Build Your Brand by Thinking and Acting Like a Media Organization
My Earliest Lesson in Serving an Audience
And so there I was, sitting on the avocado-green shag carpet in my tiny bedroom with two stacks of 45s and a record player. I just finished playing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” and was cleaning the lint off the needle before spinning the next tune. It didn’t matter that I had dead air or that I was seven or eight years old — I was the disc jockey — I controlled the airwaves of my bedroom. My audience? My younger sister who sat in front of that record player, waiting for me to play her requests.
This was the scene each time my sister asked, “Do you want to play Radio Station?” I think about this vignette from time to time because it reminds me of a valuable lesson. My sister was my audience. If I didn’t play her requests, she’d leave my room. She’d walk right out on me, even though she was my best friend. It was that cut and dry. And that lesson has always been the takeaway from that experience. Give your audience what they want, or you’ll be sitting alone on the shag carpet with your records.
I recently realized this game of playing radio station foreshadowed a much more significant concept, especially in today’s internet-connected world.
