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Podcasting – What Is It? How Can It Help Me?

Podcasting is a new way to get your message out to millions of people without costing you an arm and a leg.  A podcast is a digital media file that gets distributed over the internet using syndicated feeds for playback later and can be downloaded to a portable media player or computer.  Listeners can also subscribe to your podcast so that when you record a new one and publish it to the internet they are notified and can download it for their listening pleasure or a fee if you choose to go that route.

How can podcasting help your business?  The ways are limitless so instead of having a blog a million pages long and boring no less, we are going to highlight two of the best reasons, in my opinion of course, here.  Reason number 1?  You are in complete control! No one will tell you what you have to record, you control what your listeners hear, how long the cast is and who is allowed to listen to your message.  Reason Number 2?  It’s easy and you can do it for free!  What is better than growing your business and doing it affordably?  There are programs out there that let you record and edit your audio files for free like www.audacity.com.  If you want to pay for a program they come in all shapes, sizes and price ranges.

To reach your target audience you will want to do some research to find the appropriate place to link your site and then get it out to all the RSS feeders that you can.  If you don’t know what an RSS is that’s alright.  An RSS is Really Simple Syndication and is how your podcast is syndicated and found by others on the internet. Many websites today will have RSS somewhere on them with a logo or icon.  When you click on this little logo you will be able to subscribe to the feed and be notified when there are updates and new content available. It is an easy way to get updates without having to manually visit a web page or blog to check for updates or news.

Having your podcast associated with an RSS feed will allow those listeners that have subscribed to your feed to be notified automatically and immediately when you have new information.  No more sending emails out to everyone individually, this saves you time and therefore money!

Podcasting is yet another wave of the future.  To get ahead and reach more people than ever you need to grab your board and ride the waves into the next age of technology.  Surf’s Up!