Talking About Podcasting

Podcasting is an effective way for you and your business to be heard—to capture the valuable minds of customers, prospects, and employees. And, like nearly all of the social media tools in the ecosystem, it’s free! Podcasting is quite easy to do and produces a medium that is much more psychologically desirable—and frequently more accessible—to your custom­ers and followers than mere text.

Podcasting and You

Podcasting is an equally accessible and entertaining application of the iPod. The word podcasting comes from combining the terms iPod and broad­casting. Podcasting is both fun and fairly simple—because everything you need to be able to podcast is either already built into your computer (hardware) or free download from the Internet(software).

Podcasts are ordinary MP3 audio files and aren’t limited to the iPod or the i’I'unes Store. A podcast can be played on any MP3 player or right from your browser from any web site that offers podcasts. You can listen to an audio recording live by streaming into an audio player, or you can download and save the file to your PC. Once you have the file stored on your PC, you can transfer it to an MP3 portable player, or just listen to it at any time from your MP3 player or web browser.

Podcasts allow anyone, for the first time in history, to create one’s own talk show, interview, educational or training seminar, sermon, speech, presentation, or music file that can be distributed worldwide to literally tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people who can play or download it and hear what you have to say . . . for free. You can create a following of colleagues, friends, and customers who care about what you have to say; and by podcasting, you’ve created a viral, entertaining, and informative medium through which you can be heard.

What You Need To Know About Podcasting

From the audience perspective, audio files are smaller and download faster than video, can be played on more existing portable players, and can be listened to while driving, walking to work, or working out at the gym. So, for many, podcasting audio content is the easiest and most effective way to broadcast their personal message.

To create an audio podcast, all you need is your computer, the built-in microphone (or an external one, if your computer does not have a micro­phone built in), the free audio recording and editing software that came with the computer—and a little bit of creativity. Just hit Record, announce your  message, hit Save, and upload it to a web site like PodBean.com for  distribution, and you are podcasting.

Podcasting: Podcast Components

An audio podcast can range from less than a minute to more than an hour in total length, depending upon the content you wish to include. The podcast can sound slick, as though it was professionally produced, or have a rough around-the-edges homemade flavor to it. It can start with an introduction in the content and speaker, and even have a musical intro. Many podcasters find the easiest way to sound natural is to have more than one person speaking, like a radio interview or discussion. Whatever your choice of content, podcasts are effective, portable, and fun.

Podcasts are like blogs in that they can be RSS-fed. Essentially, your podcasts can be syndicated or distributed, and made available worldwide for free. People who like your podcasts and want to share them and be alerted when you’ve created more content can be informed every time you publish a new podcast. You can also set up Facebook, Linkedln, and other free services to automatically publish when you are podcasting a new podcast episode.