March 2018

7:45

Convene as Best Frequencies, Inc. Board of Directors

7:45

Roll Call & Check-ins

Board Members Present: Amanda, Forrest, Eddie, Mai, Ian, Will, Tom

Board Members Absent: Noel, Ben

7:50

Updates on Projects

Newsletter- Will. Will tallied up stats - 598 now, up by about 100 over winter. Average open rate is 200 people, about 34.5%. High engagement. But lower 2.8% click through rate. Newsletter is about promoting events, but maybe we need to promote more music and programs themselves? Ability to plan a week ahead. Weekly charting - top five songs? We need a better tagline, like “I heard it on BFF.FM.” Zippy marketing copy. Maybe we mix in more shows to cross promote? More feature content? One-question poll on what to see in newsletter?

Goal #1 is to become useful to user - cultivate type of base - want to know what’s going ahead. Keeping in contact and maintaining relationship, reminding them we exist and doing cool stuff. Tell story without making it a push. Telling stories and keeping connected to community.

Can we do a top 5 tastemaker list w/ amazon buy links?

DJs incentivized to promote? Do we expect DJs to promote things?

Can we make off the grid the tentpole event this summer, drive people to it, get donations there? Will Off the Grid allow sponsorships? Get guys who run the bar to talk to Tom? Amanda to talk to Off the Grid about promotion opportunities. Outreach event to walk through crowd with clipboard to sign up or raise money.

Will and Amanda to get together and come up with new ideas.

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Drive membership? giveaways before anyone else, access to better streams, app?

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DJ Darcy has been blogging and writing 2-3 posts a week. Spotify-themed playlists, music reviews, could this go in newsletter?

Google Ads- Ian

Have broadened targeting to hit more people. Want to optimize to bigger audience?

Music Discovery - why don’t I use google play and spotify? I hear it on BFF.fm - hearing tracks you wouldn’t normally be exposed to-

Need to understand relationship to DJs, personalities of people. DJ personalities - branding and personality

Want to create more hyper-targeted ads to eat up budget more ? Drilll down to specific show pages - Roll over easy

Open q’s on ads:

What is call to action

what is our geography

How important is San Francisco community

what do we expect people to do when they reach the site

what is our description tag line

Discussion about distribution

-auto-publish to itunes

-spotify playlist

-sirus XM

-hosted on other blogs

-walled gardens for iphone apps, sonos apps, alexa verbs, easier to get to. Code that has to be maintained; app

Terrestrial LPFF - difficult due to physical cost and FCC cost, licensing

For next time - Monetization

-SSP or DSP

-preroll

Off the Grid- Amanda

First one was March 2nd at First Fridays at Fort Mason center - super cold and rainy and crappy, maybe 200 attendees, people hung out, people loved the bands, vendors said DJ was the best ever, important not to play Thriller or wedding songs / cover bands. Thought BFF hoping to make music more hip and better for event. Great idea to make music culture more accessible to families and minors.

Sugar candy mountain had fans show up to see them. Overall a success despite weather. Amanda booking first three events for probationary period, but based on first performance Off the Grid likely wants to work through BFF through season. $500 a month to curate. $400 spending on music. $100 profit. Opening band is singer songwriter for $150, $200 for headliner.

Banners and merch would be a good idea at future events.Also want Amanda to help book other events.

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District 8

Amanda worked on participatory budgeting for district 8, pitch for doing outdoor concert series. First was told was accepted, then decided to reject based on Dolores park regulations.

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Craigslist foundation

Craigslist foundation gives grants for community; possible to get a grant in the future; Amanda emailed asking for information.

Nathan Ready might be a good person to talk to. Mai also interested in looking into applying for grant and will review information. $25k - $100k might be size of grant. Start with program then build budget. How to define what we’re doing in more grant-like language… specific in outreach to increase voices in local community radio, more diversity in lineup, voices not represented - lower income can’t afford $50/mo. Scholarships. Technology or music stipend, maybe a loaner laptop. New music discovery, time commitment. Diversifying board. Mai wants to help pad what Amanda’s doing without attaching a bunch of conditions.

Craig is short of stature but wide of heart. Interests are saving journalism, squirrels, anything internet-related

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Broke-Ass Stuart referred Sam Stone of mission housing development to Amanda - wants to help us get money?

Waiting to see if this is a real thing

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Jaime DJ is a photographer - wants to do project to take pictures of community to take pictures of DJs. Waiting until photos done, but can maybe do a gallery show or doing some kind of SF magazine to get exposure?

Should we invite her to a board meeting? Will and Amanda will review photos at end of week. Will has PR background. Wants to come up with media pitching plan

Rewriting the about BFF, reframing, updating BFF, telling most compelling story, so many great shows. We have such content, how do we get the word out, it would be gool to get the word out to get media attention.

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Jonathan Para is a documentary Comcast filmmaker - what makes things special, would like to possibly do a feature about BFF? Tom will follow up.

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Suggesting Job Portraits introduction - nonprofit program for BFF? We could possibly throw some money at them? Write off the rest as a donation? Ian will discuss

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Should we have a full-time person in the future to attract big guests, get people to liase with PR agencies to get access to BFF? General lack of infrastructure to get exposure - we don’t have a production studio?

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Tom - Smirnoff sponsoring BFF nights at Pops - BFF brought you by Smirnoff. Want to get

9:20

Set 2018 Goals

• Deferred to next meeting. Want to set goals / specific benchmarks and key performance indicators

Fundraising

Outreach/listenership

Infrastructure Improvements - High profile Studio B production studio? If we have multiple cameras, editing, that requires infrastructure investment. Or we can keep it to ad hoc stuff.

High quality streaming. Patreon. Preroll ads

8:30

Officer Elections: Current 2018 positions

Chair: Amanda - no challenge, will keep position

Vice Chair: Mai- voted February

Secretary: Ian was nominated Secretary and accepted

Treasurer: Forrest - no challenge