By David Steele

Podcasting Audio Programs
Part I - Podcasting Basics: Information & Entertainment When and Where you Want It (49 min) For supplementary article- Five Reasons to Love Podcasting click here	Part II - How to Create Your Own Podcast (56 min) See below for supplementary information, links, and resources

In Podcasting Part I we introduced you to the brave new world of podcasting. We gave you Five Reasons to Love Podcasting-

1. Listen to what you want
2. Listen when you want
3. Listen where you want
4. Anyone can have an audience
5. Podcasting topics and choices are unlimited

In this article we show you exactly how to produce a podcast. Why is this important? Because, as stated above, "Anyone can have an audience," and podcasting allows you to reach millions of potential clients- for free. No other medium available today can do this. You can publish books, get booked on radio shows, give seminars, advertise, and network like crazy, and not reach a fraction of the audience possible with podcasting.

I currently produce two podcasts- Private Practice Marketing Podcast and Conscious Relationship Podcast. In this article I will show you exactly how I produce these podcasts.

Note that after one-time expenses (domain name, microphone, etc) the total on-going cost of all the steps below is $4.95 per month (except for the marguarita!).

Step 1: Design your podcast- who, what, when, how

When- Ideally, your podcast will be a regular event (weekly, monthly, etc), like a radio or TV show

Who- Target a specific audience. Similar to choosing a niche for your practice, the more targeted, the more effective at attracting your desired audience and generating prospects

What- Choose format and topics that are attractive to your audience and easy and interesting for you. Examples of formats include interviews, call-ins, co-hosting, guest experts, etc.

How- See below!

Step 2: Start a blog for your podcast

Blogs are free and easy. Simply go to Blogger.com, sign up, choose a title, choose a template, and use the easy-to-use publishing interface to modify the template and publish postings. See ww.PrivatePracticeMarketingPodcast.com and www.ConsciousRelationshipPodcast.com for examples.

A blog or website is not critical for the podcast, but is necessary for marketing your podcast and services.

Two recommendations at this point-

1. Title your blog and podcast using the top keywords for your niche. Notice I used "private practice marketing" because that is the top search keywords for reaching private practice professional who want to build their practice; even better than "practice building" and "build your ideal practice" (good words, but not for reaching my desired audience on the internet).

Here are my top three free keyword tools-
Good KeyWords
Overture
Google

2. Get a domain name using your keywords and podcast title

Our Private Practice Marketing Podcast blog is hosted by Blogger.com. The actual URL is http://privatepracticemarketing.blogspot.com/ and I purchased ww.PrivatePracticeMarketingPodcast.com which simply forwards to the blog. Much easier to say, remember, type, and appears more professional.

Step 3: Sign up for Audioblog.com

OK, so it doesn't HAVE to be Audioblog.com, but your audio files have to be someplace, and this service can't be beat for features and price.

For $4.95 per month you get-
- 5GB of storage for your audio files
- Three ways to create audio files (telephone, web browser, uploading)
- Publishes automatically to your blog and iTunes
- Handles video as well as audio
- Provides a flash player for your website or blog (see below)
- 7 day free trial

Below is an example of the Audioblog.com flashplayer from our "Podcasting Basics" seminar (feel free to listen!)

Step 4: Sign up for Feedburner

OK, so it doesn't HAVE to be Feedburner, but you need an RSS feed to syndicate your podcast, and Feedburner is the standard, and it's free.

This is the URL you provide on your blog, to iTunes and other locations that list your podcast for folks to subscribe. Feedburner also provides your potential subscribers an easy way to add your podcast to their accounts at My Yahoo, Google Homepage, and other popular RSS readers.

The actual URL of the feed for our Private Practice Marketing Podcast is- http://dasteele42.audioblog.com/rss/writingarticles.xml and the Feedburner page that potential subscribers view from our blog to access the podcasts and subscribe is http://feeds.feedburner.com/writingandpublishingarticles

You don't need to understand all this, I certainly don't. After you've got your blog and audioblog accounts set up, just go to www.Feedburner.com, sign up, input your blog URL in Feedburner to get a Feedburner RSS URL, put your Feedburner RSS URL in Audioblog.com, and you're all set up!

Step 5: Do the podcast episode and record it

Once you've got your format and content planned out (see Step 1), produce an episode on a regular basis and record it for publishing as a podcast.

We conduct a monthly tele-seminar for practice building and for relationships, record it, and then broadcast the recordings as podcasts. You could follow this model, or simply record from your home or office and save yourself the editing and noise problems from recording a seminar over the telephone.

Your podcast can be whatever you want. It can be 10 minutes or an hour. It can be interactive (interview, etc) or not. The key is doing what you want that will appeal to your audience.

All the information on how to record, edit, and produce an audio recording that you can use as a podcast is available from our recent article and audio program How to Create an Audio CD.

Step 6: Upload audio file to Audioblog.com

If you use the information from How to Create an Audio CD you will have an edited MP3 file to upload. Audioblog.com allows you to record the audio by telephone as well, which is easier, but then you won't be able to edit.

Step 7: Publish your podcast

When you set up your Audioblog.com account you entered your blog information and iTunes preferences. After that, publishing is pretty simple once your audio file is uploaded to Audioblog.com-

1. From "My Audios" click on the audio file you want to publish
2. At the next screen, click "Publish Audio"
3. At the next screen select your blog and click "Publish to Blog" entering your title and description for that podcast at the next screen
4. Then go back and click "Publish to RSS Feed" for iTunes and the other podcast directories, entering your title and description for that podcast episode at the next screen

For information on how to set up your podcast in iTunes click here

That's it! Really!

Well... there are a few more optional things to do, such as-

• Edit and tweak your blog listing of your podcast episode by adding graphics, photos, links, affiliate links (such as for books on Amazon) or more info than is in your description
  
  
• Go to the iTunes music store, select "Podcasts" from the left menu, and check that your new podcast episode is listed (while the syndication occurs instantly, the listing can take a few hours). Why? No reason other than the thrill of knowing your new episode is now available to the millions of iTunes users. If you don't have iTunes, you can download it for f`ree here (no ipod necessary- it's a great program for organizing and playing your music files on your computer)
  
  
• Send an announcement to your network (the folks not subscribed to your podcast) inviting them to check out your latest recorded program on your blog or website
  
  
• Send a thank you note to your guest(s), give them a way to access the audio file for their use (I use www.Dropload.com, and yes, it's free) and ask them to announce the program to their network by sending their folks to your blog
  
  
• Leverage the new podcast episode by publishing a related article and sending it off to article banks, e-zine publishers, etc. The article has much more value if folks can access a related audio program (such as this article with the soon-to-be-published recording of the tele-seminar)
  
  
• Plan how to use the new podcast in your next information product
  
  
• Kick back, make yourself a marguarita (or tea) and celebrate your latest gift to the world!

Please check out our podcasts!

Conscious Relationships podcast

Private Practice Marketing podcast