Greetings fellow Steemians

Today's communicado is somewhat different from what normally shows on this blog, but something that in many ways is long overdue. The idea of this post is just to share some best practices for anyone who has a show on our beloved interactive social broadcasting network, but most of this applies to anyone wanting to stream on their own.

You could very much call this "Live Radio Hacks", and maybe that would be quite appropriate since the word hacks seems to be the in all the rage. That being said, the following tips are some that have been collected through sheer experience.

MSP Waves DJ Hacks

In no particular order, the following are some "DJ best Practices" models that will sure benefit your DJing experience.

Engage with the Audience

This can be difficult to do if you are alone, if you don't have co-host per say, but it's quite important to keep in mind that creating the right experience for the listeners requires interaction.

This means that you need to ask questions, respond to questions, crack jokes, anything that would get everyone involved. Your unique show will have its own audience, so knowing your audience is paramount to accomplishing this. Research your regulars, find what interests them, and you'll not only get more topics for future shows, but you'll build closer relationships with those who make your show possible.

A DJ can also fall into monologues for extended times, which depending on context could be fine, but it's also a sure way to reduce the engagement of the audience. You'll want to be careful not to sound too scripted, but instead use outlines of topics and allow the discussion of them to be organic.

The key word here is balance. How many times are you checking the audience? Are you only looking in between songs (if you play music that is), are you skimming through chat, checking what listeners are saying?

No doubt, one of the things to keep in mind is to be very attentive to the crowd's reactions. If chat seems not engaged, how do you make it so? If chat is engaged, how do you keep that energy flowing? No doubt that experience will make these questions easier to answer, but if you constantly keep them in mind as you progress, you will find solutions sooner rather than later.

What makes a good show without a doubt is three things:

1. Engagement
2. Engagement
3. Engagement

Assume you are live at all times

MSP Waves' shows are transitioned by a clock. When the show starts, when the clock hits 0, make sure you start the show. Come out the gate kicking, so to speak. Plenty of times the energy of the show is set right at the beginning, and you can clearly see this in experienced DJs.

Here is something that might not be nice to say, but it's important to realize. When it comes to broadcasting, silence is death, so it's important that at no point in time the show gets halted by what can only be described as awkward silence. That's not to say you need to add filler words, because "umm"s "uhh"s and the like can be just as bad, or even worse, than dead air. Being prepared and engaging with your audience is the key to prevent this from happening to you.

Even though this hack gets its own bullet point, it's most definitely connected to the first tip shared. Silence in other words can kill engagement and create that disconnect with the audience that no DJ wants to experience. It is also engagement that will tell you if there is something wrong with the show, such as muted mic or network problems, which means a host that regularly engages with an audience can be confident they're live, and never have to sidetrack their show to be sure of it.

Get to your sound check on time

Often experienced DJ's get too comfortable with this. Why? Because more often than not everything works just fine. However, this is not always the case, and those 20 to 30 minutes of sound check, of firing everything up can make a huge difference.

Best practices is 30 minutes prior to the scheduled show. If there is any issue, there is a good chance it can be solved within that time frame.

If you are having guests, it's also important that you sound check them yourself in a discord channel (or whatever VOIP app you use). When you first start out, sound check is assisted by the MSP Waves ops team, but ideally you want to be the master of your own domain. And if there is one thing we've learned through the time we've been operating is that more often than not guests require extra care and attention.

You can always check how it sounds yourself without an extra person to listen by recording. When you're testing with your guests/cohosts/media, hit the record button first and make a 30-120 sec clip which will tell you exactly how the audience will see and hear it.

Smile, they can hear it

I know that to some people, this hack sounds somewhat silly, but I promise you it's not. The attitude you have does get transmitted through the waves, and this is clearly perceived by the audience.

You might not have ever thought of this, but you have surely noticed if you've ever participated as an audience member. So it's important to put yourself in the right mindset, with the right attitude, and allow that to reflect on your voice.

If you are feeling low energy, if you are "not feeling it", the show will surely suffer. So do whatever you need to do to set yourself up for success here. Take a cold shower, do some jumping jacks, call your grandma, but when you get on AIR, the show is on and you have to have the game time attitude all the way through.

What's best about this is that if you start out with the right energy and the right attitude, your audience will create a feedback loop and keep that energy going. Next thing you know, you've done your show in a blink of an eye, leaving you wondering if you should have scheduled a longer show.

Conclusion

There are plenty more tricks and tips or hacks, to be consistent, that we could list here, but we don't want this document to reach the realm of the tl;dr posts on STEEM. That being said, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

How do you prepare for your shows? How do you keep the right energy, the momentum?

Until Next time!

The MSP Waves Family!