How to Promote a Podcast

In the last year, I’ve really been blessed to work with a wonderful podcasting expert, the amazing John C. Havens (About.com’s podcast expert, principal of Podcast Vision & Voice and Lead Organizer for  Podcamp NYC). Not only is John an expert at helping you create a more powerful podcast, he stars right alongside me in mine – as the foil for Serenity Hawkfire’s many sick and twisted theories. (If you don’t know I have a … well … strange but hilarious alter ego, this parody New Age guru.) In fact, in our most recent episode, that’s John playing Dr. Helmut Tanenbaum, the Vegetable Tantric.

ANYWAY … John has been coaching me on how to promote this baby and here’s what he suggests:

1. Set up a hub blog on Typepad (or wordpress) for Serenity that is where her media page, bio, and more lives
2. Set up a My Space page for Serenity (all of this should have the same branded look, feel, photography, slogan (“Changing Your on a Cellular Level’) etc. This is great for search engine rank, traffic, etc.
3. Set up a page on crowdabout.us that includes video/audio clips … this is a social networking site that’s great with assorted media
4. Set up a crowdvine.com page – an ‘adult’ version of MySpace that creates additional community
5. Set up an 800 number that asks people to leave feedback on a specific, funny question – link it up to k7.net … a ‘shout out’ line that collects phone messages online as MP3 files … and use these to create more fun with my podcast. (Be sure to create a message that includes the fact that if people leave messages, you will be using them on the Internet in your podcast – a release of sorts.)
6. Link my podcast (currently hosted on a site called Podomatic.com) to all of these
7. Tell all my friends/readers/everybody about these and get rolling!

Thanks John … if you want to see what podcasting can do for you, drop him a line. I’m psyched. (Oh yeah, I do have a podcast, Get Known Now Unplugged, on these platform goodies as well.)

Podcamp NYC is Heating Up – a Great Free Unconference

Hooray! One of my favorite places to play in the East is ready for visitors. That would be the New York City iteration of Podcamp, the great free podcasting conference I attended in fall ‘06 in Boston. If you are curious about how to set up a podcast, or take the one you’ve got to a totally optimized next level – or set up any kind of viral, serious online visual or audio presence on the Web – you want to be here.

You’ll be surrounded by cool, smart people who know a lot more than you do about the art, and are eager to share what they know entirely for free. It’s a wonderful, collegiate atmosphere that’s just overflowing with inspiration and creativity – and what a mixed bag of participants! Everyone from technically inspired schoolteachers to pierced, tattooed kids who are experts on something called ‘sniggetys. I met folks from all over the world at the last one – so you can bet I”ll be there. It’s Easter weekend in NYC. Don’t miss it.

By the way, in the true unconference spirit, you sign up by entering your information in the WIKI (a website in which visitors can add useful content.) If you don’t know how to do this, there’s an easy tutorial. And if you want to speak, just jump right in and sign yourself up. It’s that simple! And democratic. Just LOVE that.

John Havens, one of the organizers, says you can call the hotline at 212-229-8210 if you can’t hack the WIKI-based registration. Leave a message with the following information: Name, Contact info (URL for their site/email/phone if they want someone to call them for whatever reason), What you hope to get from the conference (networking/learning/biz contacts, etc.) They will add you to the WIKI.

Won’t you join me?

Start a Cell Phone Fan Club

I’ve got a new, cool resource you can use for recording audio messages – i.e. your podcast – via your telephone, then broadcasting it to folks in all kinds of format – even a text message that appears on their cell phone. You simply send them a phone number they call in to hear your recording.

That would be the Cell Phone fan club. That would be possible through a website called Say Now.

With Say Now, you can essentially run a ‘Mobile Fan Club’. You are assigned a phone number on which you record an outgoing message. Fans see you on the Say Now website (or your own or other sites and blogs.) They call in from their cell phone, and then a text alert is automatically sent each time you update your message. So it’s like RSS technology only using phones. And your number doesn’t have to be posted to elicit calls. You can have a very discreet ‘Connect’ link installed that will pop up a box to enter your cell number, which then gets logged into their system. Somebody 19 years old named ‘T-Will’ uses this process to keep in touch with his 19,000 (yes, 19,000) friends on My Space. (Note to parents of T-Will … is this kid doing any homework?)

Yeah, Say Now appears to be primarily the turf of the under 25 crowd, but for social messaging sites like MySpace, Tribe, etc. this technology is a great new way to capture names, etc.. And it’s mostly being used by musicians and comedians. BUT, as all things go (including podcasts) this is a venue that will soon be taken over by old people like me who want to put our helpful spoken content out there to millions.

Again – using alternate technologies like cell phones is a great way to avoid getting trapped by email filters. And keep in touch with people who just aren’t going to get all excited by written emails.

(I’m planning on building this into my Serenity Hawkfire ‘recognizablity campaign’ … coming soon to this very blog.)

Anyone out there have experience with Say Now or other cell phone fan clubs? Do share.

How to Make Money from Podcasts

Recently a reader posted a question on how he could make money from his podcast. One of the experts who weighed in on podcasting on my free call last week, Leesa Barnes, assisted with this reply:

There's alot of debate on the right way to make money in podcasting. Here's some resources for Shawn so he can investigate this further.

Paul Colligan's The Business Podcasting Bible http://www.thebusinesspodcastingbible.com

Tim "Gonzo" Gordon's Profitable Podcasting Case Studies http://podcastprofitcasestudies.com

Leesa Barnes' 7 Ways to Turn Listeners Into Clients http://www.savialane.com/products/podcastListeners.jsp

Also, check out the (free) audio recordings from last year's Podcast & Portable Media Expo for more info that could answer Shawn's question.

On Friday - http://www.portablemediaexpo.com/friday.htm

Listen to:

    * *Topic 3B - Advertising Business Models for Portable Content and

      Podcasting*

On Saturday - http://www.portablemediaexpo.com/saturday.htm

Listen to:*

*

    * *Topic 6C:* *Upgrading Your Subscribers - Converting Free

      Subscribers into Paying Customers*

    * *Topic 7A:* *Subscription Business Models for Portable Content*

    * *Topic 7D:* *The Realities of Monetization and Corporate Use of

      Podcasting*

Cool .. have you got ideas of your own on how to podcast for bucks? Share 'em right here! Adios!

Podcasting Tips from the Pros, Part I

Last night I got filled to the brim with inspiration about podcasting. I hosted a free teleclass with two experts, Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon and Leesa Barnes are podcasting muskateers who have beaten the path that we all must now follow.

And must we should! Here are some great tidbits I learned last night that make me want to sit down right now and create my next podcast. (And by the way, I do have one -- it's called Get Known Now Unplugged.)

1. Podcasting is all about Search Engine optmization. You must know your keywords and then steadfastly keep plugging them in titles of podcasts, and the descriptions that appear on the page where you access them

2. You can set up your podcast on either a category in Typepad OR another linked blog if you're on blogger. Cause the syndication feeds for the podcast and the blog can't coexist happily within the blogger platform on a single blog ... but they can on Typepad.

3. To build your ezine list, offer a link to a related freebie like an article or white paper from your site or blog at the end of the podcast. And when folks register to download it, let them know you'll be sending them your ezine as well as a thank you. (Needs to be clearly stated at the point of sign up.)

4. Feeburner.com is not only the lead tool for getting emails out there with your blog posts in them ... it's the lead syndication tool for podcasts, too. Cool! This is a new service they offer. Another popular one is Liberated Syndication.

By the way, these two podcastinatos have banded together to create a bundled product just for my listeners. You can take advantage of it by listening to the call and then going to the link they give.

Here's the mp3 download version of the call

Here's a streaming version of the call