Promoting your Feed

[hoser147]

Just wanted to see what ways the Feed Providers have come up with as far as Promoting their feed to the Listening Public. Im sure that everyone has provided their feed to friends and family. I have also gave it to local public safety officials. Ive seen where some promote theirs thru websites. What avenues have you used to get your feed out there???

 

[mtindor]

Randy,

Any friends you hvae that are in public safety are likely the best avenue - Let them know about your feed and how to get to it. Invariably they pass it on to someone. My buddy Rick [STA75 on here] has told a lot of people, so I know some of my listeners are thanks to him.

Also, if you have anybody in your community running a message forum / bulletin board online for your area / your county, you should post there. Locally we have somebody who runs a message board focused on the local town I live near. I've posted in there about my scanner feed and that has helped pick up listeners over time.

Those are the only suggestions i have. But if you mingle wiith public safety people, then letting them know directly might help.

Mike

 

[hoser147]

Hey Mike, pretty good idea about the community message board, I will look into it. The best thing Ive found so far is putting the digital scanner online, pretty well doubled the listeners since my county and a few others have migrated. Anytime I can get 4 or 5 listeners on a rural feed, on a weekday morning is good.Just thought I would toss this out there and see what others have done to promote theirs and or maybe spawn some new idea's on making it more accessible to others.

 

[mtindor]

Hey Mike, pretty good idea about the community message board, I will look into it. The best thing Ive found so far is putting the digital scanner online, pretty well doubled the listeners since my county and a few others have migrated. Anytime I can get 4 or 5 listeners on a rural feed, on a weekday morning is good.Just thought I would toss this out there and see what others have done to promote theirs and or maybe spawn some new idea's on making it more accessible to others.

Definitely the big thing is to find somebody in public safety in your area who is interested in listening to the feed and who mingles with others in public safety.

When a large incident such as a structure fire gets paged out, I always see signfiicantly more connections to my feed - a lot of them from phone devices. So that tells me that some fire personnel are hearing the page and tuning in to the traffic wherever they may be (home / work / mobile).

Of course, maybe you can convince your local newspaper to put a link to your feed on their site - If I were you i'd write em. Heck, I'm thinking at least one of your local papers may even have a comments section where people can comment on certain articles - ifso, post a link to your feed in there and let people know.

It's wintertime - more people will be spending time inside and online.

Mike

 

[dwh367]

Just wanted to see what ways the Feed Providers have come up with as far as Promoting their feed to the Listening Public. Im sure that everyone has provided their feed to friends and family. I have also gave it to local public safety officials. Ive seen where some promote theirs thru websites. What avenues have you used to get your feed out there???

I add a signature line to my emails.

 

[hoser147]

Dont believe the papers know it exists. :lol: The Signature line is a good one too.

 

[clgerwick]

I personally like the paper idea, since most paper companies are turning to the web anyways. I myself work in a 911 center, as a dispatcher. When a big incident comes in I can quickly update my feed to show there is a big incident going on. I also have had fire dept's requesting the online player be placed on there websites. Of course I live in a community that more people listen to the scanner than the local radio station.

I have also placed the players on a couple of Fire & Ems Forums, and also placed a link to the RadioReference website on them.

 

[scannerboy65301]

For some reason here the Public Safety agencies don't like people having scanners or anybody knowing their business. The local newspaper put a feed of our EMA storm spotters on their website and added the police department for times when there is not a need to hear storm reports and the PD about had a cow. I don't see why because if they needed to, with one knob adjustment they would be encrypted. So as far as promoting my feed amongst local cops and fire personnel, they might as well just go with the old " What they don't know won't hurt them".