Nobody likes it when someone talks down to them. They love it when they’re made to feel special. Listeners are real people. Well, most of them. So they love it when air personalities respect them and make them the focus of content. That’s not so hard to do when you use the most powerful word in radio.
How you phrase what you say makes all the difference in the world. But sometimes, air talent accidentally and unintentionally cause listeners to feel like an outsider. It’s not intentional, of course. It’s just how it happens.
It happens by the words we choose. For example:
All of you out there
Hey everybody
You out there listening right now”
….for all my listeners
You guys
All you folks out in radio land” (Yeah, I heard this. And it was in the 21st Century, too).
When we treat the audience as a group, rather than talking to listeners one-to-one, we lose the power to persuade or make personal connections. Because it’s no longer personal.
It’s almost like we’re talking down to the audience.
