{"id":3791,"date":"2012-01-08T00:09:02","date_gmt":"2012-01-08T00:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=3791"},"modified":"2012-01-08T00:09:02","modified_gmt":"2012-01-08T00:09:02","slug":"the-dangerous-seduction-of-the-announcers-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/the-dangerous-seduction-of-the-announcers-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dangerous Seduction of the Announcer’s Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I was 14 years old when I became infatuated with the idea of Announcing<\/em>.\u00a0 I listened intently, and tried desperately to emulate the resonant stylings of the most popular disc jockeys on the air in Detroit, Michigan.\u00a0 For me they were almost as much the sound of Motown as was the music.\u00a0 If they said it, the audience believed it.\u00a0 If they sold it, we wanted to buy it.\u00a0 They could make anything sound like the most important thing at that instant — from on-air promotions to the current time and temperature.<\/p>\n

In my mind, this<\/em> was the art of communication!<\/p>\n

Today, thanks to social media, every one of us has easy access to a \u201cmicrophone.\u201d\u00a0 Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, YouTube, Google + — these new media make broadcasting a message as easy as hitting the ENTER key.\u00a0 Every few days the blogosphere grows exponentially as thousands of words slip from the confines of an imagination onto the broad expanse of the information super highway.<\/p>\n

Untold creative genius is invested in producing and delivering messages — in everything from 140 characters to blog posts — from podcasts to YouTube videos.\u00a0 Any one can be an \u201cannouncer\u201d in any of a growing number of channels.<\/p>\n

At this point it is important to note that sheer numbers (followers, fans, friends, views) indicate that many of these messages are entertaining; some even provocative or compelling.\u00a0 But one can\u2019t help wondering whether much of this is infatuation with the proverbial announcer\u2019s voice; or, to be more pointed, is social media marketing in danger of being more about creating, crafting and delivering a message than it is about connecting, communicating and ultimately selling?<\/p>\n

Blanket pronouncements like this are, of course, unfair; and creativity will almost always find a target.\u00a0 But a cautionary note seems appropriate for all of us who believe in the value inherent in social media.\u00a0 The thing that makes social different from most, if not all other media is the fact that dialogue<\/em> is a critical cornerstone.\u00a0 This is not just about the capacity<\/em> for give-and-take; conventional broadcast and print have the capacity<\/em> via letters to the editor and other feedback mechanisms.\u00a0 The distinction is that give-and-take — conversation <\/em>\u2013 is a basic ingredient in the foundation of social media.<\/p>\n

In fact, it is the voice of the marketplace that is the fabric of social media.\u00a0 Any who would succeed long-term in social media marketing cannot ignore this fact.\u00a0 To do so — no matter how masterful the message — is to relegate social media to little more than another one-way message distribution channel.<\/p>\n

Successful social media marketers listen, instigate dialogue<\/em>, and focus at least as much on conversation (and what can be learned) as on a pitch or presentation.\u00a0 Probably more.<\/p>\n

Put another way — the reason social media is such a robust marketing tool is that it provides for — indeed, at its best, it becomes<\/em> — a shared experience<\/em>.\u00a0 And it is within the comfort of shared experiences that real connection is made and communication occurs.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, this was the dynamic at work when, as a teenager, I listened to those announcers.\u00a0 Resonant voices and production quality aside, the radio experience was, simultaneously, intensely personal and shared.\u00a0 Social media affords a dimension that makes it possible to couch every marketing effort in the context of shared experiences.\u00a0 Perhaps the most difficult part of the job is being less concerned with announcing and more focused on dialogue.<\/p>\n

Master this, and any questions of ROI will likely disappear.<\/p>\n

Eric Fletcher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was 14 years old when I became infatuated with the idea of Announcing.\u00a0 I listened intently, and tried desperately to emulate the resonant stylings of the most popular disc jockeys on the air in Detroit, Michigan.\u00a0 For me they were almost as much the sound of Motown as was the music.\u00a0 If they said … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,8],"tags":[1560,1478,1566,643,1562,1561,1564,1565,1563],"class_list":["post-3791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-ericfletcher","tag-announce","tag-context","tag-intense","tag-personal","tag-preach","tag-pronounce","tag-resonance","tag-shared","tag-shared-experiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3791"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3794,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3791\/revisions\/3794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}