Toby Howell has a clear sense of what his audience wants. As Program Director at Cumulus Little Rock, he oversees content strategy and programming across the building, and like most PDs at local radio groups, he’s constantly balancing what the team wants to do with what they actually have the bandwidth to pull off.
Entering the year, the priorities were clear. The how was not.
The Challenge
The goals were simple enough: get more engagement from listeners and online followers, and grow the overall follower base across social platforms. The problem was that short-form video, one of the most powerful tools for doing exactly that, was out of reach for a team stretched thin.
“The whole thing was a bottleneck due to a short staff. We really weren’t participating in short-form videos and were just posting static pictures with news stories.” — Toby Howell, Program Director, Cumulus Little Rock
Static images kept the channels moving, but they weren’t sparking the kind of interaction that actually grows an audience. Posts went up. Nobody shared them. Comments were rare. Toby knew something had to change, and it couldn’t mean hiring more people or adding hours nobody had.
The Solution
Toby brought a few programmers together in the building to take a real look at what was out there. They went through several options, but one platform kept rising to the top.
“As we reviewed different companies’ offerings, we kept coming back to Futuri as a top option. Most of us were somewhat familiar with some of the product offerings already and were comfortable with it. The addition of Instant Video put it over the top.” — Toby Howell, Program Director, Cumulus Little Rock
With TopicPulse Instant Video, the team could take a trending story and turn it into a polished, ready-to-post short-form video in minutes, no outside production help, no hours lost to editing. It fit how they already worked, making adoption easy and keeping the whole process sustainable for a lean team.
The Results
The difference showed up fast. Posts that used to disappear into the feed started getting shared. Comments picked up. Multiple times a week, something would hit home with the audience. The follower count, which had been slow to move, started climbing.
“It has made it possible with a small staff to create very professional news posts that stick out and get engagement from the listeners and followers without spending hours on it.” — Toby Howell, Program Director, Cumulus Little Rock
“We never really had people sharing our posts or even commenting until we started using Instant Video. Now we are getting several posts per week to get really good numbers. It is also leading to our social media pages getting more followers at a much faster rate.” — Toby Howell, Program Director, Cumulus Little Rock
What Comes Next
With the audience responding and the workflow locked in, Toby’s focus is now on bringing the sales department into the picture and turning that momentum into revenue. His message to anyone still grinding through manual video production is straightforward:
“I would tell them to save themselves the headaches and the time and get signed up. It’s high quality that is, quick and efficient to deliver to the audience. Getting the Sales Department on board is the next step I would like to see with our building.” — Toby Howell, Program Director, Cumulus Little Rock
Small teams can compete in today’s short-form video landscape. TopicPulse Instant Video gives broadcasters the tools to publish professional content quickly and consistently.
Your audience is scrolling right now. TopicPulse Instant Video makes sure they stop on you.
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