16th September 2018
One of the things we always try to do at CFR is give you choice. That's why we offer more ways to listen to us than any other station and why we tried multiple platforms for listener interaction during shows. However, for the latter offerings it appears people were confused about what and when and how.
Most of you will know that we were forced to close all our Facebook groups into one because a) FB announced they were going to start charging for groups and; b) of the months of FB stress they were causing to DJs during show time with their bad features and instability (as well as changing the way external links were captured inside FB posts- i.e. it gave FB Google Points but not us), but kept CFR Live & Deeplay open for those FB users who didn't want to move to our Forum.
However, we always said that if the situation changed with FB we would revisit this decision. FB have now decided they will not charge for groups, and have increased reliability in FB in recent months.
However, FB have also only half rolled out the Announcements feature to their users, so some of you can access our pinned posts and some of you can't. This particularly affected the Sunday Rock Show due to people's inability to locate the Request line.
Following discussion on all this at our meeting yesterday we have decided to reopen our old FB Groups. And because of even better functionality in our Forum (eg hashtagging, direct reply to comment, picture captions and mosaics etc) we have decided to close our CrossChat app, now that our Forum has the same features.
This will give you two choices for interaction during show time.
The Forum, which you can log in using a specific CFR member profile, or your FB or Twitter profiles, and WHICH REMAIN OUR PRIMARY INTERACTION TOOL (for all the reasons stated above)
and
our old Facebook Groups.
However, because the DJ needs to be focused on the music and because of some of the reasons above still being valid, we are changing the way the groups are used.
There will be a single show-night post, similar to the way we do it in the Forum, for you to comment on, say hello, goodnight, post pics and chat to others etc, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PLACE INDIVIDUAL POSTS.
As we've said, sometimes having a million notifications pop up and try to get round all the posts (even when FB actually shows you all the posts, something that they are still having issues with) adds pressure to the DJ spoiling our fun on the night- which I think you will agree is highly important!
The dates for the reopening of the FB groups will be week commencing SUNDAY 23RD SEPTEMBER WITH THE RETURN OF THE SUNDAY ROCK SHOW.
In fact the SRS will be active from Tuesday 18th September with the post of the Request Line in the SRS group.
All other shows this week will continue in the CFR Live group and in the Forum as per normal. Then as this week's shows progress, their old Groups will reopen in readiness for the shows starting week commencing 24th.
Most of you will be unaffected by the re-opening of the groups as we didn't delete them so your membership is still active. Those of you who joined in the last 6 months will have to add yourselves to the show pages you listen to, but that is a two second job so we hope you won't feel too inconvenienced. There will also still be a CFR & Deeplay Group for general postings and specials/showcases interaction, and this will go live from Friday 21st September.
The only group not being reopened is the TWS, as it makes sense to have the TWS & BRS in one group because they both are hosted by the same DJ and on the same day- and occasionally the two shows combine for all day special events.
Thank you for your continued support- and your understanding of why we need to push on outside of our existing listener base and grow the station (which we cannot do in Facebook).
This is positively and absolutely the last time we will be changing our interaction tools strategy. Probably. ;)
