Commercial Podcasting Considerations
Ryan over at Podcast Free America links to an interesting post dubbed “The Seven Deadly Sins of Commercial Podcasting” which was written by Errol Smith, Co-founder International Nanocasting Alliance. I enjoyed the read, and as a producer of podcasts for over 5 major corporations, there is some truth to these “sins” and all of them should be considered when approaching a podcasting initiative. Here is one that I like, and which Errol places in the additional “three unpardonable sins,” category, i.e. you really have to pay attention to these:
Relying Primarily on RSS to Build an Audience - Real Simple Syndication (RSS) may be an easy way to build an audience for vanity podcasters, but commercial podcasters are already discovering that RSS is no substitute for proactive audience building…
This is of major importance to the success of any true podcasting initiative, and one that presents opportunity for creativity in marketing and promotion. Marketers cannot rely solely on a podcaster and their network of friends to produce downloads and RSS subscriptions. If a program is long term or is going to be continuous, then there must be, just like any other form of marketing or public relations, continuous buzz being generated within the core audience of the organization. A press release helps gets things started, but there is so much more that can be done. A dialouge must be created, reviews must be written, directories must be populated, people should be encouraged to participate and/or interact someway, there must be discussion. All of these things can assist in the overall building of an audience base. I am hoping to write a bit more on this topic as I am asked continuously about how to build a podcast audience, and some of the upcoming podcasting projects I will be involved in are centered around very niche audiences which should hopefully prove to be interesting case studies around various approaches.