Salt Lake City radio DJ is very social media-savvy
Salt Lake City alternative radio DJ Cory O’Stuart has a complete grasp on modern social media, which he uses to promote his station’s contests, sponsors, and his own “all-request” show on weeknights.
O’Stuart, who works at a real radio station, not one of the fake internet ones at school that anyone can do, receives ratings for his show which make Tyler Riggs blanch with envy.
Riggs on his first day of eighth grade at Mount Logan Middle School.
“It’s not fair, we need a more powerful antenna out at the ‘Radio Ranch,’” said Riggs, flagship of KVNU 610 AM in Logan. “I asked Mayor Watts the tough questions on my show, ‘For The People With Tyler Riggs.’”
Big city jerk O’Stuart credits his amazing success at a young age to his mastery of social media.
“I was the first radio DJ to have a Facebook page,” O’Stuart said. “In America.”
O’Stuart paused to sip a frothy coffee drink from the coffee shop right around the corner in his trendy neighborhood in the most cutting-edge part of Salt Lake City, and then continued: “Last week I again redefined cool when I deleted my Myspace page and told everyone about it on Facebook…yeah, so many people ‘liked’ that.”
O’Stuart has the (now-) obligatory Facebook page, a Twitter feed, a LinkedIn account for when a station in a larger market inevitably takes notice of his impressiveness, a blog at his station’s website, a Gmail account, a Google Wave thingy, and a GPS app on his Apple iPhone 3G so his fans can follow him to his live appearances. Listeners who have connected with O’Stuart online presumably learn of the station’s promotions while listening to the radio, and then are reminded by a shoulder-tap from one of techno-God O’Stuarts e-tentacles later.
“I had a Facebook account to share pictures and talk to friends,” O’Stuart said, “and these executives think I performed a magic trick by talking about my job on Facebook. I’m also making seven times what Riggs makes this year.”
O’Stuart then departed on his bicycle–even though it’s cold out–for his pottery class, or maybe it was organic gardening, but at any rate, he has lots of time for those sorts of pursuits thanks to his internet wizardry and healthy ratings.
Riggs, on the other hand, puts in five hours every night recording promos for local businesses he detests, especially Westates Theaters.
“If only I could get on the air in that big market down south,” Riggs said for the 1,000th time, reaching for his well-thumbed copy of Howard Stern’s Private Parts for the 6,823nd time. “Maybe if I gave people an option to ‘Digg’ what they read on my blog, I could throw lavish parties where no one watches tv, like O’Stuart.”
Riggs often listens to O’Stuart’s show and various promos before recording himself, so he can “see how a professional radio personality does it.”
“It’s the little asides that make Cory so alternative, young and cool,” a now-depressed Riggs said. “Forget about all his blog bullshit, it’s the fuckin witty asides, man. I wish I could do on-air patter. Did you hear my interview with Randy Watts? It was like Karl Rove trying to roof a militant lesbian but accidentally slipping her a gram of meth, then trying to sweet-talk her back to a Focus on the Family rally in Starkville, Miss. with keynote speaker, James Dobson.
“YES IT WAS THAT BAD!!” Riggs shrieked.
As an example, Riggs played a recent O’Stuart live appearance at a Coors Light party at Liquid Joe’s, where O’Stuart remarked that he could barely even say the words “Coors Light Party Girls” because the Coors Light Party Girls are so hot, and he is “just that kind of guy.”
“That’s fucking gold!” Riggs screamed, throwing down his headphones in frustration. Riggs was in the middle of recording another enlightening interview with conservative wack-job, print shop owner and Providence resident Richard Watkins, one of KVNU’s most important sponsors. Richard is coming out with another fucking calender with Cache Valley art again this year, everybody, and these are just lovely art-pictures taken by local photographers.
Riggs has facebook friend-requested and been denied by O’Stuart five times. “I like to keep it classy on mines,” O’Stuart said. “Riggs’ only facebook friends are the same five dickheads who dominate the KVNU chatroom and always call in. No one listens to his show either, just those same five dickheads.”
/additional reporting by Lordy Tremain
What the crap…
Hey the guy in the pic is really looking genius in the spectacles.