One of the real powerful aspects of social media is that it creates so many more touchpoints between a radio station and its listeners. In the old days, there were just a few—the live interaction at events, the telephone, postal mail, and the actual broadcast itself. Today, you can add Twitter feeds, blogs, email, RSS feeds, Facebook updates, text messaging, and even things like embedded video or other content around the web. While this ability to connect with the listener on so many new levels is powerful, it also requires a greater attention to things that we never would have considered a problem: Overdelivering a message or delivering via the wrong method.

The first issue is easy enough to understand. If I am a radio station, and I have a big promotion starting tomorrow, I want to get it out to the audience by every method possible, right? In this scenario, what we normally see today is the exact same message sent via all these channels. The trouble is that this quickly leads to oversaturation.

If I’m a loyal fan of the morning show, and I subscribe to their blog RSS feed, their Twitter feed, the station’s Twitter feed, am a Facebook friend, and a fan of the station on Facebook, in short order I can expect to see something like this:

“Check out Tommy & Phil in the morning tomorrow for a chance to win $1,000!”

-sent via all the channels I mentioned earlier. Think of yourself as the user. One of your main challenges in utilizing social media is to filter out the noise and spam. If, in short order, you see the above message via four or five channels that connect you to the radio station, you will have every reason in the world to shut down all of them but one. After all, you don’t need those others if you are already getting the message. And if all these channels also have unique content, you still might shut them down since what the radio station sees as an individual message is being received as multiple messages that say the same thing—in other words, spam.

This leads me to the second misuse of social media channels: Radio stations tend to utilize the wrong delivery channel, whether it is effective or not. This is a column in and of itself but suffice to say that how users utilize and consume Twitter, email, Facebook, text messages, and RSS feeds are all dramatically different. The previous example is a good one—radio stations use a shotgun approach and shoehorn every message through every channel. This is just not effective.

A better strategy is to examine the inherent strengths of each channel, how the consumers utilize them, and then tailor your message appropriately. Let me give you one example by comparing text message broadcasts and email broadcasts: Email allows for many things that text messages do not, and it is also a medium that is more conducive to casual reading. It lacks the succinctness, and personal nature of text messages, as well. It also is less synchronous than text messages since the time between when people receive email and read it is much greater than text messages.

Clearly, sending the same message via text and email is not a good idea. If the message lacks immediacy and you send it via text, the listener will be annoyed. If the message requires immediacy (such as an in-show benefit or an on-site ticket upgrade) and you send it via email, the listener will also be annoyed. If the message has no immediacy but is compelling and requires some element of graphical description and detail and you send it via text, the user probably has to click through to a website. This is annoying to him or her. If you send it via email, the listener will be able to take it all in at one place on their schedule. That’s a good thing.

This is not a complete comparison of the texting channel and the email channel, but it should give you a good idea that not only should you avoid repeating the same message via multiple channels you should examine which channel is the most effective for your specific message. You should do similar assessments for Facebook, Twitter, and all your other station-listener touchpoints.

The one thing you should not do is what is all too common—hammering your listeners with the same message over and over again in every possible way. While broadcast radio is a reach and frequency medium and repeating messages makes sense, social media are personal in nature, and requires a whole new way of tailoring a message to the user.