Many studies have proven
that radio is a good medium for product advertisements.
People listen to the radio
for entertainment, usually to listen to the latest music
or to their favorite radio
program. In between the program, advertisements on products and
services are being played.
For many years, this has
been the trend in advertising. But now that the radio medium is
almost behind the audio-visual medium, the TV, and the Internet,
other marketing strategies have to be employed to continue the
benefits of advertising through audio.
It is then that the
benefits of using music on websites were discovered. Before, music
on the Internet was just
available in downloadable forms as mp3. Even through hosting
downloadable music on their servers, companies were able to get much
traffic on their sites. And everyone engaged in Internet marketing
knows that website traffic plays a big role in boosting product and
service sales.
However, there had been a
problem with illegal music download in which artists, musicians and
record companies have lost millions of revenues.
Then, came the popularity
of Internet music streaming. Unlike the former, radio streaming does
not allow download of the music files. Thus, the copyrights of the
artists and record label owners are protected.
So, how can this be done?
There are several ways to stream audio from your site. First, is to
stream a radio program from your site or blog. You can find free
affiliate programs that allow you to stream their radio content from
your site.
What will this mean to
you? This means that your site will have new audio content every
time it is visited. What's even great is that the content is being
updated even without much effort from you.
In this case, what you
needed to do is to signup with an Internet radio station and have the
link embedded on your blog or website.
Another way is to stream
mp3s. To do this, you just need to upload your mp3files on a server
and add the files' links to the page. When the link is clicked, the
browser opens a media player window and plays a file. However, since
the file is in mp3 format, it may also be downloaded. Downloading
music files without the authorization of the copyright owner is
illegal. Therefore, if you will be using this type of streaming,
make sure that you have the appropriate permit to do so.
A third way to add audio
to you blog or website is to stream music through organizing
playlists. Playlists are m3u files, which if downloaded, will not
play music if offline. Using this process, however, can be complex.
Here is a short instruction on how to do it.
1. Save your mp3 or wma
file on the server. You may skip this step if you know that the file
exists on another server and know the link to that file. Make sure
that the link has a .mp3 or .wma extension.
2. Open your text editor
and type the path to the file. Include the http:// and the file
extension. Repeat this step until you have included all the links to
the files that you would like to be included in the playlist.
3. Save the playlist with
a .m3u extension.
4. Upload the m3u file on
the directory where the music files are hosted or to your server.
5. Open your html editor
and embed the link to the m3u file. Through this, you can also set
if you want to have the playlist to autoplay if someone visits your
site of if you want your visitor to control playing the music. You
can also set the volume level.
After the code is embedded
on the html file, and whenever your site is visited, the songs in the
playlist will be buffered, streamed and played one after another. If
your playlist has several songs, the user can skip forward or go back
a song in the playlist using the media player controls.
Doing this setup works for
many website owners. Through this you can customize the type of
music being played on your site. You can even play recordings
related to your product to boost product awareness.
It requires knowledge of
html to be done. But if it will be the best way to increase traffic
to your site, why not request assistance from programmers. After
all, having audio on a website is a proven way to increase sales.
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