UMass Boston Students Help WUMB Radio Station to Engage Their Listeners

Social Media is the future of modern business communication and customer engagement. This is also true for WUMB 91.9FM, a nationally recognized NPR folk and roots music radio station here at UMass Boston.

Therefore, a student team under the supervision of Assistant Professor of Management and Marketing Werner Kunz worked on a semester project to renew the social media activity of WUMB. Within three months the students developed a social media strategy for the radio station and established a new blog to engage their audience on a more personal level.

Beside the pure conceptual work, the students also started the radio blog by themselves and engaged the most devoted listeners. The blog provides recent news about the music scene as well as portraits of musicians and possibilities for listeners to interact with the radio station. Since the beginning of this project, the visiting numbers of the new social media channel of the WUMB website are continuously growing and the platform has found already a loyal fan community.

“We were happy to be able to offer a real-world learning experience for the students, and were very pleased that the outcome helped us to realize a new approach to better connect with our most active listeners and donors," said Pat Monteith, general manager of WUMB.

If you have more questions about student-developed social media strategies, please contact Werner Kunz at werner.kunz@umb.edu.

(from left to right):
Derek Szeto, Sahag Frounjian, Pat Monteith (WUMB), Ashley Kent