a radio guy. He was my colleague at Jacobs Media for many years. Seth gave our clients advice on how to navigate the digital landscape. He also worked at WBRU in Providence, KPNT in St. Louis, KNDD in Seattle and others. Seth gets radio and he gets community, so I asked him to share some wisdom.
The first thing he explained to me is that audience and community are often confused and are not the same thing. Audiences are what stations build by creating content and sending it out into world, regardless of platform. On-air, online, even a station concert build audience, not community.
The difference is relationships.
Audiences consume content and sometimes communicate back to the creator. Communities have members that communicate amongst themselves. “It’s not a dialog,” says Resler. “It’s a polylogue” (go ahead, I’ll wait while you look that up.) He says you can tell if an event was for an audience or a community by the seating. If all the chairs are facing forward like at a concert or a lecture, it’s for an audience. If the chairs are facing sideways because attendees were communicating with each other, it’s for a community.
Communities also need spaces to coalesce. That can be a Facebook group, a Discord channel, or a physical meeting space. Think of building a community like throwing a party. You may provide some content, like a DJ, but what you are really creating at a party is a place for your friends or colleagues to spend time with each other. That’s community.
Resler also points out that communities are smaller than audiences but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are less valuable. That’s because with an audience if you stop creating content they will leave. A community, because of the depth of the relationships of the members, will find a new space to congregate.
What helps communities grow is a shared mission or purpose. One example is the fervor that surrounded the TV show Lost. At the peak of its popularity, message boards sprung up all over the internet with a shared purpose of trying to figure out the show. An in-person example is a group Resler started years ago called Mystery Meet. Each week one restaurant would create a prix fixe menu for members of this group. The location would be announced one day before, and the limited seats would always sell out. The shared purpose was bringing together adventurous eaters to have an experience they could share and it worked. A community came together.
Now let’s circle back to the original question, can a Classic Rock radio station create a community of fans that will help expand awareness of the brand beyond the existing cume and potentially reach younger fans of Classic Rock?
Resler goes back to a community needing a shared purpose. He’s not sure that just being fans of a radio station is enough. In the case of Classic Rock, it might be more effective to create a community of people who like to attend concerts by classic artists. It’s not as much about the radio station as it is about a shared purpose of enjoying these artists when they come to town.
However, there is at least one shining example of a station that built an enduring community based around radio and Classic Rock. Can it be duplicated? Come back next week and see what you think.
Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
