Engaging the audience rather than beating them over the head with a marketing message is the key to successfully using Twitter to increase ratings and revenue for your radio station.

That point was the key takeaway from a seminar on the topic at the National Assn. of broadcasters convention held here Sept. 23. The seminar’s speaker, radio talent coach and self-described radio advertising “guru” Dan O’Day, offered numerous actionable ideas during his informative, example-packed presentation.

The best station-related Tweets, he said, convey “curiosity” or “urgency.” Regardless of the topic, however, they all should convey “excitement.”

“Stop thinking ‘How do I manipulate listeners,’ but rather ‘How do I engage listeners’,” O'Day said. “Make listeners feel like your station is more than an entertainment outlet, it’s a community.”

O’Day said Twitter should be one part of a station’s overall “multi-channel strategy,” which should also include blogging, Facebook and MySpace pages, but his speech centered specifically on the current hot social networking site. Broadcasters should “figure out what you want your Twitter page to accomplish,” he said, “and then never, ever Tweet anything that doesn’t further that goal.”

Even before the Tweeting frenzy begins, O’Day emphasized that the Twitter bio created for a station or broadcaster be “provocative. It’s your commercial for your Twitter page,” he said, noting that the more provocative it is, the more likely fans and followers are to engage.

Next, O’Day offered both good and bad examples of radio Tweets, citing ideas that could be used by air personalities, program directors, and even account execs and sales managers.

A bad station Tweet might be something generic such as, “[Station] has the most commercial free music for ya, plus traffic, weather and news with Tanner at 5 a.m.”

Twitter, O’Day said, “is not just another place to run your bad station imaging.”

A better example he suggested for jocks is a Tweet plugging an upcoming bit, such as: “We get back at a calling scam in just minutes.” Or this: “About to interview Bon Jovi. What should be my first question?” Or: “Just confirmed that (celebrity) will be a guest on tomorrow’s show.”

He stressed, however, that the Tweet should feel like you are sharing your excitement about the next day’s show, not actually promoting it.

On the sales side, a bad Tweet might be something like this: “Nothing beats radio when it comes to local advertising. Contact me for more info.” Better to convey specific and compelling information about an upcoming station event that happens to need a sponsor.

For talk hosts, O’Day said, Twitter can be useful in finding sources. Rather than having a producer cold call academic institutions looking for an expert for a show on a topic like Dutch Elm disease, they can Tweet a message to their followers such as, “Hey, I’m looking for someone who is an expert on Dutch Elm disease. Know anyone?”

Similarly, O’Day said Twitter could be a useful source of generating sales leads for AEs. He cited as an example a Detroit-based radio AE who specializes in the automotive market. By using a service like TwitSeeker, which finds groups of users defined by a set of parameters, the AE can search for anyone within a specified area of the market whose profile includes the phrase “automobile dealer.” Best of all, O’Day said, those sales prospects “already believe in marketing because they’re on Twitter.”

Elsewhere in the presentation, O’Day went as far as to suggest that PDs engage in a little stealth by creating a Twitter account under an alias and a fictitious bio, then “following” competing stations on Twitter just to see how they communicate with their own fans.

Another O’Day tip for stations is to use a URL shrinking service that allows users to customize the last part of the shortened URL. By having a Web address that ends in “BritneyPictures” rather than a random series of letters and numbers, for instance, users are significantly more likely to click through.