Activist Ball T-shirt design Contest !

We are very excited to announce the 1st Annual Activist Ball T-shirt Design Contest ! The winner of the contest not only gets the pride and notoriety of being the designer of the T-shirt for the 1st Activist Ball, but they also will receive a prize! We are very anxious to see the brilliant work and ideas that are submitted. This contest is open to all, whether you are a professor or student at MassArt, a graphic designer, or someone who is very creative. So may the best person win. Game On People!

Send your submissions by January 2nd, 2014 to activistball@encuentro5.org

Join us for the 1st Annual Activist Ball

 

On Saturday, January 25th 2014, Encuentro 5 and the Community Activist Media Project/Activate Radio will proudly host the 1st Annual Activist Ball, our first in a yearly tradition of dance party celebrations dedicated to activists and activism!

With Chris Faraone (of Weekly Dig & Phoenix) as Master of Ceremonies, we’re spinning world dance beats with DJ Univers-AL, serving light food, and giving out prizes.

Here is the website link;

http://activistballboston.wordpress.com/

You can visit the link below to get tickets, t-shirts, or to sponsor;

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-1st-annual-activist-ball-of-boston-tickets-9262842411

the ‘Occupied Nation’ Show (9/26/2013)

On this weeks ‘Occupied Nation’ Show we spoke with Christina Gonzalez, Green Party candidate for CIty Council District 7 in NYC , who was arrested a few days ago. We also spoke with Josh Sager about the hard facts in regard to guns. And also had a very informative discussion with Terra Freidrichs about Pass Mass Amendment. We featured Leaders Led on the 4:20 Intermission, as well as covering a few other subjects.

Wed 6/19 Race & Economic Inequality: Building a multi-racial movement for justice (Rebroadcast)

Free School University Radio

This year, interspersed with new shows, the Free School University Program will be replaying most of the shows from last year, roughly in chronological order.  (The only shows we’ll skip will be those for which there is no recording, and maybe a few that were so topical that they are no longer of great interest.)  Most of these shows are also available on our Archive and Podcast pages.

This week, we’ll rebroadcast Race & Economic Inequality: Building a multi-racial movement for justice with Camilo Viveiros, which originally broadcast on 6/6/2012.

The Occupy movement has always been much about economic inequality and economic injustice, but the racialization of inequality has not always been emphasized. The mainstream media loves to highlight stories of middle class families losing their jobs or their homes, but people in racial minority or immigrant communities bear a disproportional burden: first fired, last hired, hugely targeted by predatory mortgage…

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Veterans For Peace Radio, join me Monday’s from 6-7 Eastern on http://www.OBR.fm

Veterans for Peace Radio Hour

In the distance, there is a “buzzing” sound, a drone is in the area looking for a target. Once found, either an individual or a group of individuals vanish in a flash, vaporized by a $160,000 missile fire from thousands of miles away, they never had a chance, never knew what hit them. The children of the stricken men weep, the wives weep, if they are still alive.

War has always been an atrocity, the very definition of insanity and we have taken it to a lower level than ever before. Being one of the Boomer generation, (no pun intended), I thought nothing could be worse than the catastrophe of WWII and it’s ensuing horror of death camps and millions dying in vain attempts to take warfare from the horrific to the hellish. The thought that industrialized warfare and countless millions of non-combatants killed could get any worse was beyond…

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RT @hqoccupy: Blockadia Rising: Voices o

RT @hqoccupy: Blockadia Rising: Voices of the Tar Sands Blockade http://t.co/CwqpBuGDVQ #Occupy #OWS #occupywallstreet #OccupyHQ #GrassRoots

Radio Camp February 24th-March 9th!

Credit albertobv via Flickr/Creative Commons

OBR.FM  announces Radio Camp!  February 24th-March 9th

After a little over a year of broadcasting independent media for and by the 99%, OBR.FM kicks off its two week “Radio Camp” with a meet and greet at its studio at 9 Hamilton place in Boston, Massachusetts at 7pm Saturday February 23rd, and all are welcome.  Come see our studio, meet our radio hosts and enjoy some indy music, thought and media then spend some time with us as we go to RADIO CAMP!

What is “Radio Camp”? It is an opportunity for sharing and learning about the production of indy media through our radio station. In this two week period we plan to immerse ourselves in all the facets of OBR’s operations, from the ins and outs of broadcasting a live program to the behind the scenes work of marketing, fund-raising, social networking, podcasting, and engineering.

All of OBR’s events, meetings and activities are open to the public and we urge you to join in, we’ll be sending out reminders on Facebook and Twitter of Radio Camp activities. Check out the schedule below and note special events marked with an ** geared to the general public looking to delve into indy media.

Contact us if you have any questions or ideas for this exciting period: radio@occupyboston.org

See you @ camp!

OBR.fm RADIO CAMP SCHEDULE

Saturday February 23rd

7-11 pm – Celebrate a Radically Indy New year with OBR.FM – PUBLIC WELCOME & ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND – Open House and Party!!!

Sunday February 24th 

12-2:30 pm – INTRO TO INDY RADIO & INTERNET BROADCAST TRAINING** – PUBLIC WELCOME & ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND – Learn how we make radio and how you can too!

3-5 pm – CREATING A RADIO SHOW WORKSHOP **- PUBLIC WELCOME & ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND – Come and map out your ideas for a radio show or podcast

7-9 pm – OBR Marketing Work Meeting

Monday February 25th

7-9 pm – OBR Fund-raising Work Meeting

Tuesday February 26th

7-9 pm – SOCIAL MEDIA WORKSHOP** – PUBLIC WELCOME & ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND – Join us as we explore how social media can be used a promotion tool

Wednesday February 27th

7-9 pm – OBR Production Work Meeting

Thursday February 28th

7-9 pm – OBR Production Working Meeting

Friday March 1st

7-8 pm – OBR Radio Camp Conference Call

Saturday March 3nd

1-7 pm – Recording, Editing, Publicity Working Meeting

Sunday March 3rd

11-1 pm – Radio Church

2-4 pm – OBR Programming Schedule

Monday March 4th

7-9 pm – OBR Library: Editing, Tagging and Archiving Working Meeting

Saturday March 9th

11-7 pm -OBR Library: Editing, Tagging and Archiving Working Meeting

Other Items (schedule pending):

• Focus on membership
• Fund-raising 2nd session
• Swag production (screen printing & button making)
• Radio HOST MEETING
• Administrative tasks and outreach

Check the OB Radio Work Calendar for the latest schedule…

Sometimes we allow the mainstream media to help us out…

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Roundtable (Podcast)

Theology in Action – 2013-01-03-0

A discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with two peace activists, John Roberts and Martin Federman. (Broadcast date 1/4/13)

Simple Tips To Find Out Where Your Audience Is So You Stop Wasting Your Time- i make libsyn

Simple Tips To Find Out Where Your Audience Is So You Stop Wasting Your Time

Wed, 11 July 2012 6:51 AM

 

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This is the beginning of a series of posts aimed to demystify social media for podcasters, beginning with Facebook.

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Do you often feel like Facebook is being shoved down your throat?

Seriously.

It’s everywhere, all the time…Facebook, Facebook, FACEBOOK!

And although at times it might get annoying, it really is a place that we as podcasters, as independent media creators must pay attention to, whether we like it or not.

Our job as new media pioneers is to inform ourselves and make educated choices as to how we engage with our audience, as well as refine the ways that we share our content with the world for optimal engagement and results.

We need to do it. No one else will do it for us…unless you are willing to fork out some serious cash for a killer PR person 🙂

The promotional lines get blurry with podcasts and podcasters

Part of the beauty of podcasting is that we are not mainstream media. We are “rebels” if you will about the way that we offer our content to the world.

We do things in a much more personal way with our audience, which includes promoting our content in the way that we want to.

I venture to say that most podcasters are not fond of hearing ads in podcasts, although at the same time we long to get some sort of sponsor…Oh the wonderful paradox!

Why I’m bringing this up is because our indie nature sometimes gets in our way of the best practices to reach our audience.

Facebook Needs To Align with Your Audience

Or any social platform for that matter.

When was the last time that you asked yourself where your audience was hanging out?

In fact, who is your audience? Have you broken it down yet?

• male or female?
• how old?
• married or single?

Those are just some very easy questions to start to ask to get to know your audience better. Instead of getting caught up with To Facebook or not To Facebook, get back to your audience.

Where are they? Are they hanging out on Facebook? or maybe Twitter? or not active in social media at all.

You can create some pretty easy free surveys using Survey Monkey.

Are YOU your audience?

There are many times that as producers we feel that we know exactly what our audience is thinking.

A lot of the time this can be the case, since our audience generally is interested in the stuff that we are podcasting about.

But…

we also have to be open to the fact that this might not be the case.

Just because you personally really hate Facebook and everything that it stands for, does not mean that your audience hates it.

Just because you find Twitter so easy and accessible does not mean that your audience does as well.

As new media pioneers it is part of our job to test what works best to create some sort of results, whether it be growing your listener base, getting more comments from your audience, or even something as simple as requesting ratings or reviews in iTunes.

Test your Calls To Action

It’s rare that you, podcasting genius, do not ask your audience to do something, such as: listen to my show, review me in iTunes, subscribe to my show, or send me feedback.

Have you ever tested what works?

Try the following basic tips for a while to see where you get the most bang for your buck in social media.

1. Use bit.ly and create different bit.ly links for each of your episodes that you are posting on social media, depending on the platform you are using ie. bit.ly/yourpodcastepisodenumber-fb, bit.ly/yourpodcastepisodenumber-twitter
2. Create a bit.ly link for your about section in social media accounts.

In the website section in your twitter account paste a bit.ly link specific for twitter. This would mean that you create a bit.ly link for your podcast website, customize it (bit.ly.com/yourpodcastfromtwitter). You can do the same from your about page in your Facebook Page or Profile or other places like Google+ or YouTube.

Give it a go for a month and then check out the data. See how many people clicked through, and where they were coming from most consistently. This can also help you see if your social media updates are actually converting folks.

Once you see the data, it will help you clarify or completely shift your game plan, then you can begin to concentrate on the things that are working for you and letting go of all those that suck all of your time and yield no results.

Ways to gather data via your self hosted podcast website

There are quite a bit of you that have your own WordPress installation for your podcast website. There are some really great tools you can use to check out where your audience is that are totally free!

Pretty Link (wordpress plugin): This is such a fantastic plugin to track where people are coming from, just like bit.ly but more branded for your site. You can create unique url links for almost any url that you desire that will start with your domain name.

EXAMPLES: Put in your latest episode url and create a simpler link such as http://yourgreatpodcast.com/96 or get your iTunes Podcast url and create a pretty link like http://yourgreatpodcast.com/itunes

Pretty link has great analytics which you can check from right within your WP dashboard.

Google Analytics: A great way to gather data. Totally free. Please refer to my data from Google analytics to see where my traffic comes from. It’s kinda obvious where my peeps are hanging out!

ADVANCED TIP: Create a landing page within your podcast website that is specific for people coming from social media. (You would also add this specific link to your profile in any of your social media sites)

On this page you can say things like “Hello Facebook friend! so great to have you come check out the site! Here are a few great things to do while you are here: Get to know what my podcast is about (link to your about page,) listen to my latest episode which is about xxxxxxx (link to episode) and/or subscribe to my email list where you’ll get updated whenever I publish a new episode! Thanks for coming by! “

Keep an open mind and do your podcasting marketing homework!

Are you ready to give some of this a try?

Let us know in the comments!

If you already have data, why don’t you leave us a comment and share what trends you’ve seen for your podcast.

Coming up we’ll be posting a series focusing primarily on diving deeply into Facebook promotion and offering totally simple ways to grow your audience and drive engagement…that is if your audience is hanging out there 🙂

Elsie Escobar

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Image credit via CC The Calm After The Show by Thomas Hawk