• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, May 11, 2015

According to research by the Radio Television Digital News Association, radio stations are making strides in developing social media and mobile strategies to deliver news to new audiences.

Adding social media desks and committing full-time employees, and/or scheduled groups of employees, to maintain a constant social media presence, 42.9% of radio news directors reported doing something new with social media in the past year, compared to 72.4% of TV news directors.

Getting the staff more actively engaged, “more” was the radio word of the survey in social media, says the report. And there were even more specific mentions of using Twitter than using Facebook, although both were quite high. The increased use of pictures, both still and video. also made a decent showing.

The radio use of Twitter rose by nearly nine points from a year ago, with the biggest growth coming in small markets. Major and medium stayed about the same.

For the 36.8% of radio news directors who said the most important thing they started doing new with mobile in 2014, more than half pointed to the development of one or more mobile apps.

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