Was you always one of those kids that loved music, probably played a music instrument or experimented with radio shows? Perhaps, you was a loyal listener of a radio station or specific show and was intrigued with the radio experience. Your intentions may differ and you seeking for a new hobby, wanting to explore the entertainment industry or have something important to share. There could be many diverse triggers for someone to get involved with the online radio. 

When someone decides to search on how to start your own radio station or how to broadcast a radio show, s/he could be overwhelmed in the beginning. There are different internet radio streaming providers that could be focused on different audiences (amateurs vs professionals), with different needs (some teams would have their own automation tools, some would only seek for radio streaming service or some would need a complete management solution).

So, how to start my first internet radio station from home?

If this is your first time I would suggest avoiding spending money on getting and setting up hardware or downloading sophisticated extra software. The broadcaster solution will include everything you will need in order to broadcast your own internet radio station. What’s the most great thing about this plan is the fact that it is a full solution. What this means..You have a radio station management area where you will be able to see your schedule, organize your media files on the media library and add your breaks. The plan offers reliable and scalable streaming as well as the Virtual Studio, which is a web-based broadcasting tool.  More information on this solution you could find on our Knowledge Base.

In any case, DO WHAT YOU LOVE. Follow your call and create amazing online radio content.

Try different solutions, experiment with different genres or talk topics, find which internet radio streaming service best fits your needs.  Don’t get frustrated; be prepare for a learning curve. And our team will be by your side to help you!  

Evi Katsoulieri

Community Manager @radiojar

For the past few years Instagram has been a fast-growing platform and businesses are eager to establish a presence and encourage engagement on the network. Before planning your Instagram marketing presence, please take a few moments and think if this platform is appropriate for your genre, if you audience is likely to be there and what type of content you should upload. 

                                     Join Radio Instagram Profile

Now, time to rock your Instagram account with 3 simple but great tips!

High quality photos. This tip seems pretty obvious for a photo-oriented social media platform. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for managers to post a photo or video without any editing or color improving. You are not a photographer, but you need to make sure that the photo will not be blur or squeezed. According to Hootsuite, editing and/or adding a filter to your Instagram photos can increase the number of views by 21 percent, and comments and engagement by 45 percent! Also, remember to shoot square photos! This lets you save time on cropping and ensures that the essential elements in the photo won’t be cropped out later.

Luckily, there are some apps that can truly help you! Using the available filters trusted by thousands Instagram users, you can give a touch of professionalism to your account! Check some of my personal favorites:

• VSCOcam (Free for iOS and Android): Top quality filters and all the features you will need as to create an amazing photo for your Instagram profile!
  
• Priime (Free for iOS): Explore the filter recommendation, which will quickly help you pick a filter style based on “subject, color palette, exposure, and more.”
  
• Pic Collage ( Free for iOs and Android): Create a collage and tell your radio story as easily and seamlessly as possible!
  
• Horizon (Free for iOs and Android): Capture always horizontally and explore top filters to enhance your photo or video.

                              Great Instagram use by Z100newyork

Use the Bio space efficiently. The very first thing people notice is your account’s bio. So, keep it crisp and concise. Provide links of your Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Snapchat profiles as to drive traffic to all your channels! Take advantage of formatting and emoji support to give your bio an edge.

Measure your Instagram Marketing effectiveness. Logically, you use your Instagram account as to drive traffic and leads back to your website. Here is the most simple way to have a basic reporting of your effort. In order to monitor accurate click rates you can use a customized bit.ly link (or a link from another shortener) exclusively for the URLs used in Instagram. Of course, there are some platforms -free or paid- created to provide Instagram analytics and reporting for your profile or followers’ base that you could consider using - perhaps Crowdfire or Iconosquare,

Do you have other tips that you would like to share? I would love to hear them!

Evi Katsoulieri

Community Manager

Once about a time there was a book:

  “The War Of The Worlds” by H. G. Wells, first published in 1898.

This was the story of one of the attempts of Martians to occupy Earth, arriving in our planet in cylinders fired from the surface of Mars.

The book is now a classic and has been an inspiration for other novels, TV shows and Hollywood films. It is also supposed to be the cornerstone of a young man’s imagination, Robert H. Goddard, who later on took part in the Apollo program’s moon landing.

There was also another man, who found the novel very interesting and shared it in his own way with the rest of the world.

It was the legendary actor and filmmaker Orson Welles, who narrated an adaptation of the book, as part of “The Mercury Theatre on The Air” anthology series, airing on Sunday, October 30, 1938 over Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) radio network.

The program’s format was a simulated live newscast of developing events, presented as news bulletins interrupting another program.

There were reports that some of the audience had missed the introduction stating that this show was a drama and not an actual news report, leading media in the days following the broadcast, to describe the program as deceptive and calling for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

All of these events skyrocketed Welles’ fame.

This is a story that makes me think of the impact radio had on people’s lives in the 20th Century.

In the 1930s radio’s golden age, stars were born in between the radio waves.

American everyday life was orbiting around comedian shows, dramas, soap operas and news broadcasts through a wooden radio receiver with its own spot in the living room.

Alexandros Zoupas

Account Manager @radiojar

Radio still has a fair way to go in order to even out the gender ratio – both in front and behind the mic.

On a research that our team recently conducted, we saw that there is clear gap on the representation of female and male web radio owners and managers. The vast majority (83.8%) of the respondents were male managers of an online radio station. Nevertheless, no statistical significant difference between the two genders was presented. So, if there are not substantial differences on the management style, leadership behavior or decision making, why come the female managers and presenters are fewer?

In 2008, Joanne Good,  BBC Radio London’s Breakfast Show presenter with Paul Ross, had stated that women face significant challenges in radio, more often than not playing second fiddle to a male presenter. To justify this statement, she added that perhaps the female voice is partly to blame because it is “not as authoritative” as the male voice, which creates confidence.

”Sound Women on Air – 2013″ was a research that was focused exactly on this gap. It highlighted that only 1 in 5 solo voices is female. Also, in co-hosted shows, you were nearly 10 times as likely to hear 2+ male presenters as you are to hear 2+ female presenters!

An amazing initiative that we should all remember is Sound Women in UK. Since its beginning in 2011, the organization aimed to educate women on how to take jobs in the broadcasting industry via networking, training programs and mentoring. Sound Women has effected enormous change within the radio and audio industry, including a pledge from the BBC to have a female presenter in half of its local radio breakfast shows and a 50% female workforce, more female lead or co-presenters than ever before in commercial radio and fewer male-dominated industry conference panels. Even if the organization is officially closing in 2017, its legacy will continue with more regional events, mentoring schemes and women-in-radio empowerment.

According to  Emma Barnett on “10 things no one tells you about being female radio presenter”: It does make a difference having women at the helm and I don’t just mean for the purposes of young girls having role models (albeit that’s very important too). We sometimes pick different stories, draw out different angles and I can certainly attest that many of my callers on LBC were regularly women – who may or may not have called in to share the same difficult story with a man.

Real social change concerning gender equality is happening – has there ever been a more exciting time to be in audio and radio?

Choose a logo you ‘ll love

The creation of your logo is really important and it worth spending effort on it. Your station’s logo might become the most identifiable aspect of your company.

Minimalism and logo simplicity is the current trend. Your logo should be easy to be distinguished and remembered. Having too many shadows, complicated messages and fuss may even hurt your brand image. Another issue to consider is the color of your logo. Since colors can elicit an emotional response from your target audience, as well as convey your brand’s message, it’s very important that your color selection goes deeper than personal preference.

Optimize your social media presence

You need to make sure that your online presence is consistent and professional in order to reinforce your brand. Don’t forget to have a multi-channel approach and promote all your social media profiles. After all, these are the points of contact with your potential customers. 

Take a few minutes and optimize your profile photo and your cover photo. This means ensuring that photos fall within the dimensions recommended for a certain network. Often all it takes is a quick crop.

Standard image sizes for major social networks are as follows:

• Facebook profile picture: 180×180 pixels
• Facebook cover photo: 851×315 pixels

• Twitter profile photo: 400×400 pixels
• Twitter header image: 1,500×500 pixels

• Google+ profile picture: 250×250 pixels minimum
• Google+ cover photo: 1080×608 pixels

Select your social media channels

As far as the channels are concerned, do your homework before building your marketing strategy. You need to know is which channels are dominant for your market and focus your organization’s time and money on winning against the competition in those targeted channels.Your audience may be on Twitter, Facebook or on Snapchat given their age group, interests and location. So, give them the chance to find you, like you and trust you!

Build your amazing website

It’s perfectly normal not be a tech geek or know how to code. There are workarounds like using Drag& Drop Website Builders. All website builders are built differently – each has its own pros and cons. Some are easier, some are more challenging. Examples could be wix.com, weebly, or even,  ready Joomla or Wordpress templates.

Give your listeners reasons to come to your website by offering exclusive content, ways to interact with your station or special deals and offers from your top advertisers. 

Evi Katsoulieri

Community Manager @radiojar

This weekend is the peak of the carnival celebrations in Brazil and many other places of the world! If you’re one of the lucky thousands who’ll be partying in the streets of Port of Spain and San Fernando, you can probably stop reading this blog post right now. If you are not and you want to spice up a lit bit your radio program during these days, you are at the right spot. 

Whether you’re in Latin America or not this February make sure you keep the Carnival spirit alive with a few songs! All you need is some upbeat party music that reflect the ecstatic mood of major international celebrations.

The carnaval’s music genre is “world music,” which has been bursting with popularity in recent years. There’s a simple definition of that term, according to Dan Storper, founder and president of music label Putumayo World Music: international music with tribal origins. It sounds exotic, but much of it is surprisingly accessible. And irresistible. (Tanya Mohn, Carnival Power)

Here is a great list with some hidden gems of party, carnival music that you should check out!

The Music Tradition of Carnaval

The Rio Carnival has a unique style, which is mainly attributed to the influence of African immigrant slaves, famous for their spectacular musical abilities. African slaves, brought to Brazil by the Portuguese, gave life to the first samba rhythms.

As part of Carnaval you do not only see the colorful images but hear the beauty of the festival through the music. The passionate sounds represent the many traditions Brazil represents including Amerindians, Africans, and Portuguese. 

Frevo is the music of street carnival in Recife and Olinda in the Northeast of Brazil. Frevos are fast paced compositions made for the foliões [carnival crowds] to dance to. 

Most people think samba when carnival comes to mind, but marchinhas are also very popular, especially in Rio de Janeiro.

In any case, remember:  Have fun, enjoy this carnaval period and spread your cheery mood! 

Evi Katsoulieri

Community Manager @radiojar

The listening hours and the media reach of online radio stations cannot be neglected. By 2018,  the audience of online radio is expected to surpass the 183 million listeners (XAPP Media and RAIN News, 2015). It is significant that Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $59.6 billion for the full year of 2015. What is more amazing is how much the revenues were increased throughout that year as well as from 2014 to 2015. More specifically, the last quarter of 2015 accounted for approximately $17.4 billion and Q3 2015 almost $14.7 billion. Revenues for the full year of 2015 increased by 20.4% over 2014 (Interactive Advertising Bureau, 2016). 

How do the stations include advertising to their program?

Commercial stations, on average, air from 9 to 20 advertisements per hour. Frequently the advertising messages are concentrated in blocks of 3 minutes or more. For reasons ranging from sellout to seasonality, stations adjust rates to maximize their yield on inventory. During the years 2014 and 2015, decreases were reported in the number of ads per hour. At the same time, radio stations aired more ads that were 30-seconds full advertisements than the 15-seconds.

How are the rates calculated?

Market conditions can drive or suppress rates for a specific day part, day, week, month or quarter. The price of each slot package differs based on the relative value and demand for all stations presented. Providing access to these packages offers the advantage of broader market exposure and streamlined negotiations, as well as the potential to access more robust added value programs (Radio Advertising Bureau, 2002).

Lastly, do you know the top categories and spenders in this market? 

The top radio spot categories in general are commercials for Auto Dealers and Rentals, Communications Services, Financial Services and Health Care.XAPP Media Report (2015) on internet radio advertisers showcases an increasing number of local advertisers using Internet Radio. That number reached 15% of total publishers in 2015. On a spending scale the top spenders on Internet Radio commercials are companies like Walmart, Verizon Wireless, Hyundai and Burger King. These companies also rank at the top of broadcast advertisers in the spending category on digital media.  

Evi Katsoulieri

Community Manager @radiojar