Where Do You Find Ideas For Podcasts?

You should not have to look far to find content or new ideas for your podcast show. Look to your daily sources to find fodder and ideas for new podcasting segments.

1. News Both online and offline sources, from the Associated Press to CNN, contain a deluge of news item each day. Scan headlines on a regular basis to see what catches your eye. In addition, explore your niche market to find any industry-specific news portals that may warrant monitoring.

2. Blogs Blogs are a fabulous source of ideas and inspiration. Monitor blogs for developing industry news. Comment on breaking news or editorials that you strongly agree or disagree with. Be sure to credit the source of any blog posts that you comment on or quote within your show.

3. Friends & Colleagues Casual conversation with friends and colleagues often results in ideas for podcast segments. Day-to-day interaction generates ideas worth discussing.

4. Emails Review emails from customers, colleagues or potential customers. Perhaps a subject or question asked may result in good material for your show.

5. Forum Posts Forums can be another source of ideas for a podcasting segment. Review forums on a regular basis and keep a list of possible show ideas. You can also editorialize and summarize the forum posts. Or you can tackle difficult questions and those requiring complex answers better articulated in a podcast than typed in a forum.

6. Web Logs Look at your website's web logs to determine what shows were very popular or unpopular. Consider doing related segments as a follow up on popular shows. Or focus future shows on the material that generated the most listener interest.

7. Feedback Encourage a dialogue with your listeners. Ask listeners what they like and what they do not like. Use the feedback to develop future shows. Don't be afraid to try something new. The more receptive you are to listener ideas, the more they will share. Shape your show for your audience.

8. Advice Dear Abby and Anne Landers were pioneers in the advice columns, but traditional columnists have failed to take hold online. Consider an advice segment related to your industry inviting listeners to engage you with questions.

9. Conferences Often products are announced at conferences and trade shows. Candid reviews of new products that might be of particular interest to your audience may appeal to listeners.

Day after day, week after week, or month after month developing content for a podcast need not be a chore. It can be exciting to explore a variety of channels for podcast show ideas and segment topics.

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Podcast Exposure - How to Get Podcast Exposure Online

To get the most exposure, it's important to understand how your typical listener uses the directories to find your pod cast. There are three ways that listeners find pod casts in the directories:

1. They browse by category 2. They search for keywords related to topics that interest them 3. They look at the lists of top ranked or featured pod casts

It's much easier to influence the results you get from #1 and #2, especially when you're just getting started. You'll get greater returns in the long run by concentrating on how your pod cast appears in category browsing and directory searches.

Not that there's no benefit to #3, appearing in the top ranked lists. I just don't recommend worrying about it early on. But for those of you who still yearn for first page search positions in the bigger directories. It's not like actual search engine positioning for the likes of Google, Yahoo!, MSN etc. So let's take a brief look at what you have to do to get featured.

Most podcast directories have lists featuring the top 10, 50 or 100 podcasts or picks by the editorial staff. The top ranked podcasts are usually based on votes, ratings, reviews or number of subscribers. If you build a loyal listener base and produce good content, you'll start to see people review and rank your podcast in the directories.

Eventually, if enough listeners raise their hands, (By rating your pod cast well), on your behalf, your podcast could land in one of the featured lists. When this happens, a beaming smile will hit your face and you'll have a desire to pat yourself on the back. It also makes for great bragging rights and a nice bullet point in your podcast's media kit benefits list or talk radio show host resume.

It's very rewarding. I hope you have this experience at some point. But before you get all fired up and expect it to occur tomorrow, let's look at the realities of making this happen.

Considering there are tens of thousands of pod casts and only 100 spots, at most, in these featured lists, your show has little chance of attaining one of those coveted spots.

Podcasting For Business - 5 Unconventional Tips

Podcasts are a great way to help promote your business by showcasing your expertise, spreading the word about your company, products, and services, building community with your target market, and more. Here are 5 unconventional tips to help you along your way.

1) Sponsor a podcast whose audience fits your target demographic. You don't need to start one yourself, just look for an appropriate one that already exists. A classic example of this is Dixie sponsoring the Mommycast. Dixie didn't create a podcast themselves; instead they found one whose audience fit their target demographic and partnered with it.

2) Podcast on an unrelated topic to your business, but which has enormous appeal to your audience. An example of this is Whirlpool's American Family on family issues. Hey, wouldn't a podcast on dishwashers be boring?

3) Forget about the size of your listening audience! This isn't radio. A small number of very passionate listeners are much more important than a large number of somewhat interested listeners. Since podcasting can target niche audiences (since it's inexpensive unlike radio or TV), audiences tend to be passionate about the topic.

4) Take your podcast to your audience! Don't expect your target audience to magically find it. For example the Financial Aid Podcast heavily promotes via MySpace, as the demographics of both are extremely similar, and RightLookRadio advertises in industry publications.

5) Don't call it a podcast -- the name confuses and/or scares many people. You could call it radio -- people understand and are comfortable with radio. For example GrapeRadio is quite popular, and many of their fans neither know nor care that they are listening to a podcast.

Creating Audio Files For Use in a Podcast

If you are like most people, you are not very technical and creating a podcast sounds like a huge project that is way over your head. In fact it really is quite simple to record and edit an audio file. Once you learn the basics of the editing software, you will be able to create future podcast files in less than an hour.

I have done all the research for you to be able to create very inexpensive and professional sounding recordings for your podcast. Here I have listed six steps to get you started in creating audio files for your podcast.

Download and Install Audacity

Audacity is free and open-source software that you can use to record and edit your audios. This software is quite user-friendly and has all the features you will need to create and edit a basic podcast. Do a search for Audacity download, go to the download site, pick your computer platform (Windows or MAC), and follow the prompts to save the file and install the software.

Download the LAME MP3 Encoder

Now, don't let the technical name of this step scare you. This encoder is really just one file. Do a search for LAME MP3 Download to find what you need.

When you download the file, write down the directory where you put it. I would recommend downloading it to the directory where you placed the Audacity files to make it easy to find. On my PC that directory is c:/Program Files/Audacity. If you can't find the Audacity directory, then just choose a directory that makes sense to you.

You will need this file later because it will be required when you save your file as an MP3 format. MP3 is the popular file format used on the web for audio files. This format is smaller in size than other formats and is widely utilized by most software capable of listening to audios.

Setup Audacity

Open Audacity using the shortcut created for you when you installed the software From the Menu bar, select Edit > Preferences Click on the File Formats tab in the Preferences box Under the Bit Rate field, select 64. (This bit rate will give you a good quality recording while keeping the file size small) Click OK You should now be all set to start recording. There are many other options to play around with, but for now, the defaults will be more than adequate. Start Recording

To record all you need to do is click on the button that contains the red circle. This is the record button. Once you press the button, recording will start, so be prepared to start speaking right away.

If you make any errors while recording, just keep on going. You will be able to edit those pieces easily later on (Look for Part II of this article to learn how to edit with Audacity). If you have too many long pauses in between your sentences, you will be able to remove these later as well.

If you find that you really botched things up and just want to start over, click on the X in the top left corner of the audio track that popped up when you started recording. That will delete the track. When you press the Record button again, a new track will pop up. Make sure if you create a new audio track, you deleted the bad one, otherwise, when you play the recording both tracks will play at the same time.

When you are done recording, click the button that contains the yellow square. This is the stop button.

Save Your Project

Once you are done recording and are happy with your results, you will want to save the project. Audacity uses the .aup extension. This extension will allow you to reopen your project at a later date and edit it or add to it.

Export Your Audio to MP3

In step 5 you created an .aup file that can be used to edit your audio file at a later date, but in order to add your file to the web for listeners to hear, you will need to export your audio as an .mp3 file.

From the menu bar, select File > Export as MP3... During the very first time you try to export to an MP3 file, Audacity will ask you to find the LAME MP3 Encoder that you downloaded in step 2. Just browse for this file and select OK. Next you will be asked to enter the directory and file name of the mp3 file. Click the Save button.

Congratulations! Your audio file is now ready to be uploaded to a server for access to your customers and listeners!

That is really all there is to recording an audio and getting it ready for the web. When you are ready to get into a little more with your audios and learn how to edit, look for Part II of this article, which will walk you through the steps of editing parts where you messed up and want to re-record. You will have the option of removing parts of your audio, adding to it, and re-doing some of it.

Best Podcast Directory Sites on the Web

A podcast directory, what's that?

With the development of the podcast, there have been directories that have been created so that people are able to find the podcasts that they are looking for easily and also to allow the podcast developers to have a place to list their own podcasts.

There are three podcast directories that one should look at when searching for a podcast, or searching for a place to list a podcast.

o PodcastDirectory.com is the first podcast directory that should be searched. It is page rank 7, so the chances are good that the podcast that is being searched for is going to be in there. Also, it makes it a great place for people to list their podcasts.

Many people who are looking for a podcast mistakenly think that looking for it on iTunes is a good idea, but surprisingly it's not. It's a great place for iTunes but not for podcasts.

o Podcast411.com is another good place to find podcasts. The database is easy to search through and also has a high page rank. This is a good place both for podcasters and for those looking for podcasts.

o PodcastAlley.com is the third best place to go. It has everything that a podcaster could want, from software to forums, as well as the ability to search for a podcast. With all of the amenities and the high page rank, this is one of the best sites around.

If you are a fan of podcasts or you are someone who relies on podcasts to further your business, you are going to find everything that you want at one of the sites listed above. There is something for everyone, and that is why they are the three favorite sites of podcasters and listeners alike.