Tips to Promoting Podcasts
Podcast Promotion
Podcasting is a great new medium, but creating
a podcast is only half of the work. Promoting
a podcast is equally critical to it's success.
1. Educate the Public.
It is important to remember that podcasting is
a relatively new technology and not everyone understands
or knows what podcasting is. It is particularly
important to educate users if your audience is
not technical. Not only is it important to explain
what a podcast is, but it is equally important
to explain how your podcast will help listeners.
Instruction on how users can listen to podcasts
should also be included.
Understanding Podcasting - http://www.podcasting-tools.com/podcasting-articles.htm
2. Graphic
Add a graphic to your website to let website visitors
know that a podcast is available for your content.
Colorful graphics have become the signature to
alert listeners that podcasts and RSS feeds are
available. The podcast flags were initially bright
orange rectangles but as the popularity has grown,
webmasters have bent the rules a bit.
A free online RSS graphic tool is available that
allows users to quickly customize buttons by selecting
the text and the color scheme of the button enabling
webmasters to coordinate their podcast flag to
match their website color scheme. Graphics experience
is not required. Simply select alternative colors
and insert text to personalize the feed graphics.
Online Graphics Tool - http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm
or choose ready made graphics fom: http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-graphics.htm
.
3. Descriptive Content
Be sure the podcast RSS feed contains enough information
related to the contents of the podcasts to grab
the interest of listeners. The description should
be keyword rich. A link to the audio file should
be included in the description field. The audio
file link is a great way for listeners to sample
a podcast.
4. Press Release
Send a press release about the podcast. In addition
to distributing the press release to editors,
be sure to submit the release to free online press
release directories.
Submit Press Release - http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/pressreleases.html
(scroll to submit release)
5. Podcast Directories
Submit podcasts to the podcast directories. Podcast
directories contain podcasts that cover a wide
variety of topics. Inclusion in the podcast search
engines and directories will tap a whole new audience.
Submit to Podcasting Directories
- http://www.podcasting-tools.com/submit-podcasts.htm
6. Consistent Theme / Interesting Content
The last thing you want to do is to turn off listeners
who have subscribed. Provide consistently formatted
and consistently themed audio files. Interesting
content that is consistently presented will gradually
increase your listening base.
7. Create a Community
Encourage feedback and dialogue with listeners.
Listen to the feedback of listeners and test their
suggestions. Remember the podcast is for them
not you.
Podcast promotion should be approached with the
same tactics as website promotion. Identifying
and informing your audience will increase communication
and dialogue.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS
feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages
marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
|
