This year's Radio Festival at Salford Quays created a massive buzz about the industry on social networks, according to a research company.
It's claimed there was an increase of 230 percent in online conversations about the 2010 event, when compared with the previous year.
Social media research and strategy specialists Pebble in the Pond say there were more than a thousand posts about the Radio Academy's flagship event during October 2010 – but that there were just over 300 for the same event in Nottingham in 2009.
This year’s Festival at the Lowry in Manchester grabbed the attention of more than 200 industry observers who tweeted and blogged, sharing images and video across the social web.
The research found that the most talked-about people were Jeremy Kyle, Chris Evans and Richard Bacon who all spoke at the event, while the content of the Techcon10 sessions and the next generation of RadioPlayer were the items most discussed on Twitter. It also shows a rise in the number of women engaging online about the event – from just one in ten during the 2009 event, to nearly a quarter in 2010.
Al Clarke led the research and told RadioToday.co.uk: "The huge growth in social media conversations about the Radio Festival this year reflects the wider impact that this new medium is having for broadcasting and marketing strategy as a whole. Whilst the participants and organisers were focused on the events in the theatres and halls at the Lowry, hundreds more people were having their own conversations online about the activities."
You can get a copy of the free report, 'Social Media and the 2010 Radio Festival' by emailing radiofestival@thepebbleinthepond.co.uk – and you can still see our video content from this year's Radio Festival [link=http://www.youtube.com/radiotodayvideos]here[/link].