This article covers the migration process for moving streaming and podcast hosting to StreamGuys.
Timelines
StreamGuys recommends a 30 – 60 day overlap between your old service provider and StreamGuys. 30 days is very attainable if you follow the timelines below. 60 days is a comfortable timeline with more buffer.
Migration Components
The main components to a migration are:
– Ad-Insertion
– Livestream Hosting
– Podcast Hosting
– Analytics
Livestream Hosting
Here is a step-by-step guide for migrating your livestream hosting.
Week 1:
– Your engineer will connect your streaming encoders to StreamGuys. This will “get your stream online”.
– Validate audio quality, metadata, analytics, monitoring, and ad-insertion.
—- Audio quality is validated by listening to the stream
—- Metadata is often validated with StreamGuys support, but you can see it yourself in a test media player
—- Analytics are validated by confirming that your test listening appears in analytics
—- Monitoring is validated by turning off an encoder and verifying alert receipt
—- Ad-Insertion is validated with a small test campaign that you’ll hear when listening to the stream
Week 2:
– Your trafficking team should create any active campaigns in our AudioServe portal, and use it moving forward.
– Your webmaster should start using your StreamGuys stream URLs on your website and apps.
Week 3:
– You should submit your StreamGuys stream URLs to any 3rd party platforms you use for distribution, like TuneIn, Alexa, or iHeartRadio.
Week 4:
– Your analytics team should begin using SGreports
– Before turning off your old streams, download historical analytics data and make sure your listenership is near zero.
Podcast Hosting
Here is a step-by-step guide for migrating your podcast hosting.
Week 1:
– Your trafficking team should create any active campaigns in our AudioServe portal, and use it moving forward.
– Validate ad-insertion and analytics
Week 2:
– Import your existing podcasts into SGrecast. This will create a copy of all podcasts and episodes in SGrecast
– Replace any embedded website players from your old host with new players provided by SGrecast. This will move website listeners to StreamGuys.
– Issue a 301 redirect in your old host. These should point to the new RSS feeds provided by StreamGuys. This will move 3rd party listeners to StreamGuys.
Week 3:
– If you want to track listenership for each platform, create “syndication URLs” in SGrecast and use a separate RSS feed per platform.
– Your analytics team should begin using SGreports
Week 4:
– Before turning off your old hosting, download historical analytics data and make sure your listenership is near zero.
This is intended to be a generic, high-level guide for migrating streams and podcasts to StreamGuys. Contact us if you have specific questions or need a detailed plan.