Website Reviews

EZ Rock, like Joe FM, is a popular workplace radio station. Because the station is played in a lot of offices around town, that means that many people listen to it for 8 or more hours a day, making a great station to promote events to a broad and diverse audience.

A quick glance at the station's website shows all of things one would expect: show schedules, concert and event listings, contest information, and news. The site's news sections (“News” and “Lifestyle & Entertainment”) seem to be pulling their stories from a wire service, as most of the stories are coming from outside of Edmonton. While this isn't a particularly bad thing when it comes to the standard news—it's good to know what's happening in the rest of the world, after all—it's a bit of a let down with regard to the entertainment news. As anyone who as lived in the city for more than a couple of years nows, Edmonton is an entertainment mecca. It's a bit disappointing, then, that a local radio station wouldn't focus more on local entertainment news. (To be fair, EZ Rock is hardly alone in this failing.)

As far as Web 2.0 adoption goes, EZ Rock is doing alright. The way the station makes use of social media tools is comparable to most of other Edmonton stations. There are staff blogs (which could use some serious CSS design work, but which do allow comments), which are listed below, as well as a link to John Tesh's blog (Tesh has a syndicated show which airs on EZ Rock).

Shane's blog
Cheryl's blog
Seanna's blog
Jill's blog
Ron's blog
Shannon's blog

There are also YouTube videos embedded in the site under the “Audio & Video” category. If you want to watch an interview with Richard Simmons or Kurt Browning, you can do so without leaving EZ Rock's website. Of course, if you want to leave a comment, you can always click-through to YouTube itself and leave one there.

EZ Rock also has a Facebook profile, although it's rarely updated and doesn't provide much information to either fans or potential advertisers/marketers. It's like they set it up so they could say that the station has a Facebook presence, but then didn't bother to do anything with it.

In addition to the social media aspects of the site, EZ Rock gives user the standard “Contact Us” link so that they can get in touch with the station—anyone at the station. EZ Rock's contact page rivals any that I've ever seen. It appears to list the email address of every single employee the station has, from the on-air talent to the creative writing team to the marketing and promotions department. No matter your reason for needing to contact the station, it's almost guaranteed that you'll be able to find the email address for the appropriate person on this page.

EZ Rock also has a Community Calendar that anyone can submit to. It appears to be free, just click the link at the bottom of the page to send an email to Seanna Collins. If she deems your event worth mentioning, she'll add it to the calendar. EZ Rock appears to be pretty liberal about what they'll announce on their Community Calendar, so odds are that if you tell them about it, they'll spread the word. For community groups and non-profit organizations, this is an opportunity you simply can't pass up.

www.ezrock1049.com

Joe FM is one of the most popular workplace radio stations in Edmonton. There are a lot of people in the city who listen to the station for 8 hours a day—more if they also listen to Joe during their commute to and from the office—so getting your message out to Joe FM can be very helpful to organizations trying to reach a wide and demographically diverse audience. Joe's website provides a few ways of doing just that.

There is, of course, the option of trying to get Joe to act as a media sponsor for your event. This will get you mentioned on-air repeatedly, as well as on the station's website. This, of course, isn't an option that everyone will be able to take advantage of.

But, it is possible to make use of the station's website to help get your message out to the audience.

First, check the station's “Contact Us” page. They provide email addresses for everyone you might want to get in touch with: the program director, the on-air talent, the sales department, and the promotions people. If you've got news that the Joe FM audience might want to hear, try sending your news release to the appropriate person at the station.

If you're up for more guerrilla tactics, the station does have a blog. Maureen Holloway—who provides the Last Word on the morning show—has a blog called MoreMo that allows comments. If you've got information that is relevant to one of her blog posts, leaving a comment can't hurt. At worst, it might get deleted (though, as long as you're not spamming, this is unlikely). At best, you'll get your message out to Maureen's readers and possibly even an on-air mention.

Maureen Holloway's blog

The trick to using blog comments as a marketing tool is to make sure that your comments are completely relevant to the topic at hand, and that they will provide genuine value to either the blogger or her readers. Ideally, you should read the blog regularly and become a part of the community by posting comments that are not commercial in nature.

Once you've established a certain level of trust with the author and her audience, you can probably get away with dropping the occasional self-promotional link in your comments. But, if you try that before you've built up enough trust, you might just find your comment getting sent into the void...along with any comments you might try to post in the future.

Joe FM doesn't appear to have an official presence on Facebook, although there is a fan-created group with about a dozen members on board. It doesn't have any activity on it, though, so it's probably not worth pursuing as part of a social marketing campaign.

www.joefm.ca