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Audio streams, music streaming services, and podcasts are prevalent in business. They are a great way to connect with your ideal audience and share information with them. In addition, they are an excellent way to build your business brand.
People have always enjoyed audio content – just look at popular music streaming services and the popularity of radio shows over the decades. Audio streaming, music streaming services, and music videos are the modern formats for audio content.
One of the significant advantages of music streaming services, music videos, and other forms of audio streaming is that people can play music and listen live or on-demand when they have time. Therefore, creating an audio or music streaming service or music app in 2023 is a great way to connect with your target audience, especially the music fans, and build awareness of your brand and the causes your business stands for. Be it through streaming music services, podcasts, free music, or music videos.
Whether your ideal audience is commuting, washing dishes, or doing anything else, podcasts, music streaming services, and online radio can entertain them, let music lovers play music, and inform them about your brand.
In this post, we will explore audio streaming and look at some music streaming services such as Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music. Then, we’ll cover what you need to know about building an audio streaming platform or music streaming service. Specifically, we will look at two types of audio streaming, where to host your audio stream, monetization options, how to host a high-audio quality stream, and more.
How to Create an Audio Streaming Website
Creating an audio streaming website is as simple as embedding your podcasts or radio show stream right on your hosted website with a simple HTML embed code.
Podcast and radio hosts like Anchor, Apple Podcasts, and the like are great options for beginners with low budgets, but embedding and hosting your audio streams directly on your website is the best way to share audio online.
It gives you total ownership of your content and eliminates any rules or community guidelines that could hold you back from creating the audio streams you want.
We will use Mslive as our example of how to build an online audio platform. This process and concept should be similar if you host your content on another platform.
Remember, if you’re here to learn how to make a live podcast or the best music streaming service, not all video platforms and music streaming services support live audio and 24/7 broadcasting. Mslive does. With that said, let’s go over how to create an audio-streaming website.
1. Choose a Hosting Provider and CMS
To start with, you need a website where you can embed your audio player. If you don’t have a website yet, two popular website hosting services are GoDaddy and Bluehost.
Both website hosting services work well with WordPress, one of the most used website content management systems (CMS). With WordPress, you get to design the layout of your website.
2. Choose an Audio Streaming Platform
Next, you need an audio or music streaming platform. Again, there are many audio and music streaming platforms, or you can work with a professional video platform that offers audio-only capabilities.
One of the top reasons why you may want to use a professional video platform is because it can offer you a wide range of tools that can allow you to grow your business, such as:
- Broadcast audio 24/7
- CDNs
- Live audio streaming
3. Log in to your Mslive account
Again, we will just continue using Mslive as an example of simplicity.
Once your audio streaming website is ready, embedding your audio stream is pretty easy, especially if you’re hosting audio streams with Mslive.
When logged into your Mslive account, you’ll look for your list of live channels.
- Then click on the audio channel or audio file you plan to embed on your website.
- On the next page, you’ll click “Publish Settings.”
- Two embed codes are in the lower-left section: iFrame and JS (Javascript). We recommend the JS embed code.
Here is also where you’ll find a share code, which is just a simple URL, to share with your following.
4. Embed the Audio Player Onto Your Website
Copy + paste the embed code onto your website. For example, most online radio stations embed a player at the top of their website. Alternatively, you can embed it on partner websites.
These are the simple steps to transmit audio over the internet using your audio streaming platform.
High-Quality Audio Streaming
Now that you have your website set up, let’s talk about how to live stream high audio quality specifically. In this next section, we’ll dive deeper into encoding settings.
In 2023, AAC will provide the best music streaming service option with high-sound quality streaming for most situations. Many people are familiar with MP3, so we’ll compare AAC to that to give you a better idea. Compared to MP3, you’ll generally achieve the best live audio quality streaming at similar bitrates. However, you’ll find the difference more obvious when streaming at lower bitrates (<128 kbps).
With that in mind, audio streams at Mslive are encoded using the high-quality AAC codec and delivered via HLS streaming protocol. That means the stream can be accessed on any device.
Mono vs. Stereo: Recommended Channel
Let’s quickly discuss the two possible channels: mono vs. stereo. You’ll find this under encoding settings.
Generally, you’ll want to choose stereo for high audio quality for your music streaming service.
There are rare exceptions where you’d want to consider mono, such as if you plan to sing or play an instrument solo, but stereo is the most common nowadays for music streaming services.
Audio Sample Rate
Generally, the higher the audio sample rate number, the fuller the sound. However, the larger the number, the more data that is used. That might not be the best option for a free streaming service.
For this reason, we recommend 44.1 Khz (same as 44,100 Hz) as the audio sample rate for high-quality audio for most mobile apps and music streaming services, especially when live streaming. Again, there are exceptions, but for a professional audio or music streaming service, 44.1 kHz is most commonly used.
Where to Upload and Host Your Audio Steam
When streaming audio, use a professional platform to host audio files for streaming
With the rising popularity of online broadcasting, countless businesses in diverse sectors are getting involved in audio streaming. These include education, entertainment, comedy, sports, music, news, business, and religion.
Despite their different industries, these businesses face similar technical challenges regarding podcasting. Most notably, where you host your audio files for streaming is important. Most audio streamers choose to use streaming media hosting platforms.
With the differentiation between live and on-demand streaming, let’s consider the benefits of dedicated streaming solutions. Your streaming solution, an online video platform, is where you can host your audio content.
One major advantage of an online video platform like Mslive is native support for live streaming audio. Most podcast hosting and music streaming services center around hosting and delivering pre-recorded content. They don’t support live broadcasts at all.
In contrast, streaming platforms with audio hosting capabilities like Mslive provide functionality and power for live streaming. So if you’re looking for a music streaming service so that you can perform live, you should consider Mslive.
Mslive supports both scheduled events and 24/7 broadcasting. And since the content lives in your video CMS and is distributed via a powerful live-streaming CDN (Content Delivery Network), you can scale to large, globally distributed audiences without buffering or lag problems. Mslive also offers a multi-CDN solution for very large or important events where you don’t want to risk your stream getting cut off.
Mslive also supports three types of monetization: ad-based, subscription, and pay-per-stream.
Another thing to keep in mind is that many podcast hosting, mobile apps, and music streaming services offer only limited storage. Often, they offer less than 1 GB per month—and sometimes just 100 MB or even less. Mslive offers 50 GB of storage for just $39 per month with our Starter plan. That’s enough storage for hundreds of podcasts encoded at very high quality.
Therefore, for music streaming services that stream a lot of audio or share super high-quality files, Mslive may be the best choice. Mslive also offers the ability to purchase extra storage if needed and allows for automatic overage protection if your podcast goes viral. Additionally, you can protect audio streams with passwords when you want to limit your listeners.
How to Monetize Your Audio Streaming
Audio content creators have several options for monetizing their audio streams.
The next section is for those wondering, “Can you monetize a podcast or music service?” In short, the answer is definitely yes.
Some of the best music streaming services within the music industry, including Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music, use monthly or yearly subscription methods to monetize their services. Some offer tiered subscription plans through which users can access a lossless version or CD quality of music tracks.
Other services offer features that let subscribers play songs from their own library on music apps, access offline listening for unlimited music, and even make and share curated playlists.
As podcasts become more popular, revenue from this type of streaming is booming. It’s projected to keep growing by 31.1% year over year from 2021-2025.
When the concept of podcasts was newer, the idea of how to monetize a podcast was still a mystery. Now, in the world of podcasting and online radio, there are three proven ways to approach podcast monetization: advertising, subscriptions, and selling services/products. Additionally, broadcasters can use pay-per-view to monetize a podcast, but this isn’t as common.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how to monetize your podcast.
1. Advertising
One of the top ways of monetizing podcasts is advertising. There are different ways to incorporate advertisements into your content with audio content.
Run Commercials
One of the most common ways to incorporate content is by running commercials on your podcast. You can run audio commercials at the beginning, end, or even in the middle of your content.
Talk about a Product
With podcasts; many hosts will choose to talk about a product by integrating it into the podcast naturally. For example, if you run a health podcast, you may speak of a specific health product, such as talking about a particular type of protein powder.
It can be a natural way to partner with a brand by incorporating their content directly into the podcast. Just be sure to disclose that you have a paid partnership with the brand in the podcast.
Run Ads from Advertising Networks
Another way is to insert ads from the advertising networks. Mslive supports ad insertion with popular advertising networks. That’s one reason why Mslive is one of the best podcast hosts for monetization. Many video platforms do not popularly support advertising.
It’s also easy to copy an ad URL from your ad-serving provider, then paste it into the Mslive backend.
Look for partnerships relevant to your main topic and your ideal audience so it doesn’t seem forced or sale-sy.
2. Subscription
Another popular way to monetize your content is through subscriptions, where people pay a subscription fee to access your show. You will need a secure paywall for people to pay the subscription fee.
Mslive streaming solution includes a built-in paywall with various configuration options. It supports credit cards and PayPal, as well as multiple currencies. That allows podcasters to launch and monetize premium audio streaming quickly.
Allowing your audience to subscribe is an excellent way to build a deeper relationship with your audience. You can start building your audience by offering a free trial or a few free podcasts that are value-packed and then offering a subscription to access the rest of your content.
Free Trails
Offering a subscription after a free trial and a few free music streaming services or podcasts is a great way to build people’s interest and get your audience more invested in your content, a technique employed by the best music streaming services.
We live in an age that loves feeling like they’re part of a community, and that’s why so many people happily pay to be a part of communities that many audio platforms and best music streaming services offer, even though so many free options are available.
3. Sell Your Products or Services
Selling your own product or services is arguably the best way to monetize a podcast. In practice, starting by giving your audience free advice surrounding particular subjects is very common for audio platforms and the best music streaming services.
For example, you’re a Facebook ads specialist looking to sell business consulting services. On your podcast, you can take the approach of answering frequently asked Facebook ad questions.
Establishing Your Presence
By doing this, you establish yourself as an authority and one of the best music streaming services in the eyes of your ideal target audience. Once you’ve done enough podcasts and helped enough people, the rest will come naturally.
Scaling Up
If you stick with it, one of your listeners will eventually want to scale up their social media ad spend. When they do, they’ll naturally think of you when they’re looking to hire someone for Facebook ad implementation or consulting. The concept applies to every profession (legal, sales, accounting, etc.).
Remember that you don’t have to go from giving a free trial or free advice or free streaming music services straight to higher ticket sales. Sometimes it helps to have a less costly service or product as a stepping stone. For example, the Facebook ads specialist may want to make a downloadable PDF with 100 proven Facebook ad templates and then sell it for a small price of $9. That way, the podcaster appeals to people with all budgets and goals.
4. Pay-Per-View
Using pay-per-view is another way of monetizing podcasts, audio streams, and streaming music services. A paywall can charge for access per episode, every time a customer wants to play music from music streaming sites, or for access to a series of entire shows.
Again, this is not very popular.
On-Demand vs. Live Audio Streaming
The first step to audio streaming or streaming music services is determining whether you’d like to host podcasts or radio broadcasts.
There are two main types of online audio streaming: on-demand and live.
On-demand is podcast-style audio. Listeners can play an episode at any time. Content is always available in an archive, stored in your video content management system.
The second common type is live audio streaming, like internet radio. Businesses may use live audio streaming for a single event or broadcast, after which they can make the recording available on demand.
Alternatively, you can do 24/7 audio broadcasting in the style of linear streaming. That’s the case for online radio.
Both approaches are valuable, and many broadcasters might choose to use them if appropriate for the context.
Analytics for Podcasts
Understanding your audience will help you create more effective content and offer the best music streaming services in the future.
Analytics refers to capturing data about your viewers. You can use this data to help increase the quality of your work going forward.
The most basic analytic data includes:
- Number of listeners
- Listener locations (country and city-level data)
- Average listening time
- Revenue
- Most popular shows
- Most popular device types
- Revenue data, broken down by time, device, and location
- How many users sign up after their free trial period
Mslive also offers innovative real-time analytics. That means that live audio streamers can get real-time information about audiences as they broadcast, which is pretty valuable.
Conclusion
Audio streaming and the music streaming industry is growing increasingly popular, and for a good reason. It’s a great way to get your content out there easily and conveniently. Thanks to streaming platforms like Mslive, it’s easy to start streaming today.
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