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Exciting new technologies promise to make radio more accessible and engaging than it has ever been. This includes app-based platforms that enable broadcasters to engage with listeners like never before, software that lets producers edit sound as easily as a text document, and a 'radio station in a bucket' that turns a mobile phone onto a broadcast hub. Read more

I vividly remember sitting in my bedroom back in the 1990’s, next to my double cassette deck and radio combo with detachable speakers - yes, my Pirate Bay friends, back then I could record straight onto cassette from the radio. I was listening to a competition on Radio 5. It was a clip of 10 songs spliced together into 10 seconds and I knew all 10 clips! I stole a call on my parents’ landline to the station, but I wasn’t able to get through because the lines were jammed. Fast forward a few years later and I was the desk controller at Highveld Stereo directing all the buttons for Carnival City’s “Beat the Bomb” promotion. What an experience to see how the competition worked at the backend and how excited the audience was. By the way, a decade later, we still used phone calls as the entry mechanism and all six of our lines were “jammed”. I laugh now because I can’t imagine telling a client today that their campaign was a success because all the telephone lines to the station were blocked by callers. Yet, that was a measurement of success. Things changed when SMSes became a standard competition entry. And now, voice notes. But first the SMS. Back then the total SMS numbers delighted the client, until we could see the UNIQUE count and we found out only 100 people sent all those SMSes in the first place. Now we are discovering true engagement in radio. But unfortunately, not from industry itself. And that’s why I left radio. I have joined a Durban company, a team of developers and broadcast veterans whom I have known for years. They opened my eyes to a suite of digital radio tools called Fabrik. It is that nirvana that radio has been looking for. Except it’s not here to disrupt or topple you, it is a massively empowering tool to help. The impact speaks for itself. I have seen radio stations use the product to great effect. Imagine having a dashboard view of who is listening to the station, a view of how many people are interacting with you, and from what area of the country and with what device? There is tons more information. It is all on one platform and it is all available in real time. It is that incredible and I left radio for this. The way radio typically tries to serve its advertisers is to have an outside supplier give them a messaging system and message board. Another supplier hosts your podcasts and live streams and another company will build you an app. Another will host your website. And yet none of these systems “speak” to another. Sure, you get some information and data from some platforms, but never a view into the audience to interact with them or to have a full repository for your audience. To put it another way, imagine your radio station had a way to put everyone in one place and get them to send you voice notes from your own app, and then build up a profile of that engaged audience? Imagine you could find out how many people were listening to you at any given time and were able to picture that listening behaviour to understand over time what it actually means. This is something that RAMS has never been able to achieve, and now it’s a tangible thing. Now, of course, the more astute of you will say, “yes but that’s just a small section of my total audience”… and yes that’s true. But what if you actually grow YOUR OWN platform? Instead of pushing Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter or Instagram for feedback, you can actually have access to YOUR OWN listeners to communicate with in your own environment, in real time. Maybe, just maybe that is a better option than the disparate tools you currently deploy that still don’t let you know anything about your audience. This is harnessing digital. It takes us that much closer to understanding our audiences at a more granular level. Media buyers are familiar with social media dashboards, or web view engagement figures which they use to view or deep dive into. Now we have it for radio, with Fabrik. And it is a real digital offering for those same media buyers. Now radio can harness digital in its own way. It is a true engagement audience metric. There are no bots. Just real audience figures. The audience is ready. Is your radio station? To find out more about the outcomes that our clients are experiencing with Fabrik, check out our guest webinars on YouTube or read our case studies.

As any online community grows in size and chattiness, it's crucial that members feel that they are in a safe and respectful environment that upholds their values. At the same time, as a community administrator, it can be a concern when considering how to create a safe space where members within large, highly-engaged audiences behave respectfully. Engagement is important - the lifeblood of any online community - but it’s equally important that community administrators have a way to manage that engagement without lengthy additions to existing workflows. App stores like Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store also have strict requirements protecting app members from user-generated content they deem 'objectionable,' and require developers to provide a method for members to flag this content. In our aim to make sure your app is compliant and passes all requirements from the app vendors, Fabrik app members now have the ability to report content they deem inappropriate within a conversation, or block members they'd prefer not to see messages from in future. Your team as the community administrators will then be prompted to review the reported content and choose to either remove or retain that content based on your community guidelines. Here's how the planned changes will help you manage your community with ease. How can your audience report objectionable content? The new 'Report a Message' and 'Block Member' options within your app are accessed by long-pressing on the particular message the individual would like to report, or a message sent by the individual they'd like to block. a) Block/report another member 'Block Member' will result in any content being shared by that particular member being hidden to the member who blocked them. b) Report a piece of objectionable content 'Report Message' will flag that piece of content to community admins, to be reviewed based on the reasons provided by the reporting member. How can your team moderate content? Step 1: Access Community Centre to view a consolidated list of all content that has been reported by your community. To access this functionality: Log in to Community Centre using your Fabrik account details. Click on 'Content Moderation' on the left-hand menu. Select 'Reports.' From this screen, you'll be able to view and navigate through a chronological list of all reported content, click on each item for more details or sort by the status of the 'Action' on each one. 'Sorting by Action' gives you the ability to see a list of all content with the same status grouped together, making it easier to take action on those items where action is required. Step 2: View more information about each reported piece of content. If you'd like to view any particular piece of reported content in detail, you can do so by clicking on the » arrow on the left of the member's username, on your initial dashboard view. This will open a more detailed view of the specific report and, from here, you'll be able to update the status and resolution message of that content. Step 3: Take an action on a piece of content. Once you've clicked on the 'Status' option, you'll be able to choose one of the following actions: Pending - this is the default state meaning this item still requires action. No Action - select this option when you feel the reported content does not contravene your community guidelines, and will remain visible within your app. Remove - select this option when you feel the content does contravene your community guidelines, and will be removed from your app. The 'Resolution message' is a place for you to add any pertinent information related to your decision for the rest of your team to view - this is not visible to any app member. Further Info Watch our walk-through of Community Centre's Community Management functionality.

In Seychelles, the public broadcaster will soon introduce a mobile application that will provide the majority of its broadcasts. The Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) announced this information in a statement. Read more

Why you should consider transitioning your audience engagement and management to your own private platform. As more businesses acknowledge the importance of real-time engagement to their bottom line, social media platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have become the default way we communicate with our customers. Read more

Within the Fabrik platform, you're offered a number of opportunities to generate revenue and impress your advertisers! Many of our customers are experimenting with the different advertising options available within the platform, and gaining confidence implementing and reporting on app-powered campaigns. In an effort to help you do so with greater ease, we're exploring a few unique yet simple campaign executions that can be used to boost audience growth, engagement and, of course, revenue! These executions make use of Fabrik's advertising, engagement and data insights capabilities, making them easy for your team to implement and accessible for any advertiser. Campaign #1 - Keyword Campaign Possible Uses: A first-time advertiser seeking to engage with your audience, or as an internal campaign to increase audience engagement and time spent listening. Execution: This execution involves a simple mechanic requesting entrants to engage with the station's Contact Us conversation using a particular keyword. Smashboard's Campaign Manager would be used to create a campaign that runs behind the scenes to collate all received text, image and audio messages tagged with that particular keyword. The campaign would also monitor engagement and be used to pick winners - info that can be packaged and shared with your advertiser during or after the campaign. Watch how a well-known Gauteng-based Radio Station used this execution to increase time spent listening and audience engagement! Campaign #2 - Voice Note with Text Possible Uses: A first-time advertiser, or an advertiser who'd like to connect with your audience. Execution: Fabrik's mobile app offers the unique ability to attach text to a voice-note, making it easier to track entries and drive engagement for that particular campaign. This execution is a variation of the previous one, with the addition of a voice-note sent along with the campaign keyword. Again, Smashboard is used to set up and track campaign engagement, as well as to play campaign-related voice-note content during your live broadcast. Fabrik's Metrics application can also be used to gain real-time engagement data and insights, as well as offer your advertisers a peek into how the campaign is performing in-flight. Before the campaign begins, ensuring that your app's registration profile fields are set up with information you deem important can provide you with insightful information about your audience. Campaign #3 - Sponsored Channel and/or QR Code Possible Uses: A trusted advertiser who is interested in connecting with your community, and open to experimenting with different inventory options. Execution: Buying a sponsored conversation or channel within your app offers your advertiser a simple-to-implement, yet powerful tool for building brand intimacy and trust with your audience. Listeners would be invited to engage within the channel to win daily prizes or access exclusive content like QR codes or vouchers. A campaign billboard, audio pre-roll or branded push notification can be added to create awareness and drive engagement to the channel, offering your advertiser tangible value. Campaign #4 - App Takeover Possible Uses: An advertiser who has budget available and is looking to build extreme brand intimacy with your audience. Execution: A powerful, immersive campaign execution including a combination or all available advertising inventory depending on the campaign objective/s. Livestream and podcast pre-rolls - consistent brand messaging and re-enforcement of the campaign message Featured podcasts - branded with a logo or campaign imagery for added brand visibility Billboards - re-iterate the campaign calls-to-action, or add a URL linking to your advertiser's website or online form Sponsored Conversation or Channel - send out targeted campaign messaging on an opt-in basis from a sponsored Channel, or get your audience talking in a sponsored Conversation Dialboard - offer your audience the ability to contact your advertiser with the tap of a button Branded concierge button - give your audience the opportunity to request a call-back from your advertiser via a branded attention button Easily access real-time analytics and reporting within Fabrik's Metrics application, to measure the effectiveness of the campaign as well as your advertiser's return on investment. Whether you're an existing Fabrik customer or are thinking about how Fabrik can help to generate revenue during your next campaign - we hope these suggestions help you get started, or inspire you to think differently about how to create engaging campaigns with your audience! Further info Explore Fabrik's Advertising Inventory options. Watch our walk-through of Smashboard's Campaign Manager functionality. Get in touch with our Customer Success team if you'd like some help getting started in setting up a new campaign!

KZN-based community radio station Izwi LoMzansi is looking to close the revenue gap with commercial radio stations by offering advertisers additional value through their mobile app inventory. Read more

“It has been crazy,” says Tamie Mbombo with a huge grin. “You guys have put us way ahead in a race our competitors didn’t even know was being run in the first place!” Tamie is the head of Marketing and PR at Izwi LoMzansi, more commonly known as the Voice of South Africa, a community radio station broadcasting from the bustling Durban Station Complex, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. The fast-paced madness has been crazy good for Mr Mbombo, and it all centres around engagement with his 278 000 listeners, people who tune in from as far afield as Port Edward in the South and Empangeni in the north. More specifically, in the case of this story, it relates to Izwi LoMzanzi’s direct engagement with over 20 000 of those listeners who have downloaded the station’s app on their smartphones. For one thing, it means they are no longer reliant on the terrestrial radio signal to listen to their favourite radio station and they now have a whole new platform to interact directly with presenters and advertisers. The app was developed on the Fabrik platform, a product of Durban based technology company immedia that is at the forefront of digital innovation, revolutionizing communication for broadcasters and community organisations. The software platform, which has been licenced by African radio stations since 2016 and is now in use by nearly 300,000 people across the globe, boasts a host of unique features that reimagines revenue for the radio industry. Jonathan Lumley, Fabrik’s head of Clients, Channels & Markets has been part of the team working with Tamie on Izwi LoMzansi’s digital journey. “Tamie has made some huge strides in upselling Izwi’s on air clients onto the app – having already sold a large amount of inventory to cell phone companies and big retailers to monetise its audience.” An example of an opening billboard in Izwi’s app Jonathan adds that Tamie has led the digital charge with featured podcasts and integrated advertising campaigns. “The impact of ‘change agents’ that drive digital transformation from within a station is crucial. Tamie has embraced the possibilities of this new revenue stream by providing relevant app-based campaigns which enhance the experience for Izwi listeners.” Tamie says that the app has made his job that much easier, dramatically improving the station’s listener data. “When our listeners download the app, they put in their age and other relevant data, so we know specifically what they want. That is gold. Fabrik has helped us prepare for the future.” While total privacy is consistently maintained between members who engage in public channels, individuals are given the option to share demographic information with the station – resulting in aggregated data that is then used to conceptualise campaigns that are ‘on the money’ for their advertisers. Tamie cites one of the recent app campaigns as an example. Called “#PimpMyBiz”, it involved entrepreneurs pitching their business idea to listeners in a voice note. In total 45 000 votes were received for the entrepreneurs that audience members rated as most likely to succeed. Calls-to-action alerted app members to the competition, and voters could send a hashtagged voice-note to the Izwi Studio. The five finalists in the competition won training and a suite of products and assistance to bootstrap their businesses. “This is the sort of engagement that is meaningful to our listeners and it helps advertisers direct their spend very specifically. Fabrik has brought us to the front of the starting line, in a race many are unaware is even being run.”

One of the more challenging aspects of managing an online community is considering how to stimulate engagement, as well as creating ongoing opportunities for re-engagement. Fabrik offers powerful real-time Messaging functionality to bring your audience closer through easy-to-configure message groups called Conversations and Channels. What are Conversations and Channels? Each message group type you create can be categorised as either a 'Conversation' or a 'Channel' which empower you with different ways to engage your members based on your specific needs. What is the difference between a Conversation and a Channel? Channels are read-only message groups in which only 'Trusted' individuals (members who you assign the 'Trusted' status, such as administrators or moderators) can post content. Channels are especially useful for when you need to broadcasting information to a wide audience and don't require a response i.e. a Security channel in an emergency situation, or a dedicated Special Offers channel for adding value to your advertisers. Conversations are interactive message groups where anyone who is a part of that conversation can post content. A Conversation is a useful tool to have in your app when you're seeking active engagement or feedback from your audience, or would like to bring your community together around topics of interest. How can I set up a conversation or a channel? Log in to your Community Centre portal to administer your Conversations and Channels. Adding, editing, and removing a message group as simple as tapping a few buttons, uploading your image and presto! You're now ready to connect with your audience more meaningfully. When creating a message group, it’s important to know and understand the different options you have available to you. Here's a quick introduction to the various settings. Step 1: Set your group Name, Description and Image When choosing a name, try to be as concise as possible, as a long name i.e. name with multiple words, may run onto two lines. You'll also be required to add a description to each message group so your members know its purpose, as well as any guidelines that apply to that particular group. When creating images for conversations and channels, it's best to use a plain image with no text or logos, with a slightly dark colour, or overlay. Then, select the Settings tab to toggle your Conversation's/Channel's settings. Step 2: Depending on whether you're creating a Conversation or Channel, select your preferred message group type. Step 3: Set your Visibility. The Private option provides the opportunity to invite specific members to be a part of a hidden and secure Conversation or Channel which will not be visible to members who have not been added. Step 4: Options for Public message groups If you've created a 'Public' message group, the following options provide you with even more flexibility. Join by default All members will automatically be joined to this message group when they register their profile for the first time. They can choose to opt out afterwards. This can be useful when you'd prefer your audience to be part of a particular message group, but would still like to give them the option to opt out, i.e. in a Special Offers channel. Required If you set a message group as 'required,' all existing app members will be automatically added to this message group and will not be able to opt out. This is useful for Announcements or Security channels. Optional App members can join this message group if they’d like, and opt out whenever desired. Optional groups are useful when related to very specific topics like Gardening or Pets, that may only appeal to a certain subset of your audience. Step 5: Notify by Default Configure any message group to receive push notifications by default. Note that your members will still have the option to enable or disable push notifications on any Conversation or Channel if they wish to do so. Your direct messaging channel with each member While Conversations or Channels are to be created by your team according to the custom needs of your community, a standard conversation that you'll find within your app is the direct message space in which each individual can communicate privately with you. Messages received from this conversation land into your community's Smashboard for an administrator to see and respond to quickly. Messages sent via this conversation (often referred to as Contact Us but can be customised) are only visible to yourself and that particular member, and become an important part of the way that you're able to be of service individuals. This is a great solution for a helpdesk, control centre, or studio environment as it brings all your inbound direct messaging engagement into one place! Watch our Smashboard webinar to find out how to use this channel effectively. Content Moderation - coming soon! As any online engagement platform grows in size and chattiness, it's important that community administrators have a mechanism to review and moderate all content being shared to avoid content that contravenes community guidelines. Look out for new functionality coming to your mobile app and Community Centre soon to assist you in doing so, which you can read about in August's emailer. Further info Explore the features of Community Centre. Offer a Message group to your advertisers. Watch our walk-through of the Smashboard messaging management portal. And of course, get in touch with our Customer Success team if you'd like some help with setting up a new Conversation or Channel.

Why you should consider transitioning your audience engagement and management to your own private platform. As more businesses acknowledge the importance of real-time engagement to their bottom line, social media platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have become the default way we communicate with our customers. Whether it's to send quotes, schedule appointments, or answer support queries, social media platforms offer messaging solutions that seem to address communication needs, supported by a low barrier to entry as most consumers are already on these sites and familiar with the functionality. So it's no surprise to us that many of the customers we onboard onto our Fabrik platform in have historically relied on these platforms to manage their own community engagement. As these platforms expand in reach and influence, so too does our awareness of their limitations which range from the mild inconvenience of mixing your business and personal messaging in the same place, to the moral conundrum of supporting platforms that incite the spread of fake news and contribute to social division. Fabrik seeks to offer an ethical alternative, and has been designed as a private, secure way of engaging with your audience in your own branded environment. With your data stored in a private cloud environment, your community's information can only be accessed by you and never harvested or sold to third-party advertisers. In addition, Fabrik is a converged technology tool that brings together many different parts of your business operations - each of which come with their own costs and are managed in silos - bringing ease through integrated, fit-for-purpose tools and workflows. Many of our customers who have consolidated their costs and efforts into their own platform have experienced these benefits on a daily basis, and here are just a few you can consider if you're thinking about how to transform the way you serve your audience or community. #1: Build intimacy with your community in your own private, inclusive space. Fabrik offers your community your own branded service point in the form of a mobile app, which - when used to bring all community engagement and messaging into one place - fosters a sense of community that is noticeably absent in platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook. Your most loyal audience will find you here day after day, creating community cohesion, loyalty and increased engagement over time. Using a public social network can result in your community and security communication getting lost in a sea of other personal or business conversations, and multiple groups making it difficult to follow important conversations. The customisable Messaging elements of Fabrik also allow different sub-communities to arise based on different interest groups such as Gardening, Pets and Fitness - which facilitates connections between like-minded individuals. Hayden Conradie, the Manager of the Upper Umhlanga Security Trust, says what started out as an emergency channel evolved, providing features specifically for older residents, for example. “People can lend a hand, discuss a market or places that deliver food. All that chatter was on a single WhatsApp group before and that was a nightmare.” "Now the Emergency channel on the app stays open and the other channels involving pets and bargains and the rest can be muted." Fabrik is a platform that adds value to many different kinds of communities with different demographics, and although we hear concerns from customers who are sceptical about how easy it would be for example older folks to be comfortable using, what we've seen is that they do so with relative ease. To illustrate this point, let's take a look at one of our media customers who are a radio station situated in Mozambique with an average listening age of 50+. The station started using Fabrik in mid 2019 and have seen an 1000% increase in app engagement (visits, unique visitors, registered users visitors) since their launch. In the same station, 43% of those who've downloaded the app have also registered their profiles which means that they're opting in to receive and send messages from the studio. To make it easier for even the biggest technophobe out there to use Fabrik, the platform also offers our app membership a dedicated Support desk, as well handy in-app FAQ material to help those who are less comfortable with technology find the support they require. Another concern we hear quite often is that audiences who are data-sensitive will be more tentative to use a platform like Fabrik, but what we're seeing in some of our customers whose audiences are of a lower LSM are using the app just as much, if not more than our customers with more affluent audiences. This is partly due to the fact that the app has been built with data sensitivity in mind which means that app download sizes are kept as lightweight as possible (±15MB on the Google Play Store or ±35MB on the App Store), and the app's live-stream uses only ±14MB to stream per hour. A community radio station based in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal who adopted Fabrik in late-2017 has seen a 1,349% increase in engagement since the month of their launch - which indicates that their app membership is growing at an exponential rate year-on-year. Out of nearly 20,000 people who have downloaded the app, more than half are engaging in messaging and, this year alone, their live-stream has been listened to nearly 400,000 times. #2: Build engagement workflows that easily fold in your other initiatives. Fabrik is a converged platform that integrates all of our customers' community and audio management functionality seamlessly into one suite of applications, eliminating the need to manage multiple databases and technology tools, and freeing up your team's time to spend on other things. One of Fabrik's most popular applications is Echocast, which brings together powerful podcasting and audio management capabilities into one place - equipping any media entity to capture, store and categorise audio to be shared instantly or saved to be used at a later stage. Due to its real-time audio archival functionality, you can also retrieve a piece of your previously aired broadcast within minutes, which is particularly useful for compliance and audit purposes or compiling magical on-air moments to be played again on-air. Explore the features of Echocast: #3: Keep your audience safe and secure and protect their personal information and engagement data. The Fabrik platform has been designed with your audience's safety and privacy in mind, and neither the mobile app nor any part of the platform will ever track your members' personal information. What this means is that your community will never be subjected to predatory advertising based on their personal data, and if, for some reason, you ever decide to cancel your Fabrik subscription, any data related to your audience engagement would be handed over to your community to keep forever, and is not retained by Fabrik. Another measure Fabrik will soon be implementing is a mechanism by which app members can report any content they find objectionable based on the community's guidelines, as well as report other members they find are in contravention of those guidelines. As any online community grows in size and chattiness, it becomes crucial that members feel that they are in a safe and respectful environment that upholds their values, which is why the addition of this functionality is important. As an administrator of that community, it can be a concern when considering how to create that environment, and ensure that members of that community behave respectfully towards each other and that conversations do not spiral into abusive or inappropriate behaviour. #4: Opportunities to generate revenue for community initiatives. Many of our Fabrik customers in Community Radio and Residential Communities typically have a specific mandate to raise funds that can be allocated to community initiatives and social upliftment. Choosing to adopt your own private platform means that you can monetise it in the way you want to which, with Fabrik, is always in your control and respectful towards your audience's data. Within Fabrik, there are a number of advertising inventory options that are available to you which you can use to generate revenue for your community, and to change the way that you engage with your advertisers and transform your adverting offering. Tamie Mbombo, Marketing Manager at KZN-based community station Izwi LoMzansi, has achieved significant results through the modern inventory available in the platform that "makes their advertising offering more compelling": "It's great for smaller stations without the infrastructure to compete with bigger stations. Advertising has been bliss!" #5: Access to ongoing app updates and feature enhancements. Fabrik's Software-as-a-Service subscription model means that your community will have access to ongoing updates and feature enhancements that are deployed on a regular basis across Fabrik's suite of applications. More importantly, as your content offering grows, you can elect to add new integrations and feeds into your own app, providing a customised experience for your members and growing with your audience as their expectations evolve. Hear from our software development teams about our approach to technology enhancements on our Feature blog, or peruse our Release Log for a sense of the major updates that are constantly added to your applications. In summary, the benefit of consolidating your audience engagement into an all-in-one product like Fabrik is that it not only makes the management thereof easier and less time-consuming, but also allows you to expand, grow and take advantage of that engagement for the benefit of your community.

Exciting new technologies promise to make radio more accessible and engaging than it has ever been. This includes app-based platforms that enable broadcasters to engage with listeners like never before, software that lets producers edit sound as easily as a text document, and a “radio station in a bucket” that turns a mobile phone onto a broadcast hub. That’s according to radio futurologist James Cridland, who believes that while innovations like these point to a bright future for the over 100-year-old medium, it’ll take more than adopting cool new tech to succeed in the increasingly splintered and diverse arena that radio is evolving into. “Radio is more than just AM and shortwave, more than big, old fashioned transmitters. Radio is a shared experience with a human connection,” he said during a recent webinar on the future of radio hosted by Fabrik, a South African-developed software platform for broadcasters and community groups. “That shared experience is something that [streaming music service] Spotify can't offer. It's something that somebody’s CD player can't offer,” he said, adding that this also applied to radio stations who just play non-stop music. “There's no human connection there. There's no real shared experience.” A century-old medium that keeps getting better For those cynical about radio’s future, Cridland had this to say: people have been predicting the demise of the medium since 1894 when Lord Kelvin, president of Britain’s top science academy, the Royal Society, famously said: “Radio has no future”. “When television came along, everybody assumed that radio was going to die. Of course, that wasn't the case. New technology arose that fixed a lot of the things that radio lacked. We were able to get radio into cars, and transistor technology ultimately shrunk radios and put them into our hands.” Similarly, dire predictions about the imminent death of radio accompanied the rise of the World Wide Web yet, “Radio is still tremendously powerful and tremendously popular,” Cridland said, citing figures from many countries around the world that show nine out of 10 people tune into the radio every week. People are listening to live radio on an increasingly diverse range of devices. While the traditional FM/AM receiver remained the most popular, many people, particularly younger listeners, are listening on tablets, smart speakers, and TV sets - using services like DStv in South Africa. But when it comes to mobile phones, live radio is a much smaller component of the audio consumption experience than it is on laptops and tablets. Cridland said people who listened on their phones favoured on-demand content like podcasts or their own music collections. Listening patterns also varied significantly according to age, with younger people favouring a mix of live and on-demand content, while older people mainly listen to live radio. Another trend Cridland identified was the difference in use between loudspeakers and headphones. “Loudspeakers are generally used for live radio, while headphones are for on demand audio. Headphones are used to give people things they want to listen to right now, whereas loudspeakers accompany people as they go about their daily activities.” But what about content "on demand"? He cautioned that while as many people as ever are listening to live radio, the amount of time they’re devoting to it has declined, with younger people increasingly favouring on-demand content like podcasts and streaming music. Cridland said this trend should prompt broadcasters to reconsider the widely held notion that live content is always better, when in fact there were technology issues associated with live radio that often put it at a disadvantage compared to on-demand content. “For example, if you're doing a live interview, you can't edit that interview to make it snappier and more interesting. You're stuck with whatever it is that you're broadcasting live. As an advocate for radio, this concerns me, because our competitors can polish interviews, can make stories far more compelling by post-producing them.” It also means a lot of good content is disappearing. “We broadcast it once and it's gone. That's a big mistake. We should be making it available to as many people as we can, in as many different ways as we can.” Find out how to automatically record your live broadcast & create and share podcasts in seconds. One solution, said Cridland, would be for broadcasters to incorporate pre-produced content into live radio. “Polishing things first instead of broadcasting them live works better than taking live content and then editing it down for on-demand consumption.” He said Apple Music's recently launched radio stations were a good example of this. “These three stations are free to anybody with an iPhone or a Mac computer. When you listen to them, you realise that a bunch of pre-production has gone into them. “These shows have been specifically built for on-demand consumption and then broadcast on a radio station. And that means you can get more use out of your content. It means that you can put your content in loads of different places. It also means that the audio sounds really good and polished.” Use data to keep you 'real and relevant' Cridland said that while live and local is an important part of radio, it's only a part of the future of radio, with being “real and relevant” to your audience just as significant. “Having relevant content may be talking about things that are going on locally, but it may also be talking about things that are relevant to your audience, which requires knowing who your audience is. This is why having data, having stats, is a really important tool. And we can get a lot more data and stats from online radio than we can from, FM and AM broadcast radio.” This, Cridland said this is what makes platforms like Fabrik so powerful. “We need to meet audiences where they are and it’s a dumb broadcaster that tries to control them, that sits there and says ‘we're a radio station, we're only going to broadcast on FM and AM’, or ‘we're only going to put our audio into our own app’. That might've worked 30 years ago. It doesn't work now. You can't control your consumer because if you try and control your consumer by pushing them and bullying them, they won’t be your consumer anymore.” Watch the full webinar, and share your thoughts.

Fabrik offers a multitude of platform inventory options that you can use for in-house campaigns or offer to advertisers! Consolidating your audience engagement and feedback through your own mobile app offers you possibilities that transform your connection with your listener: your most engaged, most responsive audience segment is now in your branded space, ready to be activated; a quick push notification will bring them back into your environment within seconds to keep engaging and listening; and the workflows behind the app will help you reach your app-based audience as well as those scattered around social media - all at the same time. But even more significantly, you now have aggregated insights into your audience's behaviour and profile that were previously unheard of: you can now tell when your audience is most likely to engage with you; you know which kind of audio content they really enjoy; and you can even see in real time who is engaging with you and how! While these benefits are transformative for your operations, the possibilities are attractive to any advertiser looking for the best value for their advertising spend. A natural progression for our clients across a variety of industries is to engage with advertising partners to create commercial campaigns or even generate additional revenue for your organisation. And even for brands that are non-profit, you now have the ability to generate revenue for community-focused initiatives based on a rate-card you come up with, in accordance with your selected advertising offering. The inventory available for your mobile app and audio content can be incorporated into integrated campaigns with your customer, or even for raising awareness of internal promotions or features. Audio Inventory This inventory is accessible everywhere your live stream and podcasts can be found: the live stream and podcast section in your app the live stream and podcast on your website and even when your podcasts are shared on social media. A Featured Podcast is a podcast that is pinned to the top of the Rewind section within your app or website, which can be sold to an advertiser or used for an internal campaign or promotion. Another smart use of a Featured Podcast is to promote a longer-form piece of audio like a popular interview, a viral on-air moment, or even an off-air audio file that wasn't played in your usual broadcast but would be of interest to your listeners. You can either set an existing podcast as Featured or easily upload a Featured Podcast via your Echocast audio management dashboard. Here's a quick demo from a recent webinar to get you started. Audio Pre-Rolls When you're promoting a particularly high profile campaign, either for your brand or for a station, it may help to guarantee that your listeners hear the advert regardless of the time of day they choose to tune in. The live stream pre-roll is an audio advert that plays every time a listener presses play on the live stream in their app or on your website, and the podcast pre-roll is an audio advert that plays at the beginning of every podcast. These ads offer your advertiser guaranteed engagement with your audience as pre-rolls cannot be skipped or fast forwarded. Detailed data and analytics are available for your audio engagement on your Metrics dashboard, and if you'd like to add a podcast or live-stream pre-roll to your app or website, simply drop us an email. App Billboards App billboards are scrollable images that appear when an app member first launches the app. Billboards are flighted for the duration of a specific time-period, and you can add multiple billboards to your app at a time. When booked by multiple advertisers, these can be sold at a premium rate depending on the order or set to be ordered randomly. An optional call-to-action link can also be added to the billboard to direct interested people to a web page with more information, or even a phone number if phone calls are the desired outcome for that particular campaign. Detailed stats and reporting are available on the number of views (impressions) and click-throughs that each billboard receives. Messaging There are also opportunities to offer your advertisers a presence within the 'Messages' tab on your app - via a sponsored conversation or channel. A sponsored channel gives your advertiser the exclusive opportunity to access a community or audience through a branded service point in which they can share dynamic media content like videos, images, text, and voice notes or even promotional QR codes or barcodes. The advertiser can choose either a two-way Conversation, in which the community can respond to them publicly and ask questions, or a one-way broadcast Channel, where only they can post content. Directory of Services Offer numerous advertisers, local businesses or even your own app community the opportunity to list their business or service, with add contact information such as their email address, website address and phone number. This opens up your advertising offering to a broader community of advertisers who may not have suitable services for the more prominent kinds of app inventory. Dialboard The dialboard is a panel for quick, one-touch dialling of useful community contacts within the app which can also be sponsored by an advertiser - offering them increased brand presence and an easy way for your audience to connect with them! A Cloud Concierge button can also be added to the dialboard to offer your advertiser a branded attention button your audience can use to signify that they'd like to be contacted by the station or advertiser. (This is an opt-in service that sends the individual's registered contact details with the station or advertiser.) Data Insights and Campaign Reporting Fabrik also offers you a range of campaign management and reporting functionality you can use to make the most of the platform and inventory you have available. Once you've considered the different kinds of advertising inventory you'd like to include in your revenue initiatives, you're now ready to empower your Sales team with training material and educate your advertisers on your new Fabrik inventory! From there, you'd be well-positioned to run your next engagement campaign and offer your advertisers powerful insights into your audience engagement. If you'd like a hand planning your next campaign, go ahead and get in touch!