Is Podcasting For Everyone?

“I’m an author. Is podcasting right for me?”

“I’m a business person. How can podcasting fit into my business?”

These are questions many people asked me this week.

After listening to the Podcast Secrets preview call on Wednesday evening, I would say that podcasting is right for a lot of people.

It’s right for an author who has a book and wants to reach a wider audience. One of the things Paul mentioned was how fast the market is growing of people who buy and use portable media players. One-third of this audience is overseas.

Maybe all these people can’t get your book. But if they could benefit from your message, wouldn’t you want to make it available to them to receive how, when, and where they want?

That’s what podcasting does: It makes your message available to people when and how and where they want to listen.

Of course, this is the trend of the future. Paul pointed out that Web 1.0 was about the producer (of information–as in you, the author) making the message available on the producer’s terms (e.g., you have to go to a website). Web 2.0 is all about the producer’s message being available on the consumer’s terms.

Just a Tivo frees people to watch whatever programs they want, whenever, so podcasts allow people to subscribe to your content (podcast) and listen when and how (computer, portable media player) and where they want to.

Ideas for Your Podcast

If you’re an author, or a speaker, you already have content. You can talk about your book, you can gather and answer questions on a regular basis, you can give tips, you can “coach” via your podcast. You will gain a wider audience, sell books, and even create new products through podcasting.

If you don’t yet have a book written, you can start to interview experts in your field and podcast that. If your podcast resides on a network that gets a lot of traffic, such as yaktivate.com , which gets 3 million visitors per month, you will quickly get exposure. Do you think experts would turn you down if you asked to interview them and told them thousands of people would be exposed to their message?

Or what if you’re a business person? What can podcasting do for you?

Podcasting for Business People

In today’s world, every business is (or should be) an information business.

If you’re a contractor, you could podcast on how to find a reliable contractor, what things you can do yourself and what you really should hire someone for. You can teach do-it-yourself stuff. (If it’s something that’s visual, you can do how-to videos; those too can be a podcast.)

What if you’re a financial adviser? Couldn’t you have a weekly podcast that talks about what’s happening in the economy and how that might affect your clients’ investments?

Why the Future is In Podcasting

In fact, podcasting may well become the medium of choice in the future. A few years ago, everyone realized a newsletter would be a great way to stay in touch with clients or customers or readers.

Well, podcasting does a similar thing, but it adds a few key ingredients:

• the intimacy of your voice (and your face, if you use video)
• the automation of people subscribing and having your podcast automatically downloaded via itunes
• the ability for people to listen on their terms, as already mentioned
• it bypasses spam filters–very big advantage nowadays

Who Would NOT Benefit from Podcasting

Is podcasting NOT right for anyone?

Well, if your market definitely does not listen (because they’re deaf, let’s say), or if they do not own computers or any kind of portable media players, then podcasting doesn’t make sense for you.

If you hate talking, you won’t like podcasting, because it involves speaking.

If you write fiction, podcasting may or may not be right for you. If you’re creative enough, I believe you can make podcasting work for you. It depends on what kind of fiction you’ve written. For instance, I did a podcast with an author who created a fictional town called Partonville. She also created a web site called Welcome to Partonville. I could see her doing a podcast “interviewing” the characters, or having a character talking about goings on around town.

Really, you’re only limited by your own imagination.

So, is podcasting right for you? If it sounds like it might be fun (I think it is), I think you should check it out.

How?

First, check out the bonuses I and Paul Colligan have for you when you sign up for Podcast Secrets–more than $9,000.

Second, check out www.yaktivate.com. Is there a channel there that your podcast would fit into? If so, you can start your podcast very soon, for only a $150 setup fee. (If you take Podcast Secrets, I will pay that for you. Details here.)Yaktivate is just in its early stages, yet it gets 3 million downloads per month. Now might be a good time for you to “get your feet wet” with podcasting. One of the nice things is, you don’t need to know any technical stuff. You provide the content, they put it up, submit it to itunes, send out press releases. They even get you sponsors! When they do, you still get 30 percent of the income. (If you get your own sponsors, you get 70 percent of the income.)

PLUS other Yaktivate podcasters can use you as a sponsor–more exposure.

And if your podcast “fits” into another channel, it will show up on that channel, too.

For instance, when I reviewed an author of a business book , my podcast showed up on Business to Business to Business Radio, Business Strategy Yak, even Boomer Yak.

You also get free training about podcasting, and Internet marketing in general.

So consider Yaktivate. Consider the Podcast Secrets course .