I remember when I first started broadcasting back in 2004. I thought I would show terrestrial radio how it was done. Trouble is, it takes time to build an audience. For me it literally took years.

As for promotion goes, keep it low cost and simple. Twitter can be a great way to promote. I suggest you follow popular people relevant to your stations genre and mention them in your tweets. Even ask for a RT (re-tweet) from them. If they re-tweet your post it will go out to many potential listeners.

Same thing goes for Facebook. Myspace is trying to make a comeback and with several recent improvements have made it a bit more attractive to use.

Ultimately, a lot of promotion can be done from your computer chair, couch or bed for free or very cheaply. The fine line is knowing how to post just enough to stay interesting and not post so much that people consider you as a spammer.

I don't have an audience that is exactly knocking down the doors to my station, but I am studying Social Media among other things in my grad program. Here are a few suggestions:

1) Use Social Media At the very least, your station should have a Facebook fan page. Facebook is where the people are -- don't worry yourself with Google+ or any of the other media just yet. But get a Facebook fan page, say a little bit about the station, and really engage with your listeners. See if you can't get them to talk.

Why is this important? Because the one thing that is going to make your station stand out (in fact, the one thing that makes internet radio stand out) is audience interaction. We who have been doing internet radio for years actually do have a leg up on the terrestrials who are just now figuring out the advantages of streaming, and the one thing we have going for us is loyal audience participation. When you interact with a listener, they remember it.

Also, Twitter is a very good idea, even if you are just tweeting the song you are playing at the time. I have found that for some reason people will more eagerly follow me on twitter than join a Facebook fan page.

You might also want to look into getting a web site. Don't panic. This is easy. There are various free services like webs.com that will set you up with a template, and all you have to do is fill in the blanks. It's actually quite fun, and it has helped me tremendously with exposure.

2) Be Yourself Like I alluded to previously, the main advantage that internet radio has over large media conglomerates is that they can have a more intimate relationship (oooh!...lol) with their listeners. If Clear Channel had a personality, what do you think it would be like? Well, Clear Channel has no personality.

You, on the other hand, do. Use it to interact with your listeners and use that advantage.

And MOST IMPORTANTLY...

3) PATIENCE Like reaper said above, and what I would imagine 99.9% of all internet radio programmers will tell you, patience is the most important thing to have when building an audience. You could have the most awesome playlist ever known to man, but when you are an internet station, you depend on mainly word of mouth for exposure. (Unless you WANT to fork out money for a Television ad....) Word of mouth, even online, is slow -- mainly in this case because people aren't quite used to internet radio just yet, and even if they are, there are so many choices to wade through.

However, reaper won't brag on the size of his audience, but I will do it for him. He does OK with listeners -- I would even say better than OK, but he has done that through engagement with his listeners, and plenty of patience. He knows what he is talking about.

I'd like to throw in a suggestion to (not that im the shinning example of alot of listeners)
LastCall-Radio started nearly 6 years ago, but we are not a single operated outfit like i notice with alot of stations here on loudcaster. We have a dozen or so dj's half of which are on a schedule and dj's have friends who have friends (a following if you will).This is where i have to agree with DJT....LastCall has a chatroom on a free "adult web cam" site...We created a chatroom and set rules as far as what can be said and done in our room...but viewing the other listeners on cam and interacting with the dj thats on, is a big plus....PLUS u get the traffic from the webcam site itself...every dj is an AOP (operater) that way if anyone gets out of hand and insults regular listeners he or she can boot them.......all in all it has worked for us for many years....everything DJT said i agree with and for myself i also i have alot to learn ...LastCall Radio involves "regulars" (who are willing) for different tasks.....e.g.. i have one person that does the forums.....another person that created the my space page (way back when) and i currently have someone working on a "facebook" page for us...these are all listener or dj's and making them apart of LastCall in my book is important...it now becomes "their radio station" ...We've always said LastCall-Radio is a family of friends and most of which have been with us for many years....Sorry for being over winded ...Good Luck !