Inside Music MediaJerry Del Colliano

You may or may not be aware that the hottest thing currently in social media by far is SnapChat.

The company is using its popularity to time an IPO.

SnapChat is a mobile app that lets users receive and send videos and photos that self-destruct ten seconds after they are viewed.

The NBA, McDonald’s, Disney and a host of other content providers are doubling down on this new social media platform.

SnapChat has 158 million daily users, staggering.

Some 2.5 billion snaps are taken every day.

The founders have corralled a different take on social media that is so opposite of, say, Facebook that with Timelines and archiving personal history exists for long-term use.

Not so with SnapChat.

If you’re with me so far, it strikes me that SnapChat, the ten second self-destructive social media wonder is like, well – good old radio.

Radio going one better and saying you have only the present to enjoy what you’re hearing and it does not self-destruct until you turn the radio off.

This begs the question that we will raise at my upcoming media conference of whether radio is spending too much time trying to be like the Internet, adapted to the world of apps, another extension of social media.

If so, we may have the answer to why this strategy isn’t working.

If young, money demo-type audiences are rejecting Facebook already for that which appears and then disappears in ten seconds, maybe this is an area where radio can excel.

Stations are stymied as to whether what they put on the air should also be available on a time-delayed basis online.

Or whether to even broadcast what’s on the air online simultaneously.

If so many prime users are saying they want to experience content in the moment and then move on, isn’t there more radio can do to fulfill their wish?

Among the issues worth considering …

Wow moments that appear only on-air and never again.

And what qualifies as a “wow” moment that is so impressive when it occurs and then even more impressive when it never occurs again.

How many should be do and how far apart?

Who will do them?

Believe it or not there are many “wow” moments radio could add to be more like SnapChat.

If CNN is on SnapChat (and it is), shouldn’t radio do SnapChat news?

Remember, the difference between what’s on the air and wow moments is an audio snap and every bit of it occurs on the air not online.

Imagine the brainstorming we will do on how to create audio snaps.

This is not about spending more money.

Or even pulling the plug on popular radio formats.

It’s about mirroring an explosive trend by young money demo audiences that is currently going unrecognized by radio.

How to create SnapChat moments on radio as well as wrestling with the best way to channel radio content is on the agenda at my upcoming Radio Conference in less than 6 weeks.