So you’re registered and active on all the social bookmarking websites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Propeller and you’re pumping out quality content. Yet, your website stats still aren’t quite up to your expectations. What ever will you do?!?!?! Well there’s always the option of buying advertising but then again you’re a small company and haven’t really gotten to that stage yet. How about you stand in the middle of Time Square in your skippies and play the guitar? Maybe not, you could catch a cold. If only there was a way for you to push traffic to your site by doing what you do on a daily basis. Fear not young grasshopper, I have a potential solution for you and it’s called “Lifecasting”.

What is “Lifecasting”? According to Wikipedia, “Lifecasting” is a continual broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media. Typically, lifecasting is transmitted through the medium of the internet and can involve wearable technology (webcams). It takes the concept of a surveillance camera to another level, adding key elements of mobility, personal experiences, daily routines and interactive communication with viewers. Surprisingly, “lifecasting” is not a new phenomenon. However, over the past year, this craze has exploded into mainstream internet and progressed by leaps and bounds with broadcasting websites popping up everyday. Not to mention, it has produced many internet celeberties like iJustine, who you may reconize from her “300 page iPhone bill” video, and Jody Marie Gnant. These broadcasters brought technology and the world into their life, ultimatly increasing their popularity and driving traffic not only to their sites, but profit into their pockets for little (or no) overhead cost.

Obviously “lifecasting” isn’t for everyone. You have to possess a certain mantality and confidence to allow hundreds-thousands of strangers watch you eat, sleep, socialze, and pick your noise. Kinda scary, huh? The good news is that you don’t have to broadcast every single minute of your life nor does anyone really expect you to. For example, myself and Amanda only broadcast in the afternoon during what we like to call ‘prime time’. From 9pm to 1am EST we park ourselves infront of our computers with the webcams on for all to see. And what started off as boring quickly turned in to entertainment once we started to build up a small fan club of viewers. Since then, traffic to our websites have gone up 20%. But sitting in front of our computers, making friends, wasn’t the only reason our viewers and unique hits went up. It was the appeal that drew viewers into our channels and to our sites. When I started broadcasting several months ago, I approached it with a business-like attitude. The Studio Rhoad logo and advertisements were plastered everywehere on my channel. Mean while Amanda, whose profile picture was one I took of her from a previous photoshoot rather than a logo, was getting 4 times as many viewers as me. Realizing this, I changed my profile picture from the Studio Rhoad logo to a head shot from one my previous photoshoots and removed most of the advertisments in the body of my channel. I also implented more personal widgets such as Twitter which displays live updates of what Im doing. This way, if I wasn’t broadcasting it enabled my viewers to see why. That very night my viewers doubled and I was essentially in business. At that point it was obvious that viewers weren’t there to hear or watch me plug my business. And by displaying my logo as a profile picture, the viewer immediatly knew that my channel was business-based and didn’t even bother to check it out. But by taking the more personal approach I was able to provide the viewers with what they wanted to see while at the same time promoting our websites and companies. Now all I do is sit in front of a camera and work like I normally do, occationally conversing with viewers by voice or the built in chat room. In my opinion, thats not such a big sacrfice for a 20% increase in traffic.

All in all the process for this adventure is quit simple. Only if you decide to go mobile does it get slighly complicted and expensive. For the adverage broadcaster, all you need to broadcast is to purchase a camcorder or webcam, similar to the ones you see above this paragraph, and hook it up to an internet-connected PC or MAC computer with an up-to-date browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari with the latest version of Adobe Flash Player installed. Then make your way over to a broadcasting website such as Ustream or my personal favorite, Justin.tv, and sign up for a free broadcasters channel/account. Login, hit BROADCAST in the top-right hand corner, amd follow the instructions. Done and done.

For more info, check out Justin.tv’s FAQ section or feel free to leave a comment below. And be sure to come say to “hi”to me and Amanda. You may also view my stream channel on the right side of the page; in the sidebar.