Radio 2's Get Connected Campaign

BBC Radio 2 is the most popular radio station in the United Kingdom and it launched its month-long ‘Get Connected’ campaign on the 1st of March. For a while now Radio 2’s slogan has been ‘Online, On Digital and on 88 – 91 FM’ but it is clear they want to broaden their base of online listeners and interact with them more effectively. The listeners of Radio 2 are mostly over 25 but the wide range of music they play means there is large variety in the audience base.

Radio 2 is tapping into an important public relations issue. It could be argued that social media has in many ways has got ahead of itself and subsequently left important publics behind. Those that know about the World Wide Web often engage and understand the ramifications of their engagement but those that don’t know are walking blind. Although 70% of the UK households had access to the internet in 2009, 30% of an entire population is a significant number to not even have wherewithal to receive your tweets. It is natural in this era of social media that public relations campaigns utilise the potential for this type of communication but it is also important to recognise that people can get left behind.

It appears that those that have ‘got connected’ use the sites that social media led public relations targets such as Facebook, which is apparently now more popular than email. However, the way that people use social media varies greatly, from so-called addicts to people who can just about navigate their hotmail account. So even those who are connected may not be as engaged as we might assume.

I believe it is important to still run awareness campaigns and make sure that when a social media led public relations campaign is launched it isn’t sent off into cyberspace to be received or understood by no-one. Radio 2 has obviously recognised the need to pull those who aren’t connected into the 21st century, no doubt so that they can interact more fully with their listeners. Just because the internet became accessible to more than cyber geeks in 1995 does not mean everyone is up to speed...people still listen to Bananarama for Pete’s sake.