Why should you care?
Podcasts are clearly all the rage these days. ISP Interland's Summer 2005 Small and Medium-sized Business Barometer found that 11% of small business owners want to use podcasting as part of their website.
The Diffusion Group made a prediction in June 2005 based on sales of portable digital music players and the number of people with high-speed Internet. The prediction said that by the end of the decade, there could be as many as 60 million podcast users.
Another interesting fact that might be worth mentioning is that iTunes 4.9 came out in June 2005. This was the first time that podcasting was built into the music player that close to 40 million people use.
Only two days after the release, one million people had signed up to get the podcast. This is a number that most of us wouldn't have believed before. At that time, a lot of podcasts got free publicity and a lot of new subscribers.
Since Yahoo! Podcasts came out on the market, this event could happen again. I'm not a psychic, but I know that only good things will happen to your business if you can use this publishing method and be one of the first to reach millions of people who are looking for very specific content they are interested in. I hope we can agree.
Why it's important for your business
Steve Job, the CEO of Apple Computer, says that iTunes Podcast Directory has more than 15,000 podcasts and is adding 1,000 new ones every week, which is a very fast rate of growth. That is only one list. At first glance, this may seem like a lot, but it's really just a drop in the ocean compared to how many websites are out there right now.
Since more than 6 million people were listening to podcasts in April 2005, there is a lot of room to play. If you want proof, just look at any popular directory of podcasts and see how many of them only have a few entries, even on topics that are pretty popular.
But, "What does it have to do with my business?" Well, for the first time, you can reach your customers through voice. It's like having your own radio show, but people can listen whenever they want.
When it comes to marketing, it can be very powerful to be able to show emotion and add personality to your communication. All of these things can be done through the same medium, which is more powerful than traditional text-based communication. Imagine having all of these benefits and being able to show your podcast to millions of people who visit Yahoo! Podcasts for free.
"How to take part"
You can record your voice or anything else that can be heard with the computer equipment you already have. Podcasts don't just have to be talk shows. They can also be music samples, audiobooks, and more. You can do it with the microphone that came with your computer, but a good one makes you sound like a pro.
Some tools for editing and mixing sounds are free and can be used if you need to do that before publishing. To make a podcast file available, the audio file needs to be uploaded to a public web server. In the future, we might have other ways to get it out there, but for now, the most common way is through a public web server.
When it's time to publish your podcast, you can use the software you already have for your blog to build a website for your podcast show. Using a blog platform makes it easier to manage your content. Most of them can help you make a good podcast feed. It's a great feature, but you don't have to use it.
An RSS feed sends the podcast audio metadata to a large number of people. With the technology we already have, the whole process of making the feed and putting it online is almost seamless.
The Yahoo! Podcasts Publishing page is where you can list your podcast once it is ready. All you have to do is enter the URL to your podcast feed. You can even add tags to help other people find your podcast.
"Where to start"
Podcasting has become a lot more popular recently, but it is still not for every market. Some businesses are better served by other methods. Yet others are mostly made up of people who have slower Internet connections, making it harder and taking longer to download regular audio files, or who just aren't that tech-savvy.
You know your market better than I do, but until you test it, you can never be sure. The technologies are here, so you can start with very little money. You can even quit if you don't like it and try again when your market is ready. No matter what it is, you should not miss the chance.
If you decide to start a podcast, there are a lot of free tools you can use to get started right away. It's best to start as soon as possible. Your audience may have been waiting for your podcast, and if they can't find it by the time they try, you'll lose both targeted traffic from one of the biggest search engines and potential customers.
