Posted in Online Publishing Strategy	April 25, 2008

How to Build and Sustain a Social Community with BlogTalkRadio.com's founder Alan Levy

In this morning session at PodCamp NYC 2.0, Alan Levy talked about how he started his first blog when his father got diagnosed with cancer and his father wanted to help other people with cancer. To his surprise, Technorati already had 300,000 blogs. He decided to launch a social radio network in September 2006 called BlogTalkRadio. You can use a regular phone, or skype, etc. to host your own radio show. Within 30 minutes, the show is archived as a podcast.

The purpose of the session was to show companies how to build and sustain any type of social community. These were his tips of what you need to focus on:

• Focus on how you can add value to your users
• Focus on how you can get people to your application or website
• Focus on distribution but mainly brand identity
• Enhance the application but stay focused

Much like in our world of online publishing, Levy noted that the best way to build your online audience is to have constantly updated content.

Corporate companies now have private radio stations such as the Pentagon, Intel, Sun Microsystems, and traditional publishers. Even more authors are using this and there is a dedicated category just forbooks.

An attendee asked about search engine optimization. Levy told the audience that every page on the site is built for search engine optimization, due to the difficulty of optimizing an audio file. He also showed the audience that BlogTalkRadio has 641,000 inbound links.

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How to monetize a radio show

Another attendee asked about analytics. Levy answered that all shows have their own set of metrics including listeners and other stats that advertisers might want.

• Audio ads in the broadcast
• Contextual advertising
• 50% rev share if you (the podcaster) bring the advertiser
• 35% if they (BlogTalkRadio) bring the advertiser

A book publisher in the audience asked if you can monetize your own content on your radio show profile. Levy told the audience that he is the most active with publishers. Publishers can monetize their own content by buying banner ads for their own content and for their radio show. You can also host the radio content on your own site by embedding the stream.

The power of new media

Levy talked about how new media is now disrupting traditional media. When the show Jericho was cancelled, BlogTalkRadio started a show that asked people to send nuts to CBS, because they felt they were “nuts” for canceling the show. 40,000 lbs of nuts were sent to CBS and the president of CBS said “please stop sending nuts!”. The show was brought back on the air in 2006.

More PodCamp NYC 2.0 Coverage:

How to Build and Sustain a Social Community - with Alan Levy of BlogTalkRadio.com

Top Free New Media Tools You'll Need for Everything - with Ben Katzman of SpongeCell.com

Straddling the Technical/Creative Line - with Rob Blatt of The New York Sun

How To Promote and Make Money With Your Podcast in the Next 30 Days - with Michael Geoghegan of GigaVox Media and Tim Bourquin of PodcastBrothers.com

The "M" Word: Alternative Ways to Monetize - with Mark Tafoya & Jennifer Lannolo from CulinaryMediaNetwork.com, Cliff Ravencraft of GSPN.tv, and Rob Blatt of The New York Sun

Tactical Transparency (being naked on the web) - with PodCamp lead organizer John C. Havens, and author of an upcoming book called Tactical Transparency

SEO for Podcasting, Vodcasting & Social Media - an ad-hoc session with PodCamp attendees

The Economics of Aggregation - with Travell Perkins of RGBDaily.com