Radio 4 plans comedy push in digital marketing campaign

BBC Radio 4 has kicked off a social media campaign which taps into Twitter to try to expand its audience.

The three week campaign running till the 6th December highlights the breadth of the station’s output by sending Twitter users who post a message which includes the hashtag ‘#curious4comedy’ a randomly selected on-demand clip of a current Radio 4 comedy show.

The clips sent to users Twitter streams will range from shows including That Mitchell and Webb Sound to the News Quiz.

The campaign, dubbed Curious 4 Comedy, has been developed by digital marketing agency Poke together with Radio 4’s internal staff. It comes as a result of a BBC Digital Challenge Day organised by the BBC’s Digital Marketing Lab held in July to try to get listeners more engaged with the station.

If it proves successful the campaign could be extended to cover genres other than comedy.

Radio 4 digital editor Nigel Smith said in his BBC blog:

“This is about us reaching out to new audiences, to those people who love comedy and the talent on Radio 4 but might not know about Radio 4 being such a comedy powerhouse.”

The campaign is also being supported with a wider marketing campaign on BBC TV and other radio networks.

News Quiz regular Miles Jupp explains how to get great Radio 4 comedy clips straight into your Twitter feed in this video:

Jonathan Jacob is a Solutions Manager at Global Radio with varied experience across commercial radio S&P, events, marketing and PR. He was listed in the inaugural Radio Academy 30 under 30, is a Student Radio Awards judge and sits on the Events Committee for The Radio Academy. Views are personal.