How to Create Your Own Radio Station (And Why You Should)Do you ever wonder about what it would take to create your own radio station? You probably assume it is extremely complicated and expensive to maintain. You might even think that the limitations are so great that you shouldn’t waste your time checking it out. Before you completely discount this idea, why not look into what TikiLIVE can offer?

Why Would I Even Want to Have My Own Radio Station?
If you are a startup with a small retail store, you have a few options for the music in your store. Each one has advantages, but each one also has some drawbacks that might cause more harm than good for your small business. Let’s look at some of the options:

• Don’t have any music playing: This is an option to consider, but why not set a mood for your store? Music can help match your brand to a certain style or image you want to create. When people hear music they can identify with, they also feel like they can identify with a brand, which makes them feel like your business was the right choice for them.

• Pick an Over the Air Radio Station: This is a common solution to the problem of what to play. After choosing a station that plays songs that mainly match the mood you want to set you can just leave the station set and someone else will do the programming for you. This sounds like an ideal solution, but what about the lack of control you have? What if the station decides to change its format? Some stations change music genre without any warning, which can leave you with a sound that doesn’t match the brand of your store. What if you chose a station with instrumental jazz that switched to country one morning, how fast could you find just the right new station to match your needs? And what about advertising? You have no control over the ads played on the chosen station, and they could very well be for your competitors. What would happen if a sale for your competitor were announced while customers were thinking of buying in your store?

• Collect some MP3s to play on a loop: This is something else you could consider; a large number of radios have the ability to play MP3 files from a drive, or you could even have a computer with a random playlist. How do you deal with the royalty obligations for the songs you play? What if you want to change the list of songs on a routine basis? Do you have the computer skills to easily change to a playlist of seasonal songs if you choose? How easy will it be to remove one song from the playlist?

• Create your own radio station: With this option you can combine the benefits of the options above without many of the headaches. By setting up a radio station with playlists that set the mood you are able to match your brand with the music that is played throughout your store. Updating a playlist to remove one song is easy, and by having several playlists you can easily switch between them for a change in season or just a change of pace. You can choose to have no advertising on your station, or you can choose to include your own advertising specifically for products in your store or to announce deals. The customization options are almost endless with TikiLIVE.

So How Do I Make This Happen?
It’s easy with TikiLIVE because we’re here to help every step of the way. We have many streaming options including audio and video, but for your purposes you can sign up for our ‘Radio Only’ account to suit your needs. For one low monthly fee you will get one radio channel that includes:
• 150GB/month streaming transfer
• 3GB Storage Included
• Ability to Publish Radio Channels
• Better Than Radio quality
• 5,000 Radio Listeners a month
• Ability to manage channel themes
• Free WordPress site to promote your station
You could have your station playing in several small branch stores or affiliated shops so that you can ensure you have a common mood that matches your brand throughout all stores. You could set commercials specifically for products across stores, announce deals between partnering affiliates, and encourage your customers to be patrons for all the stores in your network.

How Do I Get Started?
To get started you just need to set up your account at TikiLIVE where you can then manage your audio playlist easily through our intuitive online interface. You can create and manage playlists using your own audio files or files from the public audio library at TikiLIVE. Your own audio files can incorporate your own advertising announcements and broadcasts about store deals. And best of all, the audio content that is included in the public audio library is available for you to use the way you want because we handle any royalty and usage rights.
Once created, a playlist can be easily modified, assigned to your channel or removed from the channel to be added again later (such as a seasonal playlist). If desired, you can even delete a playlist, never to be heard again. When a playlist is published to the channel it is available for listening by anyone who is accessing the channel, no matter what device they are using to access.

So How Do I Find Out More?
TikiLIVE is the easy, fast, efficient, inexpensive way to provide a standard, consistent atmosphere for your store that will match your brand and allow you to deliver the perfect message to your customers at all times.
So why wait to think about it, contact us today and discover why TikiLIVE is Better Than Radio!