I guess I was a little more honest than I needed to be when I posted in the chat you gotta earn it but it's true.
So with that being said I would like to take a few minutes and offer some tips on how to build your online audience.
First off, I've been hosting an internet broadcast in some form or another since January 2008. I've had shows where we had over 50 people in chat, and I've also hosted many shows where I had no traffic. I have to be straight up it does suck when you put a ton of work into a broadcast and nobody shows up to listen to it. While helpful (I hope!) none of the tips I'm going to offer are going to be a magic bullet to bring an audience in but if you put zero effort into building your audience it's a good bet that zero is what you are going to get.
If you want to bring people to your online broadcast, you've got to let people know you're there, and build enough of an audience that will also let other people know about it.
Networking is key, so be shameless about promoting your broadcast, you really don't have any reason to be shy about it.
With that being said, here are some helpful tips to build your audience and viewership;
1) Social media is key, I can not stress this enough. Make a Facebook group and maybe even a Facebook page for your show. Get on Twitter, Instagram, wherever you can find people with similar interests that might like to check out your show. Whether it's music, beany babies, race cars or the Illuminati find groups and people who share interests similar to your online broadcast's content and promote your show.
2) This was brought up in the justcastlive broadcast and is a good point, I forget who mentioned it but want to give the proper credit because this is what I do..
Even if there is nobody at the show, act like you are doing a show with people watching.I'll add my own twist to this, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you don't have anybody come to the show consider it practice.
3) Just because you hit the start button and start a broadcast doesn't mean that viewers or listeners will magically appear. I still stand by my statement you gotta earn it.
4) Be consistent. Start your show at the same date and time every time you broadcast. If you own a date and time regular viewers will get into the habit of remembering when your show is on and popping into the broadcast to hang out.
5) Quality is key. I often post about how I'm still tweaking my settings. This is important because people will not have a whole lot of patience at a show with choppy video and garbled audio no matter what your content might be. Don't assume that just because you ramp up your settings to the max that it's going to work out. It depends on your machine, you're internet connection, and how you are broadcasting your show if you are using an encoder or your broadcasting sites broadcast tool. I will say that sometimes less is more, drop down to a lower setting and ramp up and see how it works.
6) Be interesting. I'll say it, unless you are a hot chick built like a brick shithouse people aren't going to hang around long at a broadcast where the host just stares at the cam and talks back at the chat.
7) Don't feed the trolls. Deb from Unsigned Musicians/Unleashed found that running a "no crap chat" has a benefit which is good people looking for a nice place to hang out online appreciate a fun chat, not a drama filled one.
8) Learn from your mistakes and grow from them. Everyone has growing pains.
9) Interact with your audience, talk to the chat, it lets people know that the host is happy they are there and draws them in.
10) Check out other shows. Hang out, get known, put your name out there. Even if you just hang out a another show on the same site you broadcast on for just a couple of minutes, it's a good way to make friends who might want to check out your broadcast in return.
Please feel free to add your own tips in the comments section down below!
