Introduction to Podcasting
Podcasting gives you a powerful way to share, promote and educate people about your organsiation or project via an audio file on the Internet.
Podcasting refers to listening and downloading audio files from the Internet either via a browser or an RSS feed. Regardless of the name “Podcasting” which is a combination of iPod and broadcasting, a listener does not require an iPod to listen to a podcast. Any MP3 player will play a podcast as will any computer that can play mp3 files.
Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular as listeners can download podcasts of interesting content to listen to at a time that is convenient to them, whether that is when the listener is commuting or exercising etc.
You should remember that this is unlike a radio broadcast that caters to a wide variety of listeners in one session. Your podcast listeners have an interest in what you are discussing and proactively seek out your material. Don’t feel the need to make podcasts if there is no real reason to, or you could lose your listeners.
One podcast of an important event on your web site is a powerful medium as opposed to many podcasts that discuss very little.
Community groups are favoring podcasts as a method to disseminate their information to their wider audiences including the following areas:
- Public service announcements
- organizational messages
- interviews and key speeches
- commentaries
- story telling
- as a motivational tool to geographically disperse staff and volunteers.
There are no significant costs to creating a podcast except for the time to create and upload it to the Internet and possibly bandwidth charges. If the bandwidth charges are likely or do become expensive then an alternative is to upload your podcasts to YouTube.com. If you are unsure about how your bandwidth, space may be effected you should discuss this with your web site hosting company.
Although there are no size restrictions to a podcast, you may want to consider the size of the podcast for the listener downloading the file.
Getting started
You will need:
- a topic to talk about
- a microphone
- software to record your discussion
- a computer
- an Internet connection
- a web site and or RSS feed.
Once you have the required equipment, record your podcast and upload it to your web site. But remember that before you do anything, carefully prepare the material you want to discuss and have someone else listen to it prior to publishing it to the web.
Audacity is a popular free program to edit sound files such as music and podcasts and is available from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ .
Important note: Upon recording your mp3 you should edit the properties (ID3 properties) of the mp3 so you can add your copyright information, organisation information and contact details etc. There are many different ways to do this.