Create Your Own Show & Let the World Have It - Use These Podcasting Tools!

Podcasting is a means to publish audio and video content to the world via the Internet. Audiences are able to subscribe to their favourite shows and automatically receive the latest episodes in iTunes or a similar client. Creating a podcast of your own is almost as easy as watching or listening to one. All you need is knowledge of tools, we have made it simpler for by creating a list here.

Having its roots in the blogging world, part of the appeal of podcasting is the ease with which audio content can be created, distributed, and downloaded from the Web. Both professional broadcasters and amateurs are using podcasting as to share opinions and content. The potential audience for these audios is increasing at a fast pace.

Podcasting is therefore becoming an important framework when designing a social media marketing strategy.

We have compiled a structured list of the best tools; these will make it easy for you to create or distributing a podcast.

1. Podcast Hosting, Sharing and Networking

Talkshoe - Create your own live talk show or interactive podcast. Waxxi - Audio shows streamed live, mainly with notable technologists. Once recorded, the live shows are available as podcasts. Feedforall - A tool to that allows users to easily create, edit and publish RSS feeds. This would easily record and edit audio files for podcasts! Evoca - "YouTube for voice recordings": create audio recordings from your computer mic, your phone or Skype, share them with others and embed them on websites. MyPodcast - Podcast hosting solutions offering unlimited storage, bandwidth, and free templates for your podcasts. PodcastPeople - A service that enables you to post text, audio and video materials to your own customized show, and even earn some income from it through sponsors. Hipcast - Create audio, video materials and podcasts and post them to your blog. Libsyn - Liberated Syndication will host your podcasts for a monthly fee. Podbean - Free podcast hosting and publishing. Castpost - Free hosting for audio and video clips.

2. Video podcasting

Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content.

Veodia - Create live TV shows and convert them to video podcasts. Blip.tv - A "video podcasting" service. Similar to YouTube, but focusing on independent creators, who get a share of revenue.

3. Mobile Podcasting

Podlinez - Allows listening to podcasts on your phone. Gabcast - Allows recording podcasts straight from your phone. Yodio - Record audio from your phone, add photos and captions.

4. Text to podcasts

If you are tired of reading you might want to know about Text to podcast tools. These tools will help you in listening to the content.

SpokenText - It allows you to record PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, RSS news feeds, emails and web pages, and converts them to speech automatically. YakiToMe - Convert blogs to audio podcasts. Odiogo - Convert RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts to podcasts. ReadTheWords - Another free web based alternative to convert text into speech.

5. Podcast Directories

PodcastAlley - A podcast directory with over 30,000 podcasts. Podcast.com - A podcast directory that contains tens of thousands of podcasts. Podfeed.net - Host and share your podcast, find podcasts, as well as read and write podcast reviews. Everyzing - Audio and video search engine. Delven - provides a complete online video solution to manage, publish, measure, and monetize high quality video content on the web. PodNova - The best way to find, subscribe to, share, play and download your podcasts.

6. Podcast creation software

Odeo - Perhaps the most popular podcasting platform. It allows recording audio within your browser, embed it anywhere and create your own audio channels. Gcast - Record, mix and broadcast your podcasts. You can record messages by phone and upload MP3 files from your computer. Audacity - Free, open source software for recording and editing audio, works offline. Adobe Soundbooth - Advanced audio editing from Adobe, works offline. Podomatic - This site lets you record video and audio online directly from your browser. You can also receive in line calls from listeners wanting to leave voice comments.

7. Podcast Advertising

Podbridge - Provides podcast metrics and advertising. Podtrac - A service that connects podcasters with advertisers.

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   

Podcasting - What Exactly it Is

Podcasting is an exceptionally new technique of using voice over internet rather than using the conventional methods of addressing the audience i.e. text. It allows the experts and professionals to share their work and experiences with a potentially huge audience over the internet easily and effectively. People from different walks of life are increasingly using the internet to promote their work and achievements and podcasting is an excellent way to accomplish this task without much hassle.

What exactly is Podcasting?

Podcasting, is essentially a communication tool on the internet that allows individuals to distribute their work in the form of audio and video files. The audio and video files, commonly termed as Podcasts are distributed using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The podcasts can even be streamed directly on internet rather than downloading them as files in the computers. The host or author of a podcast is often called a Podcaster.

Podcasting is supported by RSS 2.0 which allows the content publishers to add the description of new content in an XML based RSS file which includes dates, titles, descriptions and links to MP3 files. Podcasting allows you to automatically receive new shows, discussions and programs when they are broadcasted or podcasted without going to a specific site to download them. You can listen to a variety of programs that are podcasted anytime by using portable players or media players on your computer.

Podcasting is increasingly becoming a popular medium of communication among people to share their knowledge with the huge community and to expand their social circle. Moreover, people are using podcasts to advertise their services including freight shipping, transportation, ticketing services etc

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Podcasting For Reach and Income Growth

Podcasting is one of the most democratic and effective of the new media tools that allows you to get your message or point of view across to a wide audience. The ability to project your message to anyone,anywhere at anytime on the device of their choosing has lead to explosive growth in new media. This is so much so that established media outlets are porting their offerings from TV and radio to the podcast world.

Often thought of as personal broadcasting many podcasters make a healthy income at podcasting either in traditional audio podcasts or in the now popular video podcasts. The market has grown exponentially from the early adopters in the geek world to many of the top marketers in the world. One of the contributing factors to this has been the growth of computer notebooks and personal music players such as the iPod and the Zune. This seismographic shift in the delivery of music from records to cd's and online music aggregators and sellers such as Apple's iTunes. The other major delivery channel is the Smartphone like the iPhone, the Blackberry, Android and HTC products and now the iPad tablet device from Apple.

Professionals, and small businesses are extending their reach into their own community on their areas of expertise. This proliferation allows you to connect by video or voice in a way that has just not been possible in prior years. There are podcasts on gardening, child-rearing, sex, relationships, health and thousands of other niche and microniche subjects.

Education is also possible through the Open University, MIT,Stanford, professional organizations and a host of world class institutions for the taking. The opportunities are unlimited and open to anyone with a microphone, computer, and software program to record,edit and produce podcasts.

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5 Tips For Choosing a Podcast Topic

The first order of business for anyone starting a podcast is to choose a podcast topic. While this may seem like an easy answer, if chosen poorly it can result in a number of problems from a fledgling audience to podfading. So here are 5 tips for choosing a podcast topic that will ensure success and longevity.

What are your interests?

Podcasting about something you have an interest in will help you in a number of ways.

· Your enthusiasm about the subject matter will reach your audience. · You will be motivated to produce content. · In the early stages of your podcast when your audience is growing slowly, podcasting about a topic that enjoy will get you through those weeks when you don't always feel like putting in the time and effort. · If you are not interested in the topic you are podcasting about, why do you think others would be interested in listening to it?

Choose a topic with depth

One pitfall that many first time podcasters fall into is choosing a topic that does offer any true depth of topics. You should be able to quickly think of at least 10 show topics for your podcast in roughly 5 minutes. If you can't, then you have probably chosen a topic for your podcast that either does not have enough material to allow you to produce quality content for an extended period of time. You may be able to remedy this by broadening your topic a little bit.

Example: A podcast topic of reviewing coffee shops in your neighborhood will limit you to the 7 or 8 shops within a 5-mile radius. What if you decided to review all of the coffee shops in your entire city? By widening your category you may find a lot more to draw on when creating content for your podcast.

What is your anticipated release schedule? If you plan on releasing a new podcast each week then you need to make sure that you have enough material within your topic to create new, quality, content every week; and yes it must be quality content every week. If you have work hard to create new content for your podcast episodes, you will find that the time between podcast episodes grows from weekly to monthly or monthly to every 2-3 months and eventually the podcast will drop off altogether.

Does the topic have an audience?

Keep in mind that the goal of any podcaster is to have an audience listening to your podcast. This should definitely be taken into consideration when choosing a topic. There may not be a large audience for a podcast on insect species in South America, if there is an audience for that kind of podcast; how are you going to reach them? Reaching your target audience is something that I talk about in a number of posts under podcast promotion but you should be aware of it even at this early stage in the life of your podcast.

Does your podcast fill a need?

One of the best ways to ensure that you can attract listeners to your podcast is to find a topic or niche that is not already saturated with 10 other podcasts on the same topic. The less competition from established podcasts in the same topic the easier time you will have in growing your audience at a faster rate.

Do a little research, if you think that you have found a good topic then go to the iTunes podcast directory and do a search on your topic. See how many other podcasts are out there using the same keywords. If you find that there are 5-9 other podcasts then click on each of them and look at a few things.

· How many episodes have they released? Is it a new podcast? · How often do they release a new episode? · When was the last time that they released a new episode?

You may find that there are 5 other podcasts with the same topic but they have not released a new episode in a year or two. This could still be a good opportunity to fill a need in a market that has become a little stagnant.

Making Money

If you are starting a podcast with the intent of generating some kind of income related to the podcast then this adds a new level of research to choosing your podcast topic. Obviously some types of podcasts are easier to monetize than others. A podcast reviewing the latest gadgets and gizmos may be easier to monetize through sponsorships and affiliate programs than a podcast in which you interview a different person in your high school class each episode. If making money is your goal with your podcast then make sure that you have a very clear plan of how you are going to monetize your podcast based on the topic you have chosen.

Once you have chosen your podcast topic, the excitement about your podcast begins to grow exponentially, but there is still a ways to go before you publish your first podcast. Http://www.Podcastingtips.com has all the information you will need to get this new podcast topic swirling in your head published and in the iPods and PCs of your listeners. Welcome to the podcasting community!

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   Six Benefits of Podcasting   

Is Your Church Social? Part 18 - Podcasts - Why Should Your Church Podcast?

In my last article we looked at what a podcast is, basically a pre-recorded, online, radio show that is distributed via RSS to all those who subscribe to the feed. OK, so it may sound like a neat concept. I've always wanted to do a radio show, but is this really for churches? Should your church podcast and, if so, why?

Church Resource Podcasting

Podcast For Your Members:

If your church is like my church, you never have perfect attendance from all your church members, except maybe on Christmas and Easter. Sure some members are just lazy or not all that interested, but some, if not most, miss church for legitimate reasons. Maybe they are sick. Maybe they had a family emergency. Maybe they're traveling. Your church also probably has some members physically unable to make it to church each week. For those who are interested, they may very well wish they could have been there and would love to be able to participate in the service or at least listen to the sermon. Podcasting will let them.

Not Just Sermons:

Podcasting can also give you a way to engage your congregation. Sermon podcasting is a great place to start, but you can go beyond sermons to short bible lessons, announcements, a youth group podcast, and others. Podcasting can help make church a 7 day a week activity instead of just a Sunday and possibly Wednesday activity.

Podcast For Your Church's Budget:

You may already provide CD's of sermons for people who miss the service. That's great, but I'd suggest that podcasting has three great advantages over CD's.

1.Podcasts are accessible from anywhere as long as you have a computer and an Internet connection. If a member is traveling, they don't have to wait to listen to the podcast. This is especially nice because usually people have time and would love to listen to something while traveling.

2.Podcasts are free. How much does your church spend on CD's? Now imagine if you can get 25% of the people who get CD's to start using the podcasts instead. That could save your church a couple hundred dollars over a year.

3.Podcasts are quick. If you reproduce CD's, it probably takes a significant amount of time. For most churches each CD burned takes from 2-5 minutes. If you burn 100 CD's, that will take 3-9 hours just for the reproducing. With podcasting you just make a digital copy on your computer and upload it for the podcast. Not including any editing time (which you would have to do for a CD as well) you could be done in a just a couple minutes instead of a couple hours.

Church Marketing Podcasting

Podcast For Other Christians:

Many Christians are looking for additional resources for their spiritual walk. I mentioned in my last post that iTunes allows churches to post their podcasts on iTunes for free. This makes your podcast accessible to anyone, including Christians who do not attend your church. By making your sermons and other podcasts available to everyone, these non-member Christians will be able to listen to your podcasts as part of their daily walk with the Lord. These people may just walk through your church doors one day.

Podcast for Non-Christians:

There are people all over the world going through struggles, searching for an answer. You have that answer. Podcasting on sites like iTunes can let your church minister to these people. You can do this with sermons that deal with specific issue, Bible lessons about certain topics, or Q and A podcasts addressing various questions people may have. Podcasting about coping with marriage issues or addictions can a good way to reach out to the non-believing world desperately wanting answers and help. Podcasting about pop issues and subjects is another way to reach people. Some people aren't looking for help, but are looking for information and opinions about various current events and people.

Help Them Find You:

If you want non-church members to find your podcasts, the first thing you need to do is make your podcast available online through various sources. The two key places you should make your podcast available is your church website and iTunes. Facebook is another good place where your members can let people know about recent podcasts. The second thing you need to do is use titles and descriptions which include words and phrases people search for. That may mean that you need to "de-christianize" the title of a sermon to use words and phrases used by the rest of the world. Regardless, the key is to think about the words and phrases people may use to search about the topic of the podcast and then incorporate those words and phrases into the title. You should also use your Church's name as the author/artist. That way people will see your church's name and, if/when they decide to visit, they will know where to go.

Podcasting can be a great outreach and/or inreach tool for the church. The average American has an 80 minute commute. They want something to help pass the time. Podcasting can also help keep people company (listening to someone speak to them) and start to build a relationship. If you listen to talk radio, as I do, after a while you start to feel as though you know the people you listen to. By podcasting, people can start to form a relationship with your church. That may lead to some of those people visiting and joining your church. Even if they never step foot in your church, you may still have a life changing impact on their lives for Christ. And isn't that what we are trying to do?

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   Six Benefits of Podcasting   

How Do I Create a Podcast That Makes Money?

I'm glad you asked that question!

If you don't approach podcasting with an idea of how you are going to make money from it you just might end up podcasting for peanuts! I'm not saying you should aspire to make millions from podcasting (though I won't discourage you if you want to try) but you need to have a plan.

Podcasting should be an important part of your online marketing strategy.

You don't have to straight sell goods through your podcast to make money with it. There are many indirect methods to build your business, expertise and income with this medium.

Here are some marketing models you'll want to consider as you plan out your program, episodes and guests:

Sell Products - Let's say you sell air conditioners. If you want to host a podcast you're going to have to get creative because nobody wants to download your commercial for air conditioners every time you've got a new show. Instead, you could host a monthly podcast about possible health benefits, tips on how to install air conditioners, interviews from experts and other interesting information potential customers of your air conditioners would be interested in. Then at the end of every episode or during the episode you can remind listeners that the show was sponsored by your company and let them know where they can buy an air conditioner from you.

Sell Services - If you run a service based business a podcast would be a good way to showcase yourself as an expert in your field. Answer all the questions your potential clients might ask by telling them how things are done. For example, a virtual assistant who specializes in audio editing might host shows about podcasting, editing audios, interviewing styles and more. This would be an educational show that gives potential clients everything they need to make an informed decision on who to hire to help them with their audio needs.

Affiliate Marketing - You know how Oprah has her Book of The Month club and every book she recommends gets snapped up in a heartbeat the minute it's on the list? Well you can build your own following with a podcast and make your own recommendations. Then through the technology of affiliate marketing you can earn nice commissions on your recommendations. This is the business model I employ in my own podcast as well as on my blog and throughout a large portion of my business. In order to maintain ethics and reputation it is very important that you are diligent in your research of programs and products that you promote. I myself have a strict rule that I will only promote products I've either a) used myself or b) developed a deep respect for the owner of.

Sell Advertising - You can also make money by developing a successful podcast and then selling advertising. I say the podcast should be successful first because most people won't pay anything for advertising to an audience of none.

So there are a few ways you can make money with a podcast. Of course you won't be making money without listeners so you'll also need to put effort into promotions.

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts