ABSTRACTSocial media appears to be the new dominating form of media that differs from traditional media. Social media presents radio in a way that listeners and users are not just receivers but can share content, comment on it, interact with each other, create content themselves, and so forth. Some other …
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ABSTRACTSocial media appears to be the new dominating form of media that differs from traditional media. Social media presents radio in a way that listeners and users are not just receivers but can share content, comment on it, interact with each other, create content themselves, and so forth. Some other common characteristics of social media services are that they are often cost-free and easy to use. Radio stations noticing the current trend are being compelled to incorporate social media into a radio station. Despite this trend, not all listeners seem to be enthused about the use of social media is listening to radio stations. Several factors contribute to this factor. This research seeks to understand from the perspective of the radio stations and listeners alike the usage relevance, impact, and challenges faced in the usage of social media listening to the radio. The technique used in this research is simple random sampling. Each individual is chosen randomly and entirely by chance. The data analysis software SPSS Version 23 and Microsoft Excel was used to derive descriptive statistics, frequencies, and percentages. Quantitative data were presented in tables and diagrams and analyzed quantitatively. According to the research, the usage of WhatsApp (100%) and Facebook (90%) seem to be the most successful social media used by the radio stations in Sunyani as the listeners actively participate. Twitter and Instagram seem to have 15% usage by the radio stations but no listenership usage. Other social media types like Twitter and Instagram seem not to be utilized by listeners in Sunyani. 100% growth was recorded by those who used WhatsApp and Facebook while no growth was recorded by the use of Twitter and Instagram due to non-response by listeners. The cost of internet data and the instability of networks posed the main challenge in the utilization of social media by Radio Stations. Also, the non-response of listeners to other social media platforms apart from WhatsApp and Facebook seems to be a problem. Radio stations with social media presence have an edge in increasing their audience as compared to their sisters who have no social media presence. This is highly due to the fact that the teaming youth have a great interest in social media and hence in the near future, only radio stations with social media presence can survive the competition. This also is due to the immense advantage provided on those platforms where pictorial images of the events being broadcasted are available on Facebook Live or YouTube in some jurisdictions. This makes the listeners have the first-hand reportage to assess the authenticity of what he is hearing. Also, advertisers will only choose stations with a high audience especially the youth when the product in question targets the youth. In spite of the benefits of social media on radio stations in enhancing their performance, the cost of data and the inconsistency in internet data availability needs addressing
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